Food Safety Tips for the Holiday Season

As you prepare for your holiday feast with family and gather with friends to celebrate the holiday season, remember to keep food safety in mind.

Food safety experts with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries are reminding Nova Scotians who are planning and hosting parties and potlucks to use good food safety practices when preparing, transporting and re-heating food.

"We want to make sure that people enjoy their holiday activities," said Mike Horwich, provincial manager of food safety. "It's important that they take the appropriate steps to ensure food safety is a priority during the holiday season."

The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries has several fact sheets on its website that provide information on food safety.

They include tips on:

• preparing and serving holiday buffets;
• travelling with food -- keeping hot foods hot and cold foods cold;
• how to prepare and store special holiday foods, such as eggnog and apple cider;
• ordering and serving take-out foods, such as meat trays;
• saving and re-serving leftovers;
• how to buy, thaw, cook a turkey and store the leftovers.

For more information about food safety and food handling tips, see the department website at www.gov.ns.ca/nsaf or call 902-424- 1173.