Cooking Tip 1

So, just by introduction, I am by no means an expert at this stuff. But I love to cook and experiment. I will be posting tips I've found helpful.
Tip #1:
This is a personal pet peeve, cross-contamination...
I don't know how many times I've seen people cooking and cross-contaminating their food, but it's a lot. There is not a better way to ruin your meal! So here are tips to avoid cross-contamination.

1.  Wash your hands! 
2.  Have a designated cutting board for meats, and one for everything else. This is one of the simplest ways to keep you and your loved ones safe from food poisoning. I like to use a glass cutting board for meats because it is easy to clean, and doesn't get grooves where bacteria can grow. 
3.  Wash your hands! 
4.  Prepare meats separately from the rest of dinner.  If you are going to prepare something else on the same surface wash and sanitize it first (bleach water, or organic sanitizers with essential oils, we like method brand cleaners).
5.   Wash your hands! 
6.   Don't put your cooked meat back on the dish you had it on when it was raw. Gross! 
7.  Wash your hands! 
8.  Don't use the utensil you cooked the raw meat with to do anything else, without sanitizing it first. 
9.  Wash your hands! 
10.  Sanitize everything you used while preparing your raw meats. 
11.  Wash your hands! 
12.  Common sense, if it had anything to do with the raw meat and wasn't cooked or sanitized, don't let it near anything you are going to eat, or will use to eat! And finally... 
13. Wash your hands! This is the number one way to prevent food contamination, please wash your hands thoroughly before cooking and frequently while handling raw meat! 

Seriously, thousands of people die every year from food poisoning, and those that don't die from it can be pretty miserable for a day or two. Only you can prevent cross-contamination!