Food Safety for the Holidays

The Safe Plates Food Safety Information Center team, in partnership with CALS communications and NC State News Services developed and disseminated a wide variety of holiday food safety instructional videos, social media images and info sheets in the buildup to Thanksgiving. While foodborne illness can strike at any time throughout the year, between large meals, gatherings and parties, the holidays can provide food safety challenges to home chefs.

The informational topics were featured on the NC State University homepage and at the CALS Homegrown in the Kitchen website and included traditional food safety topics buying and thawing a turkey, cooking holiday meals, handling leftovers. Additional topics included giving food as gifts and the risks associated with baking and flour. Much the campaign materials were produced in the Dinah E. Gore Teaching and Research Kitchens at NC State University. The state-of-the-art kitchen complex was designed to enhance and extend our work in teaching, research and Extension. The campaign will continue through the end of the calendar year. 

Initial tracking of the use of the resources revealed that 87 posts and 92 stories reached 48,627 individuals.

For more information see https://foodsafety.ces.ncsu.edu/food-safety-at-home/holiday-food-safety/ and https://homegrown.extension.ncsu.edu/tag/thanksgiving-food-safety-series/