Food Safety Measures Make for Happy Holidays, Russo Says

A story on how to keep food-borne illnesses away from the holiday dinner table interviews Thomas A. Russo, MD, professor of medicine and chief of infectious diseases.

“You should have a vegetable board and a meat board, and when you notice that your board starts to get grooves, it's probably time to get a new board because that becomes more difficult to clean,” Russo said.

And it’s not just beef, pork and poultry that require special handling; all of those holiday cookies hold a hidden danger too.

“Regular flour that you get from the supermarket actually could be contaminated with harmful bacteria,” Russo said. “So even if there aren’t any raw eggs in your dough, there is a risk that you could get a potentially serious bacterial infection.”