Regulating the temperature of your foods is a critical step in controlling the growth of harmful bacteria. Most people know that foods need to be cooked to proper temperatures in order to be safe, but the ability of your refrigerator, freezer or oven to maintain the proper temperature is often overlooked. Refrigerators and freezers need to be cold enough to prevent rapid bacterial growth on foods and ovens need to reach high enough temperatures to destroy any harmful bacteria that may be present on a food.
    You can determine whether your refrigerator, freezer and oven are maintaining proper temperatures by using appliance thermometers. Refrigerator/freezer thermometers are specially designed to register accurately at cold temperatures. Oven thermometers can measure temperatures ranging from 100 to 600 degrees F. Appliance thermometers can be purchased at your local hardware stores and many other locations. When ready to measure the temperatures of your appliances, follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Refrigerator temperatures should be no higher than 40 degrees F and an ideal freezer temperature is 0 degrees F. Adjust the temperature controls as needed.
    Ovens should maintain set temperatures. If oven temperatures are consistently high by a certain number of degrees this can be factored into temperature setting or a service center representative authorized by the manufacturer can adjust the oven thermostat.
    For more information on home equipment contact Diane at (912) 871-0504, dianem@uga.edu or www.ugaextension.com/bulloch.