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Health & Wellness

All Health & Wellness Content

Scoops of ready-to-eat cookie dough in a white bowl.

How to Make a Safe, Ready-to-Eat Cookie Dough

Ready-to-eat cookie dough is a delicious snack or dessert that can be enjoyed, but only when made safely. This includes using commercially processed heat-treated flour, ready-to-eat ingredients and using good sanitary practices when making the cookie dough.

A pair of hands kneading a hydrated dough inside a plastic mixing bowl.

Hydrated Doughs and Batters: How to Safely Handle Food Safety Risks

Making dough and batter is one of the intermediary steps on your way to enjoying great foods, such as scones, cookies, cakes, donuts, pies and more. This article will help you understand the food safety risks associated with food types that have a hydrated batter.

A spoon lifting creamy, white salad dressing from a whit ramekin.

Making a Safe Salad Dressing

Have you ever wondered whether a homemade salad dressing is safe when you’re eating it at your local picnic, potluck dinner, or at a family get together? In this article, we will explore what food safety characteristics need to be addressed to ensure that a salad dressing is made safely.

an image of fresh tomatoes

Farmers Market Food Safety: Health & Hygiene

Health, hygiene and hand washing apply to all stages of production, processing and marketing. Ill food handlers can easily contaminate fresh produce with disease-causing microorganisms. Many of these organisms have the capability to survive on fresh fruits and vegetables for an extended time, from several days to weeks. Once the organism is established on fresh produce, it is very hard to remove.

Variety of fresh vegetables in blue plastic totes on a table at a farmers market.

Food Safety for Farmers Markets

Food safety bulletins for farmers markets and other direct marketing vendors

three brown eggs

Egg Safety with Holiday Foods

Holiday traditions include making tasty treats from frosted sugar cookies to homemade ice cream. They are all delicious, but hidden bacteria could be lurking in uncooked eggs, so refrain from tasting raw cookie dough or cake batter. Even grade A eggs with clean, uncracked shells can be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis bacteria.

Producer approaching a young dairy calf.

How did a Poultry Germ Change to Cause Severe Disease in Calves and People?

In 2015, a specific strain of a germ called Salmonella heidelberg made 56 people sick in 15 different states.

kitchen worker removing a tray of food for a large refrigerator

Re-heating and Re-eating Food

The general public assumption is that if a food is either microwaved, put in an oven, or heated up in another manner is that it will be safe for consumption. This is not a safe assumption to make when deciding to eat food that has been left out for an extended time.

Various packaged poultry products on display in a cooler at a grocery store.

Looking for Foodborne Germs and Their Resistance to Antibiotics: Poultry

This report analyzes the NARMS results for poultry products for the period of June 2018 through May 2019.

Various cuts of raw pork ready for packaging.

Looking for Foodborne Germs and Their Resistance to Antibiotics: Pork

This report analyzes the NARMS results for pork products for the period of June 2018 through May 2019.