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Search Results for: National food safety education month

PFSE Board Member, Executive Director Discuss National Food Safety Education Month on Food Safety Matters Podcast

September 26, 2023

September is National Food Safety Education Month! 


According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year,
an estimated 1 in 6 people in the United States (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from eating contaminated food.

Food Safety Magazine interviewed Britanny Saunier, executive director of the Partnership for Food Safety Education, and Ashley Eisenbeiser, senior director for food and product safety programs for FMI, The Food Industry Association and a member of the PFSE Board of Directors.

In this episode of “Food Safety Matters” podcast, Saunier and Eisenbeiser spoke about:

  • PFSE’s mission to promote safe food handling and preparation practices, and how FMI and PFSE collaborate to protect consumer health
  • Resources that FMI utilizes as an annual contributing partner to PFSE, and how FMI members benefit from these resources
  • The methods and measurements of success used by PFSE’s food safety educators, called BAC Fighters
  • The advocacy efforts of, and resources offered by, PFSE and FMI in honor of National Food Safety Education Month
  • Why Saunier and Eisenbeiser are personally invested in food safety, and how their motivations inform their work


Listen to the podcast below, and read the entire Food Safety Magazine article. 

https://fightbac.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/FSM-Ep-Bonus-Ashley-Britanny-NFSEM-Mixdown-1.mp3

 

Filed Under: Blog

National Food Safety Education Month

September is National Food Safety Education Month! 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year,
an estimated 1 in 6 people in the United States (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from eating contaminated food.

Anyone can get sick from a foodborne illness (also called food poisoning).

Learn how to take steps to help prevent food poisoning, and show others how to keep food safe.

Participate
Poultry Handling
Mythbusters
Food Delivery
Recipes
Downloads
For Kids
Learn More

Participate in NFSEM

This month let’s commit to handling food safely at home and building safe recipes! 

Ways you can participate:

  • Participate in the Collective Day of Action on Wednesday, Sept. 18. using this special toolkit. The day aims to unite educators, partners and federal liaisons to create a loud voice across social media channels. The theme for the day will be “From Farm to Fork,” sharing the story of the chain of prevention and why safe food handling is important for good health. Remember to use the hashtags #NFSEM2024 and #dayofaction.
  • Post a food safety tip or recipe video on social media with the hashtags #NFSEM2024 and #foodsafety.
  • Download the safe recipe cookbooks The Healthy Lunch and The Safe Recipe Cookbook. Share these recipes with your family and friends!
  • Use the Safe Recipe Style Guide to turn your favorite recipe into a safe recipe and send it to us! Your recipe could be featured on our website and on social media!
  • Prepare a safe recipe in person or virtually with family and friends.
  • Teach kids and teens how to build safe recipes with the virtual Safe Recipe Activity.

Sysco
Wayne-Sanderson Farms
University of Maryland Extension
K-State Research & Extension Pottawatomie County, SNAP-Ed
Inocuidad Gemela RD
K-State Research and Extension, SNAP-Ed
Carver Food Enterprise Center
Virginia Cooperative Extension
Whitsons School Nutrition
Vietnam Soil Science Society
Baby Food and Fun, LLC
University of Idaho Extension
Whitsons Culinary Group
James Madison University
Dr. Fatemeh Malekian

Don't Wash Your Chicken!

Rinsing raw chicken can spread harmful bacteria around your kitchen. Learn more safe poultry handling steps! 

Food Safety Mythbusters

Learn more about common food safety myths that originate from family tradition and misinformation on social media.

Food Delivery

With more food being delivered than ever before, how you handle delivered foods is more important than ever! Learn how to “prep yourself” to keep great delivered foods safe.

Safe Recipes

Research shows that adding food safety instructions to recipes improves food safety behaviors at home.

The Healthy Lunch Cookbook

The Safe Recipe Cookbook

Downloadable Recipes

Safe Recipe Style Guide

Free Downloads

Food safety starts at home! Check out these free resources to help keep families healthy while cooking at home.

The Core Four Practices

Safe Poultry Handling

Go 40 °F or Below

The Story of Your Dinner

Kids Activities

Research suggests that when kids develop cooking skills while young, it may have long-term benefits in both health and nutrition into adulthood.

Safe Recipe Activity

Food Safety Activity Sheets

Coloring Pages & Placemats

Games & Recipes

Additional Resources

Food Safety BINGO

National Food Safety Education Month in September is the perfect time to bring more awareness to safe food handling and hand hygiene in your community and through social media outreach.

