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Healthier

BBQs

nothing beats the feeling of warm sun and the smell of a barbecue. Barbecuing can be a very healthy way of cooking, as long as you fol- low a few basic rules. Here are some tips on how to make your outdoor cooking safe and nutritious.

After a long cold winter,

BY NANCI GUEST

1

FOOD SAFETY

When the temperature rises and raw

meats enter the picture, food safety is always a concern. To enjoy a healthy barbecue season and avoid food-borne illness, consider the following safety tips.

Wash your hands

Wash with soap and water before

handling food and especially after handling raw meats.

Wash your BBQ tools

To keep your food safe, thorough-

ly wash all implements – the spatula, tongs and other utensils you leave out- doors – with soap and hot water before their next use. Clean plates or cutlery used to prepare or transport raw food from the kitchen to the grill before us- ing. Using unwashed food implements or using the same plates for raw and cooked meat is a sure way to expose yourself to E. coli or salmonella.

Keep raw and cooked meats separate

Raw meat can contaminate cooked

meat, so keep them on different plates. To prevent cross contamination, wash your hands thoroughly after handling raw meat, use separate utensils for raw and cooked meat, never put cooked food on a plate that held raw meat and don't add sauce or marinade to cooked food if it has already been used with raw meat – reserve some marinade for basting.

40 Fitness Business Canada July/August 2009

Rinse fresh fish, meats and poultry in cool water

This removes any potentially harm-

ful bacteria that may have collected in its packaging.

Avoid the #1 cause of food poisoning when barbecuing

Nearly 2 million Canadians annu-

ally contract food poisoning from eat- ing raw and undercooked meat. Cook chicken, burgers, hot dogs and kabobs until they’re hot all the way through, the meat is no longer pink and the juices run clear. Health Canada rec- ommends keeping your beef patties thin and cooking them to 71C (160F). Remember the phrase, "71 and your burger is done."

Throw away food that has been sitting out for more than one or two hours.

Foods that require refrigeration –

including cheese slices, mayonnaise, leftover potato salad and other ani- mals and dairy products – should be left at room temperature for a maxi- mum of two hours. In the hot weather, perishable food is susceptible to bac- teria growth in just one hour. Take a few minutes to put away leftover burg- ers, hotdogs and salads before jumping into the pool or lake.

Keep food covered

This protects it from insects, birds and pets, which can carry bugs.

Don’t eat the black

Research shows that open flame

and/or high temperature charcoal grilling of foods that contain fat and protein can lead to the production of cancer-causing chemicals, called het- erocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycy- clic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in the smoke and through the blacken- ing or charring of meats (sorry black stripes are out of style!), veggies or any burnt food for that matter. These compounds can cause DNA damage, leading to various cancers over time. To minimize the risk, precook foods and finish them off on the grill; less time spent on the grill means fewer cancer-causing agents in the meats. Avoid using barbecue sauce and other marinades that contain sugar while cooking to reduce burning flames, choose leaner cuts of meat when pos- sible (the more fat your meat contains, the more it will drip and spark flames) and cut away any blackened chunk of meat, potato or vegetable and toss it (and not to the dog – it’s toxic to ani- mals as well).

PUMP UP THE NUTRITIONAL VALUE

We all have our weaknesses, so en-

joy the foods and beverages you can’t resist – but in moderate portions. But make an effort to choose healthy over tasty with the 80/20 rule. Allot 80% of your choices to healthy!

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