How to Avoid Cross-Contamination

Featured Pro: Curtis Stone
Category: Cooking
Time: 1:22


CURTIS STONE: Hey, I’m Curtis Stone, and I’ve got a GMC Trade Secret for you.

Now, when you’re cooking for your friends and family, the last thing you want to do is make anybody sick. Now, a lot of food-borne illnesses come from cross-contamination. So it’s very important to be smart and keep your food apart. When I’ve got something raw like this chicken, it’s really important that you clean your board or flip it over like this, but not just your board. You’ve also got to clean your knife and your hands.

Now, don’t forget, you don’t want to contaminate your faucet, so just use your forearm to turn on the water. Then you can rinse off. So now that your hands and your tools are all clean to go, you’re good to start preparing your raw food. So you can go straight onto your clean surface with your clean knife and your clean hands, and you won’t cross-contaminate anything.

Another good little secret is to grab yourself a little squeezy bottle like this, put one tablespoon of bleach to every gallon of water. It’s a really good sterilizing agent. So you can sort of spray things down at the end of your day when you’re finished cooking and then give it a good scrub with hot, soapy water again, and you’re sterile, good to go.

Also, when you’re storing things in the fridge, just remember that saying, “Be smart; keep your food apart.” Make sure that everything’s completely sealed. So if you’ve got any raw meat or fish or poultry, completely seal containers and keep it on the bottom so there’s no dripping or cross-contamination.

I’m Curtis Stone. That’s my GMC Trade Secret.