(Photo By Flickr User Wally Gobetz)

As people fire up the grill on this Late Spring/Early Summer Season, the Peoria County Health Department is answered the age-old question,

“Do you rinse your raw meat?”

The answer?

“People should not wash their raw meats before they cook them. In a nutshell, rinsing meat has more risk, and no reward.” said Carey Panier, Director of Environmental Health with the Peoria County Health Department.

She also goes on to say that, “You’re basically just spreading those pathogens that are on the meat and poultry to other places in your kitchen. The cooking process is what would kill those pathogens that are on the meat so it doesn’t make sense to rinse them off anyway. Cooking meat is the only way to get rid of those natural pathogens.”

The Peoria County Health Department also warned about food cross contamination. They advised you do all your food prep in the kitchen if you can. That ensures you can wash your hands in between touching raw meat, and other fresh foods.

Be sure to sanitize your food prep space after working with raw meat so other kitchen surfaces, appliances, and foods aren’t contaminated by any raw meat juice.

Signs of foodborne illness are typically vomiting and diarrhea.

For more information about symptoms of foodborne illnesses and how to prevent them, log on to www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foodborne-germs.html, right now!

(Information Courtesy Of WEEK-TV)