10 Wide Open Tips For Food Safety In The Great Outdoors

Hiking, camping, and boating are good activities formatter how
activeclean it appears.4. If you're backpacking for more
people and families. However, if the food isn'tthan a day, the food
handledsituation gets a little more complicated. You can
correctly, food-borne illness can be anstill
unwelcome souvenir.1. Choose foods that are lightbring cold foods for the first day, but you'll have
enough to carry in a backpackto pack
and that can be transported safely. Keep foodsshelf-stable items for the next day. Canned
either hot orgoods are safe,
cold. Since it's difficult to keep foods hot withoutbut heavy, so plan your menu carefully.
a heatAdvances in food
source, it's best to transport chilled foods.technology have produced relatively lightweight
Refrigerate orstaples that
freeze the food overnight. What foods to bring?don't need refrigeration or careful packaging. For
For a dayexample:
hike, just about anything will do as long as youpeanut butter in plastic jars
can fit itconcentrated juice boxes
in your backpack and keep it cold -- sandwiches,canned tuna, ham, chicken, and beef
frieddried noodles and soups
chicken, bread and cheese, and even salads -- orbeef jerky and other dried meats
choose non-dehydrated foods
perishable foods.2. Keep everything clean.dried fruits and nuts
Remember to bring disposable wipespowdered milk and fruit drinks
if you're taking a day trip. (Water is too heavy5. If you're cooking meat or poultry on a
to bringportable stove or
enough for cleaning dishes!)3. It's not a good ideaover a fire, you'll need a way to determine when
to depend on fresh water from ait's done
lake or stream for drinking, no matter how cleanand safe to eat. Color is not a reliable indicator of
it appears.doneness, and it can be especially tricky to tell
Some pathogens thrive in remote mountain lakesthe color
or streamsof a food if you're cooking in a wooded area in
and there's no way to know what might havethe evening.
fallen into theIt's critical to use a food thermometer when
water upstream. Bring bottled or tap water forcooking
drinking.hamburgers. Ground beef may be contaminated
Always start out with a full water bottle andwith E. coli, a
replenish yourparticularly dangerous strain of bacteria. Illnesses
supply from tested public systems when possible.have
On longoccurred even when ground beef patties were
trips you can find water in streams, lakes, andcooked until
springs, butthere was no visible pink.
be sure to purify any water from the wild, no