It’s the star of the Christmas dinner table.

But with ovens warming up all over Cork today, safefood has revealed that many of us are making some major mistakes when it comes to storing, cooking and serving our turkey.

Bad advice and dated practices could leave your dinner guests at risk of salmonella and campylobacter food poisoning – both illnesses that nobody will forget in a hurry.

First time jitters

One quarter of Irish people (25%) will be cooking their first ever Christmas dinner this week, with a further 17% claiming to be relative novices, having only cooked the meal once or twice before.

Experience aside, 22% of those surveyed by safefood admitted they are nervous about playing chef this year.

It turns out that 43% of people still wash their turkey, which actually spreads food poisoning germs around kitchen surfaces and onto other foods. A total of 47% of people plan to cook their turkey with the stuffing inside, which is only recommended if you’re using a fan oven.

Keep it cold
A whopping 58% of people leave the turkey out of the refrigerator, sometimes overnight, before it goes into the oven.

Meanwhile 85% of us expect to eat leftover turkey in everything from sandwiches to curry and casseroles, however, 16% plan to re-use their leftover turkey four days or more after Christmas day, which is not advisable.

“If you have Christmas leftovers, these should be covered and placed in the fridge within two hours of cooking and used within three days.” says Dr. Linda Gordon, Chief Specialist in Food Science at safefood.

“If you’re reheating leftovers, remember to reheat them only once until they’re piping hot,”

“Our website safefood.eu is stuffed with lots of useful resources including a turkey cooking-time-calculator, how-to videos and lots of tasty Christmas and leftovers recipes. And for any last-minute questions on Christmas Day itself, our safefood Chefbot will also be available to answer questions through Facebook messenger @safefood.eu.”