 The following is a production of New Mexico State University. Welcome to another episode of Long Live La Familia, the nutrition soap opera series that speaks not only to our hearts, but also to our appetites. I'm Carrie Bachman, your host for the series, and today we have a special treat. We're going to be looking at the reunion episode in which all of the members of our Sierra family are going to be present. We have Grandma and Grandpa, the six grown children, and also their grandchildren, all together in one episode. Now the topic of this episode is food safety, and it's something that we've touched on on actually every other episode that you've seen with us. There are four main things to keep in mind with food safety. Clean, chill, separate, and cook. And we're going to be talking about those four concepts in detail here today. Now the first one that I mentioned is clean, and as you know before you eat or do any food preparation, you want to go ahead and get your surface very clean. What I used to do that is a dampened, clean rag, and also a spray such as this one, and spray the whole surface and really rub it down to get it clean. Then you want to put your spray over to the side so it doesn't get into your food. Step number two, you want to clean your hands, right? And that's something that we do always hear before preparing any recipe. I'm going to talk a little more about that in detail here today. Start by moistening your hands well, and then you want to go ahead and get some soap, and put a drop or two on your hands. And now is the important part. For about 20 seconds, actually, you're going to wash your hands like this, scrubbing in the fingernails in between fingers, the backs of your hands, the palms, real well like this. Now when we're talking about food safety, what is it we're actually getting rid of when we clean things? Well, the things we're trying to get rid of are bacteria or germs, and those are actually small organisms, so small that we can't even see them. But when they are in a large enough numbers, they can make us sick. The symptoms can be sort of like the flu, like diarrhea. It's not really a very pleasant thing. And the young children in our families, our older family members are especially susceptible. We want to be very careful that we're not giving them any foodborne illness. Now we're going to make our recipe today, which is tropical chicken salad. And actually, we'll start with the chicken. You can, if you want, buy canned chicken like I've got here. This can, though, costs about $3, and really the chicken is not of the greatest texture. So what I like to do instead is buy a whole uncooked chicken and then cook it in a pot of simmering water with some vegetables for flavor. And then once it's been cooking for about one or two hours, you see that the meat just pulls right off like this. And what we're going to do is basically pull off about one cup of meat. You don't even need a knife here. Just clean hands. And see, the thing about this that's nice is then you get chicken in different pieces. It has a little more texture to it, and that way the salad's just a little bit more interesting. Now in this first segment, I want you to keep in mind something to look for. As you're watching the family interact, look for some food safety danger points where things have the potential to go wrong and food might become unsafe to eat. Que rico se ve el pico. I'll take this outside for you, okay? Gracias. Everybody's favorite. This is the need. Serve pa algo. It's good to see you back here. ¿Y tú y Solín? ¿Cómo estás? Is this your Maui Mosa? Changa. So are we the last ones here, Simba? Ahora sí que estamos todos los hierras, except for Santiago and his new novia, Margaret. ¿Ya se descongeló la carne? Yeah, it looks like the sun has thawed out most of the meat already. ¡Papa! Hijo, ¿cómo estás? Hi, Grandpa. ¿Aló, mija? ¿Qué, Solín? Hi, Grandpa. ¿Cómo estás, Randy? Oh, we're doing great, Papa. Well, you know, I give my wife everything that she needs. Becky no podría estar más contenta. That's the sign of a good husband. Esther's the Hollywood creen que lo único que hay en la vida son los carros deportivos. Hi, Becky. Quality time with the family that counts. You know, I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah, pero veo que ya comenzó el sermón. Lighten up, Craig. Family reunions aren't for arguing. Come on, it's late. Let's take this inside. ¡A la fiesta, compa! Hey, just come on over here. Just quit bakery and eat. Well, quit hogging the chips. Tomá. Tomá. This cake was good. Tu cosecha, Papa, siempre es lo mejor. Oh, yeah. Pues sí, Becky tiene regalos para todos adentro. Let's go see what's in Shabbat. There's something. Santiago, I'm so nervous to be meeting your family. No te preocupes, Margaret. Mi familia te va a adorar. I told everyone what a good influence you are on me. Sí, a todos le impresionó que comiéramos mejor. Gracias a ti. I just hope my Spanish is good enough for your family. ¿Crees que tu papa me va a entender con mi asiento? Your Spanish is charming. Just relax and be yourself. Primero, vamos adentro a que conozcas a las girls. Yeah, if the girls like you, everyone else will follow suit. All right. Well, here we go. Hi, everyone. The Bad Show tradition ends today. Por primera vez, papá y yo decimos algo. Oh, why'd you prepare a dish? I'm so proud of you two. Y él, esperan tus primos. De con ellos. Well, we still brought the chips. Para que no extrañen la tradición. Everyone, I'd like you to meet my good friend, Margaret Hawthorne. Hola. Mucho gusto. Les traje estas flores. Gracias, mija. Que hermoso arreglo. We're so very pleased you're here with us. Mijo, tenes muy bien y muy contento. Oh, thank you, mom. Margaret's a good influence on me. Te dejo en buenas manos. Voy a saludar a los muchachos. Oh, don't worry. We'll take good care of her. You go ahead and put the boys. I want to show her my jello salad. Oh, boy. I call it Maui Maui Madness. How interesting. Did you notice any unsafe food