And it shouldn’t smell “fishy.” The odor should be similar to that of a sea breeze.īe aware of temperatures-of the air, of your refrigerator and freezer, of cooking. Your purchase should feel cold to the touch. Use your eyes, hands, and nose when selecting fresh fish or shellfish. If you are buying seafood at the supermarket, make it one of your last purchases.

Never let raw seafood come in contact with cooked seafood or other raw (or cooked) foods. Keep your hands, preparation area, and utensils clean. The most important considerations in safe handling of seafood at home are cleanliness, temperature, and time. What do Consumers Need to Do to Keep Seafood Safe? All imported seafood also will be covered. Food and Drug Administration regulations, all seafood processors will be required to operate under the HACCP program. As an extra measure of safety, certain sanitation activities also must be conducted and documented. Records are kept at each critical point so inspection agencies can be certain the HACCP system is operating to provide safe food. For each hazard, a critical control point is identified where the potential food safety problem is controlled. Hazards include disease-causing organisms, toxins, environmental contaminants (like pesticides), chemicals (cleaners, sanitizers, lubricants, etc.), and physical hazards (wood, metal, and glass). Part two is deciding at which place in the production of the food the hazards can best be controlled-we call this the critical control point for that hazard.Īll parts of the seafood processing operation are examined for hazards including raw materials, ingredients, processing steps, storage, and distribution. Part one includes making a list of things that can cause the food to be unsafe-we call this hazard analysis.

The Pillsbury Company, in cooperation with NASA, worked out this method of controlling food safety problems. HAACP was developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a way to assure that the food produced for the space program was safe. It works by preventing food safety problems from developing rather than testing food after production to see if it’s safe. It’s an effective way of ensuring the safety of food. HACCP (pronounced “has-sip”) is an acronym for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point.

Clawfish safe to eat