Do you use a food thermometer when you are cooking, meat, seafood, eggs, and leftovers?

There are a lot of benefits. Let's look at them below.

Summer and BBQ season are coming. Using a thermometer is an essential tool to serve safe, and delicious food!

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Using a food thermometer when you cook is a great tool.

First, there is the food safety benefit. By measuring the internal temperature of the food that you cook, you can be sure that you are heating the food enough to kill potential pathogens that could make you sick. Or worse.

There is also the quality benefit. By using a food thermometer, you cook the food enough to be safe, but you don't overcook it.

You get the good texture and taste of a properly cooked dish, but you do not get the toughness, bitterness, hardness, or burned taste that comes with overcooking.

Here's an example. Someone wants a rare steak but you want to make sure it is cooked enough to be safe. By using a food thermometer, you will have the perfect rare steak that is cooked enough to be safe.

Each government sets their own rules or best practices around food temperatures. But they are pretty similar because they are based on the same research. Each bacteria will have a temperature and time at which they will be killed.

Killing bacteria is not just a function of temperature but also for how long is the food at that temperature.

These temperatures are based on the assumption that if you reach then the food will have been at a lower temperature for a long enough time for the food to be safe.

You do not need to hold that food at the suggested temperature, you just need to reach it.

The image above is my compilation of the temperatures from the three countries below. See below for posters that you can download with the recommended temperatures for the USA, Canada, and the UK.

Here is the Canadian government information on safe cooking temperatures and practices for food.

And you can download the infographic poster here.

I like to print this poster and put it in my kitchen so I have it whenever I need it.

Here is the US government information on safe cooking temperatures and practices for food.

Plus you can download their infographic here.

It is best to use the information from your own government. If you do not find the food that you are looking for, consulting the temperatures from other countries like the European Union, Australia and New Zealand will also have good resources.

Here is a link to the UK information on safe temperatures and practices for cooking food.

They do not have a poster that you can down, but you can convert the information into a PDF which you can get here.

There are two basic kinds of thermometers: digital and analog. They each have advantages and disadvantages. Which one you choose, is up to you. See below for the advantages and disadvantages.

You can click this link to see my Kitchen Essentials Kit with the thermometers I recommend. I have both and use both, but for different reasons.

I use my digital thermometer for food, meat, seafood, eggs, and casseroles. And I use the analog thermometer for candy, jams, and deep-frying.

Digital thermometers are fast. Usually, you will have the temperature with 3 to 10 seconds. And with most models, you can change between Celsius and Fahrenheit. Many of them have long stems which is safer when you are cooking on a BBQ or a smoker. Some are also waterproof and have a backlit display. They are easy to use and reliable.

However, they work with a battery and if you can not change the battery, the thermometer is finished when the battery dies. My experience is that these thermometers last for several years, but it does depend on how often you use them and whether you remember to turn the thermometer off when you are not using it.

Digital thermometers can not be put in the dishwasher, but it is easy to clean the stem.

Analog thermometers are your traditional thermometer. They are robust. They last forever unless you drop them. And they are reliable. Analog thermometers can often be washed in the dishwasher.

But they are quite a bit slower than digital thermometers. It can an analog thermometer one minute or more to come up to temperature. When you are trying not to overcook your food, this slow time is a major disadvantage.

For tips on how to use a food thermometer, when you should use it, and why, check out this video.

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