Grilled Food Safety
It is entirely possible an over-eager cook could set up their family and dinner guests for an upset stomach or worse if they don’t do this one essential step:
Preheat the grill and scrub it clean before cooking.
Why? Grills can harbor pieces of food for days, weeks, or even months after the dish has been consumed. The food that remains on the grill is an attraction for birds, insects, and other animals. These creatures can introduce any number of bacteria (and even waste) to the grill’s surface if the grill top is left open. Plus, leftover food bits are a magnet for bacteria, and the remnants can produce unusual odors or flavors in the food you’re cooking on top of them. If you fire up the grill and plop tonight’s steak over the remnants of last night’s pork chop, you might introduce bacteria that could lead to gastric distress, bloating, cramping, diarrhea, or vomiting. What’s more, if you don’t clean tonight’s steak off the grill when you fire it up for tomorrow’s corn on the cob, you could repeat the tummy-turning experience. In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says cases of food poisoning spike in the summer, in part because cooking outdoors and grilling introduces a lot of opportunity for costly mistakes.
Don’t assume high heat kills off harmful bacteria.
Many cooks assume the high heat of a grill’s fire is all that’s needed to destroy any bacteria that linger on the grates. While it is true the flames will do a decent job of blasting away those germs, they aren’t 100 percent effective. And if you don’t give the flames time to do the work, they won’t have any cleaning impact whatsoever, which is why it’s essential to preheat the grill.
How to Properly Prepare a Grill
Gas grills may need a 10- to 15-minute preheat stage because the flames and heat on these cookers aren’t as strong as charcoal grills. It takes longer for the metal bars or ceramic rods to get warm enough for cooking food safely. Charcoal grills naturally produce more radiant heat, so they may not need as long to heat up. Use a cooking oil with a high smoke point, like canola oil or corn oil. Olive oil may burn too easily, leaving the food with a bitter or off-flavor. To quickly oil the grill, dip a paper towel in a small bowl filled with the oil. Grab the paper towel with long tongs and rub it over the grates. If flames are shooting up from the charcoal or burners, wait until they’ve died down so you don’t risk igniting the paper towel.
