Should you strip leftover turkey from the carcass or store it as it is? Is it better to put left-overs in the fridge immediately, or wait until they are stone cold?
It’s knowing the answers to such questions, say experts, that can help prevent your festivities being ruined by food poisoning.
While most of those affected recover within days, for at-risk groups such as older people it can be more than ‘just’ an upset stomach – and can even be life-threatening.
But even otherwise healthy people can become seriously unwell.
Samantha Norman, 59, was so violently sick after eating leftovers last Christmas that she needed medical treatment. Samantha, who lives in Cardiff, returned home with leftover turkey and veg after enjoying a Christmas lunch cooked by her brother and which she fried with some oil on Boxing Day.
‘It tasted delicious and perfectly fine,’ says Samantha. But within hours, she was doubled over in pain. ‘The cramps in my stomach were so strong,’ she says.
‘Then I had to run to the loo. Suddenly I was vomiting and I couldn’t stop. I’d be sick, think that was it, then have to run back moments later.’
Over the following 48 hours, Samantha was so sick she started bringing up bile, and also suffered diarrhoea.
Samantha Norman, 59, lost 3lb in just three days after eating leftovers last Christmas caused extreme vomiting
‘I was terrified,’ she says. ‘In just three days I lost 3lb. I was worried because I am on immunosuppressant medication (methotrexate) and knew it would not be absorbed if I was being sick.’
After a third day of extreme vomiting, she saw her GP who diagnosed food poisoning from the reheated turkey and gave her a course of anti-sickness tablets.
Samantha recovered without any long-term ill-effects, but she’s vowed ‘never to reheat turkey again’.
There are more than 2.4 million food poisoning cases annually in the UK, according to the Food Standards Agency. And while there is no official figure for the festive period, experts say cases soar at this time of year.
One of the most common causes, Campylobacter (which can typically cause diarrhoea, cramping pain and nausea), may be present in raw meat (including turkey) and can cause illness even in tiny doses, says Dr Lisa Ackerley, an independent environmental health practitioner and chair of the board of the Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute.
But it’s not just handling raw meats that can trip you up – Clostridium perfringens (found in veg, as well as meat) and Bacillus cereus (found in cereals and rice), for example, can also make you seriously unwell.
Meanwhile, norovirus (the winter vomiting bug) can be passed on by people – even those without symptoms – if they don’t wash their hands after going to the loo. If it gets on to ready-to-eat foods, such as sandwiches or the festive buffet, ‘then you could be in for a nasty surprise’, says Dr Ackerley.
Read our expert guide to help limit the chances of you and your family falling victim to food poisoning this Christmas.
Preparation tips
Just one tiny drop of Campylobacter-infected juice from a raw turkey is enough to make you ill, ‘but people simply do not understand how to break the journey of the germ and instead contaminate everything they touch with germy hands’, says Dr Ackerley.
‘Campylobacter is mainly associated with raw poultry and can be spread around the kitchen by contaminated hands when preparing chicken or turkey dishes, contaminating any food that is touched. In theory, if someone prepares raw turkey and then touches cooked mince pies even a small amount of Campylobacter from the hands could cause illness.’
The way to break this cycle, she says, is to wash your hands after every time you touch raw food – but also keep surfaces scrupulously clean using disinfectant.
And make sure that you change dish cloths and tea towels daily (and wash them on a high temperature wash to kill off all the bacteria they may have collected).
It’s not only poultry that’s a risk, says Dr Ackerley, ‘any raw meat and even some vegetables may be contaminated with other food-poisoning bacteria’.
‘So after preparation, not only always wash your hands but also clean the utensils and the work surfaces.’
It’s important to use a different chopping board for meats to fruit and veg. That innocent-looking melon, for instance, grows close to the ground and as result bacteria in the compost may transfer to the rind. In the US between 1973 and 2011, there were 34 reported outbreaks of food poisoning associated with cantaloupe melons – with 322 hospitalisations and 46 deaths.
So if you’re serving a melon starter, ‘scrub the outer skin to clean before cutting’, says Dr Ackerley.
‘And once cut, keep in the fridge until eaten, to prevent any bacteria that may have got on to the flesh from growing.’
Dr Ackerley adds: ‘When it comes to veg, these can be contaminated from the soil and harvesting – for example, root vegetables such as leeks and potatoes have been implicated in E. coli outbreaks.
‘Once cooked, these veg are fine of course, but it is the bacteria left behind that you need to deal with – by hand washing after veg prep and cleaning and disinfecting surfaces that may have become contaminated.’
Dr Ackerley also advises checking the label on packed salads and spinach: ‘If it says wash before use, make sure you do. I use a salad spinner where I can agitate the leaves in water, drain and then spin.’
Cooking must dos
Cooking to above 75c for just a few seconds destroys Campylobacter and norovirus, which – although not food poisoning per se – can be passed on by people without symptoms of illness from dirty hands to surfaces or to food they are preparing.
