You know about the 2-hour rule, but there we can still learn much more about preparing food safely! Learning what temperatures are safest for each meat is the easiest way to avoid food-borne illnesses.

Keeping foods safe is easy! Here’s a guide for cooking meat, from highest to lowest temperature:

You cook poultry to the highest cooking temperature. If you’re cooking chicken, it needs to be cooked to 74 degrees Celsius in order to be safe. You can also cook leftovers and ground chicken to this temperature. If you’re cooking a whole chicken for dinner, keep that bird in the oven until it reaches 82 degrees Celsius.

Next, you are responsible for cooking cuts of pork and ground beef to 71 degrees Celsius. If high quality cuts of beef and pork are on the menu, these should still be cooked to the same temperature.

Finally, if you’re in favour of fish, make sure it reaches an internal temperature of 70 degrees.

When taking the temperature of your food, make sure you’re placing your thermometer into the thickest part of the meat, away from cookware and bones. Safe food is delicious food!