handling practices? One thing I wondered, all the people were getting their dishes ready to take to the family reunion. Did they remember to clean their surfaces and wash their hands before they started cooking? The second thing that really hit me was the chicken that was thawing. Remember, there was a shot of people outside getting ready to grill the chicken, and the chicken had been thawing in the sun. That's an unsafe food handling practice. Bacteria thrive in conditions where it's not really cold and it's not really hot. That means above freezing, above 40 degrees, and then actually under the temperature where you're actually cooking things is a real danger zone. So if you're thawing chicken or other kinds of meat, you want to do that in the refrigerator, in the microwave, or else under cold running water. Now the chill concept also carries through to Becky. Do you remember she brought her special salad in a cooler with some ice? That's a safe food handling practice. Let's go ahead now and continue with our recipe. We've got four fresh ingredients that I'm... Well, actually one canned and three fresh ingredients that I'll go ahead and add. And this is one of the things that makes the salad taste tropical. We're going to be using pineapple chunks. And if you've got fresh pineapple at your disposal, that's great. But actually the canned pineapple will work just fine. If you have a can of this size, you can use half of it. Or you can use a smaller can and the whole thing. Now the next ingredient we're going to be putting in is jicama. Jicama is this root vegetable you see right here in front of me. It's got kind of a brown skin and on the inside it's beautiful white and it's crunchy. If you're not familiar with it, it's something until it's searched for in your grocery store. We're going to add half a cup of chopped jicama. And you can see I've chopped it into bite-sized pieces. This actually is substituting for another ingredient, which is water chestnuts. You buy these in a can like this and water chestnuts, if you want to use those, you can buy them and then cut them into pieces of similar size. I like the jicama better. It's got a little bit more of a fresh taste and it's also a little cheaper. The next thing we're going to add is some sliced green onions. Just about a third of a cup. And again, it's important with all of these vegetables that we clean them before we chop them. That's part of our food safety steps. And finally, this adds some spice and some tropical zing to our recipe. We have here some chopped ginger. And I'm going to use about one and a half tablespoons worth. It's quite a bit, but because it's chopped up, it won't be so noticeable. This is what ginger root looks like in your grocery store. If you want to search it out, it's really delicious. We'll just let these sit here and go ahead and continue on with our video. Now, as you're watching, there's another concept that you want to keep in mind, which is separate. Don't cross-contaminate. And what that means basically, when we had the raw chicken we were talking about before, is you want to keep any raw meats or fish or eggs away from fresh vegetables like those I have here or breads or foods that are already cooked. So what I did was I prepared the chicken totally separately, cleaned all of my utensils and workspace, and then prepared the vegetables on this cutting board, a different cutting board entirely. Keep that in mind as we watch the next segment and see if you can find any other unsafe food handling practices. We're done with this plate the meat was on. Craig and Mrs. Ricardo, they're the happiest couple I know. Craig, this is Margaret, Santa's new friend. Oh, great to finally meet you. Mijo, will you take this potato salad outside with you? Necesito hacer espacio en el fridge. And Vicky, this doesn't look like your famous potato salad. Is it even less cremosa? Con chino. Well, that's because I've changed recipes this year. Y la verdad me gusta más esta versión con menos grasa. It is better. Margaret, I'm so glad you came up for the reunion with Santiago and Fidel. Que gusto verte, Lisa. Did you and the girls make your famous tortillas? Ah, Santiago, le va a dar mucho gusto. You bet only the best for my favorite brother. Miren, este tiene que ser de la Silvia. Yeah, that new baby you're seeing must be treating you right, vato. Margaret se llama. Yeah, and I can't even believe she wasn't seeing anybody. She seems really great to Santiago. Vicky, will you get someone's lunchmeats from the refrigerator? Thank you. Margaret, que se parece de la Vicky? She's our glamorous sister-in-law from Hollywood. Oh, you're too nice. You should remind Ricardo how glamorous I am. You know I got a haircut two weeks ago? Yeah, you would notice. I think you're very lovely. Thanks. Welcome to La Semilla. You know, you should come out to California and visit us sometime. Why are we fixing something special for Samuel anyway? He has diabetes. Mom, shouldn't those beans be in the refrigerator? No quiero calentar la refrigeradora. I just made them last night. Well, all right. Margaret, why don't you tell us more about yourself? Well, I work as a secretary at the university. Oh, ahí fue donde conociste a Santiago y Fidel, verdad? I've been working for six months and I haven't met one decent guy in my office. Did you notice any unsafe food handling practices? There were a couple of things that dealt with the separation issue. First, Craig brought in a plate that had been sitting at the grill with raw meat juices on it. And then Becky used it to put lunch meat on. That's definitely a no-no. You're not separating the raw juices from food that's going to be eaten without cooking and it's very dangerous. The other thing I noticed was when they opened the refrigerator door, there was some raw meat that was thawing out there and it was actually not on the bottom level of the refrigerator. The juices were dripping down onto other foods. You've got to be really careful about the separation