8 Things Food Safety Experts Would Never Do in Their Own Kitchens

Odds are you’re guilty of at least one of them.

October 24, 2024

When it comes to storing, preparing, and cooking meals, it can feel like there’s a lot of little rules to remember. You probably know the basics of what you should do—wash your hands frequently, refrigerate food promptly—but what about what you shouldn’t do?

Turns out, there are lots of no-nos in the kitchen that could significantly increase your risk of foodborne illness (and the cramping, puking, and pooping that can come with it). Some are pretty obvious—say, you wouldn’t cut up raw chicken then slice up some salad fixings on the same board—but others may be more likely to fly under the radar. So SELF spoke with several food safety experts about the risky behaviors they avoid in their kitchen to bring some of the lesser-known mistakes to light. If you’re guilty of any of these (or know someone who is), you don’t need to feel embarrassed or ashamed, but you may want to be a tad more vigilant—so take this list as a gentle push to cut those bad kitchen habits out.

1. Take the temperature for granted.

No, sticking your hand inside your fridge or freezer isn’t an accurate way to test its coolness. “You have to make sure that you’re actually looking at a number,” Martin Bucknavage, MS, a senior food safety extension associate at Pennsylvania State University, tells SELF. “You can’t just assume.” Based on FDA data, however, plenty of Americans do just that: In a 2016 food safety survey, 62% of respondents reported their fridge did not have a built-in thermometer, and of those, 84% had not put one inside.

Per the federal agency (which itself recommends keeping a thermometer in the fridge), the appliance should maintain a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below at all times. That “sweet spot” is “going to help your product get the shelf life that it should,” Buckavage says. Beyond that, any organisms hanging out on the food can start to multiply more rapidly—including pathogens such as salmonella. Consider purchasing a refrigerator thermometer if you don’t own one already to make sure the temp stays in the right ballpark.

2. Put empty shells back in the egg carton.

“When I handle eggs, I’m very intense,” Janet Buffer, MS, a senior manager at George Washington University’s Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security, tells SELF. Not only does she crack eggs over a dish or pan to catch any stray bits—that way, the contents don’t drip on any other objects or surfaces—and wash her hands immediately afterward, but she is also vigilant about discarding the empty shells right away.

And her caution is well-founded. Eggs are well known to carry salmonella bacteria, so returning an empty shell to the carton runs the risk of contaminating the whole eggs in there. Then, if you don’t cook them properly, you can get sick. Instead, take the extra few seconds to toss the shell into the trash or garbage disposal.

3. Wash raw meat before cooking...

Scrubbing a raw chicken breast before you dice it might seem like the safer action, but the opposite is actually true, Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, PhD, a professor at the University of Georgia and the director of the university’s Center for Food Safety, tells SELF. Like eggs, chicken is a common source of salmonella (as well as Campylobacter bacteria), so if those bugs are present, splashing water on the surface will actually “spread contamination around the sink and around the kitchen,” Dr. Diez-Gonzalez says. Even so, nearly 70% of respondents to that 2016 FDA survey said they washed their chicken and turkey.

4. …and let it mix and mingle freely with other food or ingredients.

Given the potential for contamination, you should try to keep raw meat away from other stuff, period. Store it on the bottom shelf of the fridge so leaking juice (and possibly the bacteria along for the ride) doesn’t drip onto items below, and take measures to prevent seepage in the first place (Buffer suggests putting it on a high-edged plate or in a dedicated meat drawer; Dr. Diez-Gonzalez recommends a Tupperware container). “You want to minimize transferring those pathogens to food that normally don’t have those organisms,” Dr. Diez-Gonzalez says. Especially ready-to-eat items like veggies: “Try to keep them separate as much as possible throughout the entire process,” Dr. Diez-Gonzalez adds.

You shouldn’t drop your guard once you take raw meat out of the fridge either. Don’t open the package near other items, especially ready-to-eat food or clean dishes. “You don't know where those juices are splattering,” Buffer says.

