Tips and Tricks: How to Store Food Safely
Do you ever throw out perfectly good food after a meal because you left it out on the bench too long?
Or perhaps wondered why your favourite restaurant won’t let you take your leftovers home?
Maybe you don’t take lunch with you to work or uni because you’re worried you’ll give yourself food poisoning?
Safe food storage might seem like a boring topic, and we won’t lie, it definitely is… But knowing how to store your food correctly will give you the reassurance of knowing your food is safe to eat, and help you to avoid things like foodborne illness or food poisoning. Nobody has time for that!
These are some general guidelines¹:
- Avoid the ‘danger zone’ and store food below 5°C or above 60°C
The Danger zone is anywhere from 5°C – 60°C. Food should not be within this zone for more than 2 hours as it increases the risk of bacterial growth (pathogens and toxins) and contamination, which then increases your risk of food poisoning or illness when consumed.
- Store raw food below cooked food in your fridge
If you’ve got a raw piece of steak and some cooked fried rice in your fridge, you definitely do not want any juices from your steak dripping into your delicious leftovers – so, store the steak below the rice.
- Store leftovers in clean, sealed and labelled containers in the fridge or freezer
Once you’ve cooked a meal, you want to try to cool it quickly so that it can go into the fridge for safe storage. The best way to do this is to separate the meal into individual portions. It will cool much quicker this way and it’s also more convenient for you to eat later. We do this so that the food is not left in the ‘danger zone’ for too long while cooling to a suitable temperature to pop into your fridge. You also want to avoid putting steaming food into the fridge as it may decrease the temperature inside, potentially compromising all your other food.
- Keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot
This one is pretty clear. Don’t store yogurt in your pantry… store it in the fridge, below 5°. Do keep food heated above 60°C at your dinner party. Remember, we are trying to avoid the ‘danger zone’.
Hopefully, those points help you to make some useful decisions when storing your food! Let’s explore a little more about high-risk and low-risk foods because not all foods follow the same rules.
Low-risk foods
Low-risk foods are foods that aren’t very susceptible to contamination or bacterial growth.² These are foods that you can store in your pantry, away from direct sunlight but without having to monitor their temperature. Some examples include:
- Flour
- Sugar
- Uncooked rice, pasta and noodles
- Quinoa
- Canned fruit and veg
- Cereals
- Tea and coffee
- Bread
High-risk foods generally have specific nutrients, moisture and acidity levels that promote the growth of pathogenic microorganisms and toxins, which are responsible for food poisoning when above unsafe levels.³ Degrading or spoiled food can also form such toxins. These foods should always be stored in your fridge or freezer, or stored according to their instructions.
High-risk foods include:²
- Dairy products like cheese, milk, yoghurt
- Meat
- Poultry
- Fish
- Eggs
- Cured meats like salami and ham
- Cooked rice
Now that we have all of that information, let’s talk about taking lunch to work or uni. Taking lunch on the go is a great way to stick to your budget, to help you eat healthily and make all your friends and colleagues jealous! However, this can seem like a big challenge for some, and we would be lying if we said that we hadn’t skipped lunch due to the risk of food poisoning.
But there is no need to worry anymore! Now that we know the ideal conditions for our food and the difference between high- and low-risk foods, we can make some smart decisions to keep our food safe while on the run.
So here are our best tips for on-the-go lunches:
- Use low-risk foods – for example, a fresh salad sandwich made with wholemeal bread, some lettuce, tomato and cucumber. Bring a can of tuna too that you can add to it when you’re ready to eat.
- Pack your lunch well – if you’ve got some left-over minestrone soup or vegetable stir fry, put them into airtight containers inside your lunch box with a small ice pack. This will help keep their temperature low until lunchtime.
- Store it in the fridge – if you have a communal fridge at your workplace, it’s best to just store your food in there. Sure, lunch boxes provide good insulation, but the temperature is not constantly controlled and it’s better to be safe than sorry.
- Get your timings right – if all you can bring for lunch is a high-risk food such as fried rice, plan to consume it within 2 hours of coming out of the fridge or after having been cooked. This will ensure that it has not fulfilled its 2-hour window in the danger zone, and should be safe to eat.
We hope these tips give you some more confidence when bringing food on the go and with general food safety. A great resource to use to enhance your understanding of food safety is DoFoodSafely, which is a free program by the Department of Health Victoria. DoFoodSafely takes you through seven learning modules on safe food handling and at the end, you will undertake a short assessment quiz to test your understanding and achieve a Certificate of Completion (not accredited, but well respected within the food industry).
Remember, making sure you are adequately fuelled while at uni will help you to focus and get the most out of your studies, so pack your lunch and snacks and keep your food safe.
References
- Better Health Channel[internet].Victoria: Department of Health, State Government of Victoria; c2020. Food Safety and Storage. [updated 2017 Jul 14; cited 2021 Aug 16]; [about 8 screens].
- DoFoodSafely [internet]. Victoria: Department of Health, State Government of Victoria; c2021. What is the risk? Food Contamination. [updated 2021 Feb 26; cited 2021 Aug 16]; [about 5 screens].
- Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Food Standards Code [Internet]. 3rd ed. Australia: FSANZ; 2016. Chapter 3, Safe Food Australia; [cited 2021 Aug 16]; p 148.