Food Safety Information in Produce Washing and Cooking Doneness Videos on TikTok

TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms for viewing short videos. There is increasing use of TikTok among youth in particular as a source of health and food information. However, there is a lack of research about safe food-handling information on TikTok. This study analyzed 100 instructional videos on TikTok related to two specific food-handling practices: produce washing and checking the cooking doneness of meat and poultry. A total of 62 produce washing videos and 38 cooking doneness videos were identified for analysis by searching for targeted phrases in the TikTok search function from 2024–2025. Overall, 76 of the 100 videos contained information that did not align with the food safety guidance of government agencies for these two practices. Videos created by food industry professionals were more likely to follow government food safety guidance when compared videos produced by general content creators (41.9% vs. 15.9%; chi-square test P-value = 0.005). Additionally, videos that had a higher number of user saves were more likely to contain information that was not aligned with government food safety guidance (P = 0.023). The findings suggest a need for TikTok content creators to promote evidence-based safe food-handling techniques.