Transcripts

Debra Holtzman:
According to federal estimates there's about 76 million Americans who suffer from food-borne illness and at least 5,000 who die each year. And anyone can get a food-borne illness.

Safety expert Debra Holtzman, author of the book The Safe Baby: A Do-It-Yourself Guide for Home Safety, says with the increasing number of food recalls…

You need to stay on top of it and the easiest way to do it is to go to this website: www.recalls.gov and then click to see if you have any of these recalled products in your home.

You already know you should wash produce thoroughly before you eat it but also…

You need to wash and scrub produce that has a rind; like cantaloupe and pineapple. And the reason why is that pathogens are on the outside of the rind and they can contaminate the inside when you cut it. And I also tell people it's a good idea to rinse the peel of a banana, which may contain bacteria on the surface, which can easily be transferred to your hands.

Raw eggs have the potential of being contaminated with salmonella so Debra recommends pasteurized eggs.

They're heated at a temperature that doesn't cook the egg but actually kills the bacteria. So you can still use the egg any which way you want. And they're great when you make eggnog, sunny-side up eggs. Those are the only eggs that I use in my home and actually you don't also worry about cross-contamination because the eggs don't have salmonella.

You can link to Debra's website from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net - I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.