Going to Grill on the Fourth of July? You Might Want to Read This

I enjoy grilling year-round, which takes care of some of the seasonal maintenance issues that come with grilling. From what I read, some folks in America start grilling around July 4th. Which I see is coming up: fast.

There's some pretty good advice out there, so instead of repeating it, I'll just link to a few items in the news.

There's Sparkling Clean - and Easy Griller Clean

Although I make sure that the working parts are reasonably clean, I'm not all that fastidious about scraping every bit of material off the inside of my grill. That's partly my disinclination to do what I see as unnecessary work. And, partly my preference for the flavor that grilled food gets, if you let it.

It took several weeks, before food from our first grill lost that new-car taste. The family's current one didn't take as long to break in: but even there it went through several cycles of use before the burgers were obviously not cooked on the stove.

Don't Eat Burned Meat

I know: you've probably read that grilling, along with everything else on Earth, causes cancer. I discussed this in the safety section of the Easy Griller website. When I dug past the 'scare' articles and read what people who had done actual research had to say, it turns out that it's the burned-to-a-crisp meat and fat that have carcinogens.

So, unless you burn your food to a crisp or eat the debris that collects at the bottom of the grill (disgusting thought), you should be okay.

Related posts:

• "Don't Set Fire to Yourself or Your House: Good Advice from the NFPA"
  (June 16, 2009)
• "Fire Safety, or A Tale of Two Matches"
  (August 11, 2007)
• "The Most Important Grilling Tool: Common Sense"
  (July 31, 2007)

In the news:

• "Caution stressed when grilling on Fourth of July"
  Arizona Republic (June 27, 2009)
• "Barbecue 101: Clean it before you grill it"
  San Francisco Chronicle (June 26, 2009)
• "Don't Get Burned When You Cook: Grilling Safety Tips"
  eNews Parks (June 22, 2009)
• "Backyard StayCations: The Perfect Swarm"
  CNN (June 16)
  (This is more about mosquitoes than grilling - but since this might be an unusually 'good' year for mosquitoes, you might want to read it.)