text: Carla Duenas, Registered Dietitian with Baptist Health South Florida, recommends having separate cutting boards for fruits, vegetables, meats and fish in order to avoid spreading bacteria. The three most common bacteria are: salmonella, E-coli and listeria.
  The specialist also recommends not using the same plate for the cooked meats and the raw meals, especially salads.
  Let’s talk about keeping the raw meat separate, can they spread bacteria? This is a really important one. >Yes, absolutely people don’t think sometimes that within fruits and fruits vegetables and meats there’s a cross-contamination in there whether they’re cooked or raw even we definitely don’t want to mix those two especially when they’re raw but we don’t want to mix those two at all so usually we recommend people having separate cutting boards so you know having your cutting boards for fruits for vegetables and then separate for meat for red meats and even separate for your fish there’s the most the three most common bacteria tend to be salmonella E-coli and Listeria and so these are the the bacteria that’s specially out in the summer— >And they are not invited to the barbecue, not invited. >They like that mid they like the heat they like the warm temperature so that’s why there are competitions to keep cold food cold and hot food hot so there is a range in there when they’re sitting off for more than an hour a few hours they this is when they can really start to spread out so will tell people really to when they’re cooking, when they’re prepping their raw meat for example taking it out to the barbecue on that plate to not use the same plate to put the cooked meat on that plate where the raw juices were— >How common is that because I see that so much you get to me and then you just automatically just put it on the same plate you brought it out in yeah we because we think it’s the same food it doesn’t really matter but it does matter because the the bacteria was in the raw meat and those juices versus when it’s cooked it’s already been killed so you’re basically bringing it back to that to that cooked meat and maybe you know not everybody will get food poisoning but there’s some suicidal individuals for example pregnant women kids the elderly where they might end up in the hospital because of that food poisoning so it’s very important if you’re cooking fish separate mats separate plate wash it after you take it to the barbecue and use a clean one to put the the fish back in a plate and your salad keep them way separate if it’s your fresh raw salad right there’s no need to to mix them up bringing them in at all to the grill just keep them chilled in the refrigerator until it’s time to be consumed if it’s grilled vegetables is a different story but you still want to use its separate cutting board with an and then in the heat everything’s gonna get killed hopefully that 80’s in the grill doesn’t really matter but we brought back into the plate that’s where it matters the most.