5. Use a dirty sink.

Suppose you do wash that raw chicken. Well, “now you got bacteria in your sink from that chicken, and if you don’t clean that and then you go and you wash your salad, those bacteria can get onto your salad,” Bucknavage says. That’s why it’s important to clean the area before rinsing off produce like fruits and veggies. If she’s defrosting meat in the sink, Buffer usually rinses it out “right away with soap and water” to make sure there’s no lingering traces, she says.

Research suggests that most Americans think the kitchen sink is far cleaner than it actually is. In a 2017 Journal of Food Protection study that looked at the types of bacteria present on a range of kitchen surfaces, both fecal coliforms and E. coli were most often found in samples taken from the kitchen sink.

6. Keep a cluttered counter.

If your countertop looks like a bomb hit it—strewn with key rings, cookbooks, sauces, spices, what have you—you might want to consider some early spring cleaning. “For one, this prevents people from having the space to separate raw from prepared foods,” increasing the risk that the two will come into contact with each other, Bucknavage says. “Secondly, this makes cleaning so much harder.”

On that note, it’s also important to make sure you’re wiping down your counters (and other kitchen surfaces) frequently. Use hot, soapy water (or, as the USDA recommends, one teaspoon of unscented liquid bleach per quart), and pat down with a clean cloth or fresh paper towel.

7. Gauge done-ness by eyeballing.

Temperature is also an important consideration when it comes to the stove. “Cooking is one of the best human inventions to prevent foodborne disease because we make sure that we kill potentially hazardous microorganisms,” Dr. Diez-Gonzalez says. Meat, for example, has to reach a certain temperature in order to be considered safe for consumption. Here are a few examples, per the USDA:

Fish and shellfish: 145 °F
Beef, pork, veal and lamb steaks, chops, and roasts: 145 °F, and allow to rest for at least three minutes
Ground meats: 160 °F
Ground poultry: 165 °F
Poultry (including whole birds and bird parts): 165 °F

Importantly, color isn’t necessarily an indication that meat has hit that critical juncture, meaning a perfectly browned patty could actually be harboring some bugs (not to mention a pink one). “A lot of times people just say, ‘Oh, my hamburger's done [because] it looks done.’ How do you know?” Bucknavage says. While a majority (67%) of respondents to the 2016 FDA survey reported owning a food thermometer, only a minority (10%) always used it on hamburgers, compared to roasts (38%), chicken parts (19%), and baked egg dishes (6%).

So buy one—and then actually put it to use. Taking care to avoid bone, fat, and gristle, insert the thermometer into your food toward the end of the cooking time, and check the temperature in the thickest place and several other sites to make sure it has cooked evenly. Then make sure to wash it with hot, soapy water when you’re done, according to the USDA (and before your next meal too).

8. Let spills (or other gross stuff) fester.

Have you ever found out the hard way that your food container had a hole, or opened the crisper only to find an apple you forgot about has rotted into a mushy mass? Leaks happen, but the smart thing to do is to mop them up as soon as possible, according to Buffer. “Don’t let them sit there,” she says. Otherwise, they can turn into prime breeding ground for bugs you don’t want anywhere near you or your food.

You don’t even have to actively drop or dribble anything either: With the passage of time, food will naturally start to break down, according to Bucknavage. Say you have a drawer full of vegetables beginning to decay and liquefy. “Now if you put something else in there, all of a sudden you’re contaminating that with these spoilage organisms,” Bucknavage says, and they’re “going to cause that other stuff to start to go bad quicker.” Or maybe the bread in your bread box starts to sprout some suspicious-looking spots. “Well, now all those mold spores that are on that bread get in that drawer, and then when you put that new loaf in there, that mold can get onto that new product and it will start to cause that to go bad faster,” Bucknavage says.

So make an effort to clean (and clean out) your food storage areas on a regular basis. Bucknavage recommends wiping them down with soap and water or a cleaning agent maybe once a week, but at a minimum, “it really should be done at least quarterly,” Buffer says. That way, you can hopefully stamp out whatever could be lurking in those dark corners and tiny crevices. And we don’t know about you, but that would do a lot for our peace of mind.