Cookouts present special food safety concerns—marinades, eating outdoors, basting foods. Keep summer meals easy and safe with these grilling safety and safe food handling tips:

After marinating meat, poultry or seafood, discard the marinade. This is easy if you marinate the food in a large resealable plastic food storage bag. Just toss the bag.
To use marinade as a dipping or basting sauce, set aside a portion before adding raw food.
Always wash hands thoroughly in hot, soapy water after handling raw meat, poultry or seafood.
Let meat, poultry and seafood cook on the grill for at least 5 minutes after the last brush with basting sauce. This prevents contamination because the brush was probably used on the raw food.
Discard leftover basting sauce that has been in contact with raw meat, poultry or seafood.
Test meat, poultry and seafood for proper doneness. Here are temperature guidelines:
Use clean plates to transfer cooked food from grill to table. Never place cooked food on the unwashed plate that held raw food.
Eat grilled foods while they are hot. Keep food covered until ready to serve.
Use separate serving utensils for meat and salads.
Discard food after 1 hour in the sun.