principle. Now, the other thing that there was a problem with in this last segment was chill. Did you notice the refrigerator was so full? And it's hard for a refrigerator to keep foods cold when that's the case. It was so full that they didn't even have room for the potato salad so they just left it sitting out at room temperature. And remember the beans that had cooked yesterday? Well, they had been sitting out to cool on the stove all night. That's very dangerous because bacteria can grow over the hours when the beans are not kept either hot or cold. You want to go ahead and find shallow containers that you can pour hot things into and put them into a refrigerator or a cooler with ice so that they'll cool off quickly. The maximum amount of time you want to have food out at room temperature is two hours. And that time starts from when you get it out of the refrigerator in the beginning, not when you put it on the table. Okay, let's go ahead and continue now with our safe recipe. I have got some fresh squeezed limes here. Again, I washed the limes carefully under running water before juicing them. We're going to use one tablespoon of the juice and it just adds a nice little zing to our salad. And then the creaminess we're going to get from some mayonnaise. And in this type of recipe, I actually like to use fat-free mayonnaise. It has a pretty good taste and you're not going to notice that the fat is missing. So we're going to put in just about three tablespoons here. You don't have to be real exact. There we go. Three tablespoons of mayonnaise. And then a little bit of salt. You don't need a lot here because we've got other strong flavors. A little salt. And then also some pepper, which I've ground up here in our molcajete. And we'll go ahead and put some pepper in. A lot. Okay, that's what we've got with our salads so far. We'll finish it up after the next segment. Now one other thing we noticed in this segment was cooking. It's really important to cook to proper temperatures. And that wasn't exactly happening. Did you notice the burgers on the grill were flaming up? When that happens, it's easy to overcook the outside of the burger and think they're finished. The inside can remain undercooked and unsafe to eat. Now the safest thing to do when you're cooking meat or fish is to use a digital food thermometer. That way you can actually take the temperature of the food. And there are different temperatures for different foods depending on what type of food you're using and also what type of cooking method. Now if you want to learn more about the specifics on temperature, you can check out the website that's listed on your screen or go to your local county extension office and they have information on specific types of food such as pork, poultry, fish and eggs. Nico, the chicken's all done. Diana must be waiting for the burgers. Hey, I'll go get the veggies, dad. What time are the mariachis coming? Mariachis? Ay, my mom loves them. They should be here real soon. And they're like I think they surprised mom and dad. I'm proud of us. I think we've got all the pyramid food groups covered. With these patties, you can make a very healthy meal. It looks very good, Carlotas. You're a chicken salad. It's good for you too, isn't it? It's very healthy. And it's also cheap. We eat it all the time now instead of that expensive lettuce. Hey, well, come and see if I can help my sister-in-law. Have a good time. Always kidding me. You're almost ready. Santiago, come and help me get the piñata ready so that the kids can break it after we eat. Oh, yeah, okay. Mmm, todo se ve muy rica. Margaret, this is my favorite and the only wife, Carlotas. Margaret, usted se conoce este. You two must be the loving couple with all the kids. Ya llegó el mariachi. Come on. Yay! All right. Ahora le vamos a cantar esta canción sabor a mí con mucho cariño para ellos. Best reunion ever? Con Becky, todo mundo se ha llevado tan bien. Só lo pensé en Jorge una vez. You know in Hollywood, people get divorced all the time. Te llevas esta comida para su viaje en avión mañana? Ah, great idea. That airplane food always makes me sick. You know, it's too bad. Everyone fills up before they ever get my jello salad. Bien salió la reunión. I love you too, Viejo. And everyone that came, our kids and our grandkids. Long live la familia. Que viva la familia Sierra. Well, that's the end of our episode today. Before we talk about what we saw in terms of food safety, let's look at our finished recipe. I've cut up a cantaloupe here and you want to make sure you scrub it real well before you do any cutting because these ridges can contain a lot of bacteria and dirt. You can also use a honeydew melon if you want. Go ahead and cut the melon into fourths and then scoop some chicken salad into the whole of each piece of melon. You can really have this make a nice dish, a side dish for a dinner or even a main dish for a light lunch. Now, what did you notice in terms of food safety? Well, the first thing I saw, that chicken was definitely not cooked that they took off the grill, was it? Again, use a food thermometer and you'll know for certain when the meat is safe to eat. Another thing that happened, there was a dirty towel that was on the grill and if you put your hands on that towel thinking that it's clean, you can transfer bacteria then onto food or into your mouth as you're eating. The last thing, chill. There was food sitting out for quite a long time as everyone was listening to the mariachi. Be careful, you want to remember that two-hour food limit. Now, let's think for a moment about our own food safety practices. Is there something that you could do better so that your family isn't running the risk of getting sick? Why don't you think of one food practice that you could improve and it might be in the area of clean, chill, separate or cook. And over the next week, see if you can improve that practice so you're not running the risk of getting foodborne illness. Until next week, long live our families.