How long can food stay on the table? Breaking this rule may result in poisoning

Before the holidays, the Chief Sanitary Inspector reminded the most important rules regarding preparing and storing food at home. This includes the need to keep certain dishes at the appropriate temperature. This means that food should not remain on the table for hours.

How long can food stay on the table?

Sanepid specialists are specific: do not leave cooked food at room temperature for longer than two hours. This means that dishes such as dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, croquettes, carp, Christmas bigos, or baked meats and pates should be placed in the refrigerator after this time. Appropriate storage and serving temperature is important and GIS also gives specific advice here.

• Store all ready-made and perishable products in the refrigerator (preferably below 5°C. Keep ready-made dishes at a high temperature (over 60°C) just before serving.

• Don’t store food for too long, even if you store it in the refrigerator.

• Do not thaw frozen food at room temperature (immerse the product in warm water or use heating devices).

GIS reminds that products such as raw meat, fish and seafood require storage at a lower temperature, i.e. approximately 2°C). In turn, products such as milk, meats and butter can be stored no higher than 8°C.

At what temperature should you reheat food?

We usually eat Christmas specialties for several days. This means that they are sometimes reheated many times. To ensure that the pleasure of eating does not end in food poisoning, it is worth remembering the basic rules.

• Cook thoroughly, especially meat, poultry, eggs and seafood.

• Bring food such as soups to a boil to ensure that it has reached a temperature of 70°C. When it comes to meat and poultry, you need to make sure that the juices inside these products are clean and not pink.

• Also warm up reheated food to a temperature above 70°C before consumption.