 As Thanksgiving nears its way into homes this season, one thing you may want to consider is some safe hygiene practices before preparing that turkey this year. Wednesday we spoke with Pike County health director, Tammy Riley, about some of these practices and how you can implement them into your home. But for today I want to talk about the four C's. The CDC has really broken it down into four simple steps and you just got to remember the four C's. So the first step is clean. So remember, you know, of course wash your hands thoroughly, 20 seconds or longer. But another really important tip around clean or cleaning is do not rinse your turkey. Many individuals, you know, just well meaning want to rinse that turkey and clean it out in the sink area usually. But we highly recommend that you not do that, that's just spreading contamination. So if you cook your turkey to the right temperature, which we're going to talk about in a minute. That takes care of any potential bacteria. So you know, don't rinse your turkey thinking you're cleaning it and do wash your hands or clean your hands, you know, about 20 seconds or longer. The second step regarding cross-contamination Riley says to keep vegetables and meats separate when preparing and cooking turkey based on poundage. And what we recommend you use a meat thermometer and make sure that the internal temperature of the turkey gets to 165 degrees. And then finally you want to chill or put your food items, don't leave them out for an extended amount of time, typically less than an hour and don't stack items in the refrigerator. So what you don't want to do, what you want to avoid is putting like heated items up against other food items like a mayonnaise based product or a salad that has mayonnaise and if you stack like a hot turkey that's going to remain hot for a good amount of time as it's chilling in the refrigerator. Reasons why not to stack cool and hot items is due to bacterial growth. Riley also says to make sure food items aren't left out for more than an hour. So just remember the four C's. So you want to clean, you want to avoid cross-contamination, cook the right amount of time up to the right temperature and chill appropriately. For more information regarding Thanksgiving safety you can visit cdc.gov keyword holiday. For Mountain Top News, I'm Joel Korgel.