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Be Safe With Your Food

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” –Virginia Woolf

There I was, enjoying a nice day at a friend’s barbecue. We were playing Polish horseshoes and enjoying some adult beverages when I heard, “TIME TO EAT!”

I grabbed a plate and assembled my burger – ketchup, mustard, lettuce and tomato. I added some sides to my plate and sat down to eat. I bit into the juicy hamburger that was fresh off the grill – YUMMY! As I was going in for another bite, I noticed the hamburger was pink in the middle – YUCKY!

Although I didn’t get sick; according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 48 million people (1 in 6 Americans) get sick; 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases. So, what can we do? The CDC recommends these four steps to make sure your food is safe to eat. Without it, we can get food poisoning.

While food safety in the kitchen is very important, it is more important at the source of our food. You should always pay attention to food product recalls. Tyson foods had recently recalled 39,078 pounds of Weaver brand frozen chicken patties that may be contaminated with extraneous materials. This comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. They always list current recalls and alerts on their website here. The recall comes in the wake of Tyson wanting fewer government inspectors in one of its beef plants. Here is a link to a wonderful article regarding this issue, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/tyson-wants-fewer-government-inspectors-one-its-beef-plants-food-n1041966 . Now more than ever, we need our food to be safe to consume. I don’t want food poisoning, do you?

One way I make sure my food is safely prepared is to do it myself. I was raised on fry bread. Here is my favorite recipe for some delicious Native American Fry Bread. And remember, follow the simple steps to ensure food safety!

Fry Bread

Ingredients

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
  • 4 cups shortening for frying

Directions

  1. Combine flour, salt, and baking powder. Stir in 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water. Knead until soft but not sticky. Shape dough into balls about 3 inches in diameter. Flatten into patties 1/2 inch thick, and make a small hole in the center of each patty.
  2. Fry one at a time in 1 inch of hot shortening, turning to brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels.

Serve with jam or honey. You can also make bigger patties for Indian Tacos! Just add your favorite meat and taco toppings on top of the fry bread!