Food hygiene is important to observe for prepping a Thanksgiving feast

Keep in mind good hygiene for Thanksgiving feast

Anytime you are feeding a big group lots of food, there's a little concern about keeping the hot stuff hot enough, and cold stuff, cold enough.

FOX 2 - Do you know the four C's of food hygiene good to keep in mind before the big feast: Cleaning, cooking, chilling and cross contamination.

Why you should care:

The goal is to keep your guests from getting sick at your house. Bacteria from turkey is probably the biggest concern, and that is an issue if it's not cooked properly or handled the right way.

If you are cooking food, be sure to wash your hands often. The sink will be critical for cleaning your hands, knives, cutting boards and more.

Once everything is cooked, you want to make sure everything stays the right temperature.

Hot foods should not fall below 140 degrees according to the CDC. Cold stuff needs to stay cold - they should not go past 40 degrees and perishable foods should not stay out more than two hours.

As you think about food safety, make sure your cookware is safe as well. One warning comes to us about Teflon, with forever chemicals. Regularly inspect your pans and look for scratches on non-stick coatings. If you spot some, discontinue using them.

Should you wash your turkey before cooking it?  The answer from food safety experts at the USDA - is no!

The only exception is unless you've brined the turkey. But in general, washing the raw bird leads to an unsavory splash factor.

This means that raw turkey bacteria can spread as far as three feet.

Instead, experts say, rely on the heat from the oven to take care of whatever you're trying to wash off.