Food Safety & Dining Out: Be Smart About Restaurant Choices
Going out to eat? Choose a restaurant that keeps food safety on the menu. Here are some tips to protect yourself from food poisoning while eating out.
What You Need to Know
- If you think you or someone you know got sick from food, report it to your local health department even if you don’t know what food made you sick. Reporting an illness can help public health officials identify a foodborne disease outbreak and keep others from getting sick.
Going out to eat? Choose a restaurant that keeps food safety on the menu. Here are some tips to protect yourself from food poisoning while eating out.
Tips to Avoid Food Poisoning While Eating Out
- Check inspection scores. Check a restaurant’s score at your health department’s website, ask the health department for a copy of the report, or look for it when you get to the restaurant.
- Look for certificates that show kitchen managers have completed food safety training. Proper food safety training can help improve practices that reduce the chance of spreading foodborne germs and illnesses.
- Look for safe food-handling practices. Sick food workers pdf icon[PDF – 2 pages] can spread their illness to customers. If you can see food being prepared, check to make sure workers are using gloves or utensils to handle foods that will not be cooked further, such as deli meats and salad greens.
- Order food that’s properly cooked. Certain foods, including meat, poultry, and fish, need to be cooked to a temperature high enough to kill harmful germs that may be present. If a restaurant serves you undercooked meat, poultry, seafood, or eggs, send it back to be cooked until it is safe to eat.
- Avoid lukewarm food. Cold food should be served cold, and hot food should be served hot. If you’re selecting food from a buffet or salad bar, make sure the hot food is steaming and the cold food is chilled. Germs that cause food poisoning grow quickly when food is in the danger zone, between 40°F and 140°F.
- Ask your server if they use pasteurized eggs in foods such as Caesar salad dressing, custards, tiramisu, and hollandaise sauce. Raw or undercooked eggs can make you sick unless they’re pasteurized to kill germs.
- Take care of your leftovers quickly. Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours of eating out. If it is above 90°F outside, refrigerate leftovers within 1 hour. Eat leftovers within 3 to 4 days. Throw them out after that time.
Source: CDC: “Food Safety & Eating Out.”
TapRooT® wins food safety software award
We are excited to share that System Improvements, Inc., creator of the TapRooT® System, is recognized as a top food safety solution provider by Food & Beverage Technology Review.
TapRooT® helps food and beverage companies get to the root causes of food safety issues as well as improving industrial safety in the production facilities.
Read more here about TapRooT® and food safety.
Register for a TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis training course
TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Training courses are taught all over the world. If you are interested in learning how to stop repeat incidents, find a 2-day or 5-day course. We are available to train you and your staff on-site at your workplace; contact us to discuss your needs. You may also call us at 865.539.2139.
Attend the best conference for smart workers and safe clients: The 2022 Global TapRooT® Summit
There’s a good reason why, since 1994, hundreds of companies make it a priority to send experts and /teams to the Global TapRooT® Summit: The attendees bring back game-changing information and tips on how their companies can improve performance while keeping their record clean and their employees and clients working safe and all on the same page. You should, too.
In 1994, we started the TapRooT® Summit as a three-day meeting of the best TapRooT® users. The Summit has grown into an international event with world-renowned speakers and multiple tracks designed to share performance improvement best practices across industries and professions.
This year, come to beautiful East Tennessee for the best conference you can attend. We’ll be in Knoxville, Tennessee, May 2-6, listening and learning from the best of the best:
Learn more about the Summit from the brochure and the schedule.
Register now for the 2022 Global TapRooT® Summit and bring your team. You’ll be glad you did.
