During the summer in the Phoenix area it isn't always easy to keep your food safe. Sometimes, just traveling home from the grocery store can be dangerous to your food. Here are some tips to keep the food that your family eats from spoiling in the hot Arizona sun.
Summer Food Safety Tips
- Make your stop for food the last stop on your list of chores. The sooner you can get home with your groceries, the better. If you have room in the back seat, it might be cooler, after your air conditioner kicks in, than keeping the groceries in the trunk of your car.
- If it takes a while for you to get home from the grocery store, get one of those cooler bags for your frozen items, or bring a full size cooler with freezer packs and put your ice cream, dairy items, meat, eggs, and other perishables in the cooler for the trip home.
- If your kids (or the adults) snack in the car, make them nonperishable snacks, like nuts and crackers or dried fruit. Cheese sticks left in a hot car are pretty ugly.
- If you are on a road trip and you are taking beverages, stay away from cans of carbonated beverages that could explode in the car. Yuk. Stick with plastic bottled, non-carbonated drinks or juice boxes.
- If you are going on a day trip (or even across town) freeze a couple of bottles of water or sports drinks or lemonade for the trip. If you keep them in a cooler, they'll still be cool for the trip home. We keep a variety of about ten different frozen drinks in the freezer at all times!
- If you use a cooler, keep it full. It will stay cold longer.
- Plan just enough so there are no leftovers.
- Try to pick foods that are cooked, like fried chicken, and eat them within a couple of hours.
- Keep all food in a cooler until you are ready to eat.
- Avoid using dairy products at your picnic or at your patio party. Mayonnaise can go bad pretty quickly.
- Any food left outside for more than an hour or so should be thrown out.
