The Dangerous Grilling Mistake That Often Goes Unnoticed

Whether you're cooking with charcoal or gas, the best grill sessions end with satisfied bellies full of smoky fare — never with contracting a foodborne illness. Proper safety practices, like cleaning your meat thermometer in between uses, ensure you and yours are kept safe from ingesting harmful bacteria. Yet, there's one common mistake folks make when grilling that can cause a cookout to become a recipe for disaster.

The Takeout spoke with Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin' Fool and owner of GrillinFools.com, about best practices to employ on the grill. He specifically mentioned the utensils you use. "The conventional wisdom is one set of tongs for cooked meat and one for raw. Particularly with chicken," he told The Takeout. "When I'm doing the multiple tong thing, I like two different color tongs so I don't forget which is which," he added. Using the same utensil for both can easily result in cross-contamination, a common cause of acquiring a foodborne illness.

However, when it comes to pork and beef, Thomas holds a somewhat controversial opinion about using the same technique. "For beef and pork, I don't usually worry about it. Some folks are going to cringe at that," he admitted. Still, Thomas's reasoning does make some sense. "Beef can be served raw (tartare) and be just fine. The USDA suggests 145 degrees Fahrenheit for pork (medium rare)," he said. "Generally, the meat is cooked at north of 400 degrees for steaks and chops ... So it doesn't take long for the temps of the grill to burn off any germs."

Using two sets of tongs on the grill not only safeguards your meat from becoming contaminated with harmful bacteria; Scott Thomas noted it can also be a polite way of making sure everybody gets only the flavors they want and nothing more. "I love me some jerk chicken and jerk ribs, but not everyone in my family can handle the Scotch bonnets in the jerk seasoning," he said. "If I use the tongs on the jerk ribs for the ones I am not jerking, the non-jerked ribs can pick up some of that super hot jerk seasoning and paste, and that will wind up on the plate of the one person who is the most spicy-intolerant of the lot." 

Aside from being the safest practice, using separate pairs of tongs is just straight up considerate and shows you're thinking through the details. The same attention should be placed on platters and plates. Especially with chicken, there is an even greater danger of cross-contamination involving the vessel that carries your proteins from one spot to another. "Do not put cooked food back on a plate that had raw meat on it. Never ever," Thomas warned. "The meat is going to be subjected to temps north of 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and maybe even higher than 500 degrees, which will kill any bacteria or germs, but the plates are not," he explained. Think you can save some dishes by slapping those grilled chicken thighs back on the plate you carried them out on while they were raw? Unfortunately, that desire to eliminate some cleanup time may result in serving up a heaping plate of salmonella.