When you get sick and blame something you ate, your first reaction is probably along the lines of "where did I last eat out?" Many of us automatically blame restaurants for food-borne illnesses, but the truth is that statistics show 1 in 4 victims gets sick from something they cooked themselves at home.

In all honesty, besides limiting how often you dine out and perhaps avoiding commonly contaminated foods like ground meat, there's really not much you can do about food-borne illnesses from restaurant food. But follow these 7 tips for ensuring the food you make at home is as safe as possible:

• Wash your hands frequently. Most people do when they first get started cooking, but to be safe you really need to wash your hands thoroughly every time you switch to working with a new ingredient or meal item.

• Wait to wash your produce until you're ready to start cooking. Many people think washing fruits and vegetables before they go in the pantry or refrigerator is the best thing, but in reality the moisture left behind only encourages mold and bacterial growth.
• Wash it, even if the skin isn't edible. Contaminates on the outside of fruits and vegetables can get transmitted to the inside when you slice through with a knife, or use your hands and fingers to handle it.
• Clean as you go, but be careful not to cross-contaminate with your dishtowel. Use disposable paper towels for general cleaning, and only use your regular kitchen towel to dry clean hands.
• Don't leave food warming on the oven -- bacteria can grow and even foods like rice and pasta can become dangerous in a short time.
• Don't trust your refrigerator. Get a thermometer to make sure the temperature is consistently between 35-40º.
• Don't just "eyeball" your meat to ensure it's cooked through. "No pink" is not always an accurate way to tell that it's cooked through and all bacteria have been killed -- get a meat thermometer to be sure. The mark to hit is 160º.