‘I always use a food thermometer to check meat and poultry is cooked through,’ says Dr Ackerley.
‘And it saves me incinerating food or making it inedible through over-cooking.
‘It’s a valuable piece of kitchen equipment, especially for the larger cuts of meat where it is harder to tell how cooked they are by judging on just their outer appearance.’
However, wash it in warm, soapy water between uses to avoid introducing contaminants into the meat as you probe it.
Cooking to above 75c for just a few seconds destroys Campylobacter and norovirus
Large joints will carry on cooking with the temperature rising after removing from the oven, so if you want to avoid over-cooking, you can remove at around 65c and test again after 5-10 minutes, resting to check 75c has been reached, says Dr Ackerley.
If you don’t have a food thermometer, another technique – although this isn’t as accurate – for meats such as pork, chicken and turkey, is to check there’s no pinkness left in the middle when you cut into a thicker piece of the meat.
And frozen veg should be steaming hot – and ‘if making salads from frozen vegetables, cook and refresh in running cold water to cool – don’t use without cooking unless it says ‘ready to eat’ on the pack’, says Dr Ackerley.
Storing solutions
With the fridge groaning, it can be tempting to leave things on the kitchen counter and hope for the best – but this gives microorganisms a chance to take hold.
As Dr Ackerley explains: ‘A third of us carry bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus, which when left on foods that are on display for many hours, can release a toxin that causes food poisoning – that’s why you should not keep food out of the fridge for longer than four hours.’
Getting your leftovers in the fridge as soon as possible gives any bacteria not destroyed by heat less opportunity to multiply.
‘People often don’t realise that the cooling stage is extremely important, so if you have leftovers, cool them down as quickly as possible,’ says Dr Ackerley.
‘Stripping meat off a large carcass cools it faster before putting in the fridge – and you can cool soups and stews by putting a saucepan in cold water in the sink and stir to help cooling.
‘Pasta, rice and vegetables can be cooled in a sieve under the cold tap,’ she says.
‘Made-up dishes can be decanted into smaller portions in clean, shallow trays and left until they stop steaming – then cover and put in the fridge or freezer; label with day of cooking.
‘Don’t put large quantities of warm food in the fridge, as it will warm the fridge up, but a small item will be ok,’ says Dr Ackerley.
And check your fridge is cold enough: while bacteria grow best at blood temperature (37c), the ‘danger zone’ – when they start to multiply – kicks in as low as 5c, says Dr Ackerley. So check your fridge temperature is below 5c.
Don’t be tempted to keep cooked turkey and hams out of the fridge – ‘if your fridge is full to bursting, then you can prioritise what you store in it for the busy period,’ she says. ‘Items such as drinks and condiments could be kept outside the fridge in a cool place for a few days, to leave room for the higher-risk items.’
Ideally food should be stored ‘in a clean container that can be fully sealed’, says Dr Matthew Gilmour, director of the UK Food Safety Research Network, which researches new approaches to food safety.
‘For example, place leftovers into a clean bowl and cover with cling film, or reuse a [cleaned] takeaway container that has a tightly fitting lid.
‘Some bacteria such as Listeria can be found in ready-to-eat foods such as paté, pre-packed sandwiches, soft cheeses, smoked salmon and cold cooked meats.’
Listeria – which can cause symptoms such as fever, aches, pains, vomiting and diarrhoea – ‘can grow in food even at temperatures lower than 5c (i.e. even in the fridge)’, adds Dr Ackerley.
‘And it’s crucial you don’t eat these foods after the use-by date.’
People over 60 or in poor health are ‘more likely to have serious symptoms and it could be fatal’.
As for Christmas pudding, she says, ‘cool leftovers and keep in the fridge, then reheat or eat cold if that is what you like’.
Reheating rules
Whether you are using up left over Christmas pud or going in for more turkey, ‘what’s important is being careful to manage the temperature of food at two key moments – storing and then reheating leftovers’, says Dr Gilmour.
‘There are many great ways to reheat leftovers – stovetop, oven, microwave or air fryer, for instance. In microwaves and ovens, foods at the edge of a dish often warm up more quickly, whereas the food in the middle stays colder. By mixing food a few times while reheating, you can make sure you get a proper amount of heat all the way through the dish.
‘The most helpful clue that the reheated food is safe is that its piping hot all the way through.’
Is it safe to reheat the Christmas turkey?
‘Meats can definitely be reheated – personally, leftover turkey is one of my favourite parts of Christmas,’ says Dr Gilmour.
‘It’s harder to uniformly reheat large pieces of meat, so even if something is bubbling, large chunks of meat could still be cool, so it can be helpful to slice meat into smaller pieces first [when storing ideally, but before reheating].
‘Whatever appliance you are using, the goal is to reheat foods to the same safe temperature as when they were originally cooked, so follow the original recipe with regards to heat.’
