If you’re aiming to round off the summer holidays with a Bank Holiday barbecue this weekend, then Hart District Council and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) have some good advice to help make it a safe success.
To keep you, your friends and family healthy the Council and the FSA are encouraging you to make sure all food, including burgers, are sizzling and cooked all the way through.
Burgers on the barbecue are becoming increasingly popular and some people may be tempted to serve their guests with restaurant style gourmet burgers that are pink in the middle. But a burger is not like steak. Steak can be served rare because any contamination on the surface of the meat is destroyed when the steak is seared on the outside. Burgers are made of minced meat, so any bacteria, on the outside of the whole piece of meat, are mixed up throughout burgers when the meat is minced. If bacteria are mixed into the middle of the burger and it isn’t cooked all the way through, the bacteria can survive and cause food poisoning. That’s why a burger should be thoroughly cooked all the way through.
So, this barbecue weekend (27-29 August), rain or shine, the FSA is reminding everybody to:
Cllr John Kennett, Cabinet Member for Regulatory Services at Hart District Council, said: “Children, elderly and poorly people in your family could get food poisoning, or even worse – a life threatening illness through serving a less than well-cooked burger at your barbecue this weekend. It’s the little things like following this advice that can keep your loved ones safe."
