How long can you freeze a chicken? Who monitors the safety of food additives? Are tomatoes colored with red dye? These and other interesting questions are collected in the Food Safety Education Database made by Catherine Cochran at the United States Department of Agriculture.

The project uses an appealing tool called "Karen", which is an on line avatar that guides you through the theme of food safety. If the already collected questions are not exhaustive a live chat is available in both English and Spanish. The project aims not only to reach people through laptop and pc, but also to become a useful tool during shopping and common life by means of already available phone apps .Karen is already very popular and many web surfers use it every day. The hope is that people can be made aware of food security problems and learn how to behave to avoid risks such as Salmonella infections, unfortunately still very common and easily preventable (every year 1 person out of 6 is affected, as data by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA, shows).

For more information please visit the USDA website.