A rehabilitation house for men in Jefferson County participated in the University of Kentucky’s Nutrition Education Program through the Jefferson County Cooperative Extension Service.  The program, Healthy Choices for Everybody was offered and one of the lessons was Food Safety for Everybody. One of the topics in the lesson was the proper way to defrost frozen food.

 The Nutrition Education Program Assistant discussed with the group the main reasons for not defrosting food in the sink overnight. 

1. Just because the product is cold in the center, the outer portion might be in the danger zone, 40* to 140* degrees for bacteria to grow.
2.  Juices from the product may cause cross contamination in the sink if the sink is not cleaned properly. 

The group learned that, refrigerator thawing, cold water thawing, microwave thawing, or cooking from frozen are the proper methods of defrosting, and each method was summarized and discussed.

Fifteen participants graduated from the class and the entry data showed that only 24% of the class was thawing foods correctly and the exit data showed an increase of 93% of the class had learned to thaw foods the proper way.