During the month of September, join your fellow health, nutrition and food safety educators in Food Safety BINGO!

It’s Easy to Participate!

  1. Download the BINGO card which features various food safety activities. It also lists resources on the back.
  2. BINGO is defined as a completed row, column or diagonal that may or may not include the free space.
  3. Complete food safety activities in a row, column, or diagonal in a row between September 1-30, 2023. The free space counts toward your completed row.
  4. Submit your name and email address by Friday, Oct. 6 for a chance to win great prizes.

Submission Rules

  • Must be 18 years or older and live in the United States to be eligible for prizes.
  • There is a limit of only one (1) entry and one (1) prize per person during the entry period.
  • PFSE partners, donors, board members and staff are not eligible to win prizes.
  • Winners will be notified via email by Friday, Oct. 27. Prizes and incentives will be mailed by Friday, Nov. 17.

Drawings & Incentives

  • One (1) grand prize $50 Amazon gift card (random drawing)
  • Five (5) people will win one (1) 25th Anniversary Cookbook (random drawing)
  • Five (5) people will win a pack of safe food temperature magnets (random drawing)
  • The first 50 submissions will get one (1) safe food temperature magnet

BAC Fighter Shannon Coleman Incorporates DEI into Food Safety Education

February 1, 2023

By Britanny Saunier, Executive Director, PFSE

Everyone has a role to play in food safety, whether you are a home cook, a courier for a food delivery service, a food producer, a regulator, a community educator, or a middle school science teacher. Your handwashing and food handling habits matter to reducing the risk of foodborne illnesses, for yourself and for your loved ones.

You’ve likely asked, “But how do I make a difference and actually help people practice food safety?” A key element to influencing food handling behaviors is representation. People must see themselves in food safety messaging, which includes the deliverer of the messages. Representation matters.

That’s why the Partnership for Food Safety Education (PFSE) is celebrating Black History Month by sharing the experience of community-based food safety educators like Dr. Shannon Coleman, assistant professor/state extension specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. She is helping to lead conversations about properly incorporating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion into food safety education efforts.

Shannon graciously took the time to share her experience as an educator, her thoughts on representation in food safety, and what excites her the most about her work to prevent foodborne illnesses in her community.

How it all began

Shannon began her professional career in food safety during her doctoral program in Animal Science at Colorado State University. During her doctoral program, she studied fresh produce safety. However, Shannon’s interest in food safety was sparked after performing research in a dairy food and produce safety laboratory as an undergraduate.

Representation matters in food safety education

Shannon says representation matters because “our audience is diverse.” She is starting to incorporate cultural competency in programming, especially when working with a diverse audience. Through her work with a diverse audience, Shannon has learned to leave her assumptions at the door and think about how this information would benefit their lives.

Most challenging part of being a Black woman in the field

“The community of Black females in food safety is small, which makes it hard for us to all know that each other exists,” Shannon says.

However, through Shannon’s two networks — Iowa State University and Alabama A&M University — a group of Black female educators have developed a small community. This community has started conversations about properly incorporating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and collaborations. A few members of the group presented about DEI at the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) annual conference in summer 2021.  

Explore stories of different groups of people in food safety

As an educator for the lay audience and the classroom, Shannon has learned that stories stick with people. During lectures, she purposely shares stories about consumers who have been impacted by foodborne illness and companies who have been impacted by a foodborne outbreak.

Food safety resources for underrepresented communities

Shannon’s team is currently working on translating existing produce safety videos into Spanish language. They are also developing fact sheets. This project is a collaborative project which involves the ISU Brenton Center for Agricultural Instruction and Technology Transfer (BCAIT); Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS); Iowa Farm Union (IFU); and Davis Blasini from Cornell University Produce Safety Alliance. The Brenton Center is facilitating the video editing. Both IDALS and IFU are financially supporting this project, and Davis is serving as their expert in cultural competency.

Trend that should be further explored

According to Shannon, food preservation is always a trending topic. The North Central Food Safety Educator Network that she co-leads with Dr. Julie Garden-Robinson, has developed several resources related to the topic. As a consumer, Shannon has seen several inappropriate recipes and practices on social media. She strongly encourages people to use tested food preservation recipes.     

