For most of us Christmas is a time of sharing time with loved ones, giving a receiving presents and, of course, eating.

The Food Safety Information Council this week issued a timely reminder not to let that festive feast make us sick heading into the new year.

Reminding us to ‘Look before you cook’, the FSIC this week released some timely food safety tips to make sure we enjoy our Boxing Day turkey sandwiches with confidence, including checking cooking, storage instructions and use by dates on food packaging.

A recent FSIC survey found that three in 10 consumers said they always read cooking and storage instructions, six in 10 always read use-by dates and five in 10 always read best-before dates.

Professor Julian Cox, FSIC scientific director, said that festive get-togethers this year will likely include those most at risk of food poisoning – the very young, elderly, pregnant, and people with poor immune systems.

‘With an estimated 4.67 million cases of food poisoning a year in Australia we all want to keep our family and friends safe,” Cox said.

So with that in mind here are five key festive season and summer entertaining food safety tips:

1. Make space – make room in your fridge for perishable foods by removing alcohol and soft drinks and put them on ice in a container, esky or laundry sink. This reduces the frequency of opening the fridge, helping to maintain the temperature at 5 degrees or below. Use a fridge thermometer to check the fridge temperature stays at 5 degrees or below (the colder the better!).
2. Talking turkey – think about getting a turkey breast – they are simpler to cook, rather than a whole turkey. If you do need a whole turkey ask your supermarket or butcher if they sell them fresh rather than frozen, and don’t forget you will still need cold storage space before cooking. Always follow storage and cooking instructions on any packaging and ask your retailer for storage and cooking advice if buying unpackaged turkeys. Remember to use a meat thermometer to check that the temperature in the thickest part reaches 75 degrees.
3. Christmas ham won’t last forever – check the storage instructions and best before or use by dates before removing the ham from its plastic wrap. Cover it with a clean cloth (or ‘ham bag’) soaked in water and vinegar (1 litre of water with at least two tablespoons (50-60 millilitres) of vinegar), keep the cloth moist so it doesn’t dry out, change the cloth every three days, and store the covered ham in the fridge at or below 5 degrees. Reduced salt hams are becoming popular but will not last as long as conventional hams. Think how much ham you are going to use in the next few days and freeze the rest for later.
4. Phased rollout – Don’t leave perishable chilled foods out, unrefrigerated, in the heat of summer for more than two hours. These foods include cold meats, soft cheeses like camembert and brie, cold poultry, cooked seafood like prawns and smoked salmon, dips, pâtés, sushi and salads. Put out small amounts initially, and replace them (do not top them up) from the fridge.
5. Love those leftovers Refrigerate or freeze leftovers as soon as possible. If perishable foods and leftovers have been left out of the fridge for less than two hours they should be okay to eat, refrigerate or freeze. Consider their use. If you’re likely to consume them within two-three days, keeping them in the fridge is OK, but any longer, and it’s then best to package into small, airtight containers, and freeze.

And finally, Cox advises that if a air fryer is one of your presents under the tree this year, while they are popular and easy to use, there have been individual food-borne disease cases around the country linked to them.

“This is especially when cooking crumbed products that may look cooked on the outside but aren’t fully cooked on the inside,” he said.

“We recommend you read the cooking instructions in the manual that came with the air fryer, follow any cooking instructions on food packaging, and use a thermometer to check the recommended temperature,’ he said.