Most exciting part about working in food safety

Recently Shannon’s extension director mentioned that she’s had some flexibility in her current role. She has shared food safety education with diverse audiences, such as gardeners, 4-H judges, fresh produce growers, cottage food producers, and small food processors. Due to this variety, Shannon’s days and weeks are never the same, so she rarely gets bored.

Thank you, Shannon, for all your hard work in food safety education!

Dr. Shannon M. Coleman (above)

Dr. Shannon Coleman is an assistant professor/state extension specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. She can be reached at scoleman@iastate.edu.

Filed Under: Blog

Keep Takeout & Home-Delivered Food Safe

March 24, 2022

“Why do you have baking pans in your car?,” my friend asked me.

She was observing the small metal baking pans tucked in the back pockets of the front seats.

“I couldn’t find plastic trays that fit in the pockets,” I replied.

That really didn’t answer the question, did it? My family used trays to avoid spilling food on the seats or floor of our car when we ate in the vehicle. I looked for plastic trays but they were all too large to fit in the pockets. Small cookie sheets were a good substitute. 

During the early days of the pandemic, my husband and I picked up food to eat in our car or bring home. We put many miles on our vehicle during the early months of the pandemic.

We liked to see some other scenery outside of our home. While my husband drove, I arranged the food in their wrappers on our trays.

We found a spot with a small herd of deer, and we visited them regularly. Sometimes the deer walked right up to our parked vehicle. No, the deer didn’t get to sit in the backseat and enjoy a snack on a tray. Our car is too small for that.

Most families had options when many dine-in restaurants closed during the early pandemic. We could have opted for takeout, meal delivery, grocery delivery, or cook-it-yourself meal kits mailed to your home.

When the pandemic began, most restaurants closed for a while. Some restaurants only allowed takeout and others had drive-through windows. Unfortunately, some restaurants closed permanently due to loss of revenue and staffing challenges.

According to the National Restaurant Association, the restaurant industry lost $280 billion in sales during the first 13 months of the pandemic. Millions of workers lost their jobs either temporarily or permanently. Others did not return to food service work.

Life has shifted in many ways during the past two years, including how we obtain our food. Fortunately, the coronavirus is not spread through food, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The virus primarily spreads through tiny droplets in the air through close contact with people.

Most of us enjoy eating food prepared outside of our home, at least on occasion, and we need to follow safe food handling recommendations. The Partnership for Food Safety Education (PFSE) recently launched Prep Yourself, a national campaign on handling delivered food safely.

Here are some key messages from the campaign for all of us to consider when using food delivery services. Most of these tips apply to take-out food also:

  • Before ordering, ask questions. What are the company’s safety standards? How do they respond if the product is delivered at an unsafe temperature or if it appears that tampering has taken place?
  • Be sure that someone is home when the food is delivered so the food can be stored properly in the refrigerator. If no one will be home, be sure to establish a safe place that is cool, shaded, and protected from pests. 
  • Encourage family members and guests to wash their hands for 20 seconds with soap and water before handling and eating food. If soap and water aren’t available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol.
  • When the food is delivered, the responsibility for safe handling becomes your responsibility. Look for stickers on perishable foods that say “Keep refrigerated” or “Keep frozen” and then follow the recommendations.
  • Handle the delivered food safely. If the food is fully cooked, serve it right away or keep it hot in an oven or preheated slow cooker. Cook, refrigerate, or freeze raw foods as soon as possible. Be aware of the “danger zone” (40 °F to 140 °F). Food should be kept cold (below 40 °F) or hot (above 140 °F).


Whether it’s cooked at home or at a restaurant, my family enjoys food from around the world. We love these Slow Cooker Chipotle Carnitas, a typical dish of Mexican cuisine. This recipe includes food safety prompts from the Safe Recipe Style Guide — and it’s downloadable in Spanish language!

“Carnitas” is the Spanish word for “little meats.” Remember to wash hands with soap and water after handling raw meat.

Your family will enjoy this spicy, slightly sweet, and savory dish. Add your favorite fresh toppings, like cilantro, avocado & a squeeze of lime for freshness!

Dr. Julie Garden-Robinson, R.D.

Dr. Julie Garden-Robinson, R.D., L.R.D., is a food and nutrition specialist and professor in the Department of Health, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences at North Dakota State University Extension. She can be reached at julie.garden-robinson@ndsu.edu.

** Reprinted from NDSU Agriculture Communication **

Filed Under: Blog

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