To rinse or not to rinse..chicken

Macha

I've heard various people say that chicken should be rinsed to prevent salmonella poisoning but then I've also heard that rinsing chicken can potentially spread salmonella around the kitchen through splashing water, etc and that cooking the chicken kills off any salmonella anyway.

What do you guys think? I'm not sure whether I should be rinsing or not!

6th

I dont rinse. Why would you bother? Cooking it properly is whats important and should take care of any problems but taking it to the sink, splashing water etc .... unnessecery.

enda1

Cooking the chicken kills samonella.

If you want you can wipe the skin and inside with kitchen towel, but I definitely wouldn't go washing it!

The only times I have ever gotten food poisoning were from "establishments"

1 x Kebab place (I know - really my fault)
1 x Burger at 11am served luke warm...(should have sent it back and left)
2 x Buttery TCD (student canteen - god awful place and happened the only 2 times I ever ate their food there!!)

So lesson to be learned, cook yourself and only accept hot food when out.
I think in all the above cases it was from food which had been previously cooked and not properly reheated so that's the main thing with chicken - reheat to steaming hot!

andrewh5

Rinsing does not get rid of salmonella. Cooking does if done correctly.

For safeties sake make sure you wash your hands thoroughly after handling raw chicken.

Dizzyblonde

Rinsing is dangerous, it only makes you splash raw-chicken water around your sink and worktop.

Macha

Thanks guys, I shall continue with my heathen non-rinsing ways.

chuckles30

And then you have people like my mother who would never cook a chicken/turkey without washing it and splashing water to the high heavens. It annoys me so much but she refuses to change.....says it never killed anyone. And after 33 years of eating her cooking, I have never been sick as a result, so she maybe has a point. But I know all the advice nowadays is not to wash it. Cooking it properly is essential though.

SeekUp

Hmmm, I'm a chicken rinser . . . I guess because my mom was as well! Then again, I usually wash what I can (within reason) before cooking it to get off anything that may have gotten on the food during packing and shipping.

Of course, this probably contributes to the fact that the kitchen sink is one of the dirtiest places in the house, so I disinfect it regularly . . .

Redpunto

Yep, cooking kills all the bugs, etc, rinsing it just causes any bugs to get splashed onto surronding areas.

The Sweeper

I'm a rinser, but not because I think it gets rid of bugs. I rinse whole chickens inside and out in salted cold water, and during that rinse I pick them over with a tweezers to get rid of any feathers that were missed, clean out the inside to prep for stuffing and clean off anything on the chicken skin that I don't want there. Then I pat dry with a clean tea towel that goes straight into the wash afterwards.

I don't bother washing whole chickens if I'm going to section them to cook in pieces.

rubadub

Bit off topic, but Nigella was on TV and soaked a full turkey overnight so it took on water and would not dry out as much on cooking.

Dizzyblonde

rubadub wrote: »

Bit off topic, but Nigella was on TV and soaked a full turkey overnight so it took on water and would not dry out as much on cooking.

I remember that - I think it was salt water too.

Magic Monkey

Yeah, that was a brine she used, with various spices for flavour - there's a recipe here. Regarding rinsing poultry, it's now around the time of year we'll get the ads warning us about this. If your sink is deep enough, and you use a slow flow of water to minimise splashing, or even water from a large jug, and sanitise the area afterwards, it's fine (if you really insist on doing it.)

watna

I recently had to endure a very annoying lecture from my mother in law about washing meat. About how people don't do it and it's dirty and dangerous and she just couldn't understand it. She even washes and wrings out mince. I tried to explain to her over and over that washing meat, especially chicken could be dangerous as you were splashing things around your kitchen that would be cooked off anyway. As long as you cooked meat through you're fine.

Not a word of it got through so I guess some people have a "thing" about it and think you should wash meat. I think it's unnessecary and when I'm cooking chicken I'm paranoid about touching taps and things with my hands after touching the chicken and I feel the same about washing it - that it will just spread germs unecessarily.

angelfire9

watna wrote: »

I recently had to endure a very annoying lecture from my mother in law about washing meat. About how people don't do it and it's dirty and dangerous and she just couldn't understand it. She even washes and wrings out mince. I tried to explain to her over and over that washing meat, especially chicken could be dangerous as you were splashing things around your kitchen that would be cooked off anyway. As long as you cooked meat through you're fine.

Not a word of it got through so I guess some people have a "thing" about it and think you should wash meat. I think it's unnessecary and when I'm cooking chicken I'm paranoid about touching taps and things with my hands after touching the chicken and I feel the same about washing it - that it will just spread germs unecessarily.

When handling raw meat especially chicken i normally have a bowl of hot water & soap ready to wash my hands in after handling, and any knives or chopping boards used in food prep should really be washed throughly and disinfected with BOILED WATER straight from the kettle just to be safe. I wouldn't wash the meat though, what's the point, if it is cooked properly any potential germs are killed!

Mr Magnolia

I don't rinse.

I'm very careful when handling chicken. I was very badly poisoned around 10yrs ago, it's no fun.

oblivious

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

Rinsing is dangerous, it only makes you splash raw-chicken water around your sink and worktop.

very true, with proper cook there will be no risk, so why risk a potential contamination.

chefsden

i agree, i think chickens that is wrapped up in the supermarket wraps are okey, as long it's not from a meat counter and sitting out for a while, you would know when the skin is a bit dry looking and discolored,only then wash it . it's okey to cook it straght away,, the less you handle the chicken the better, and its ture that chicken should be cooked to around 72oc + with a clear juicey water dripping out when periced in the inner leg, when the very inside of the leg is cooked around the bone the whole chiken is ready to eat, and the bactira will be all killed at that temperature. a probe is best for this. happy cooking:)

axer

I must say I do rinse even though I know you are not supposed to.

My reasoning is - if you dropped a chicken breast onto the ground whilst preparing it would you put it straight into the frying pan or give it a quick rinse first?

I would give it a quick rinse. How do I know that someone along the way during picking and packaging etc did not drop the chicken breast onto the ground?

Minder

The incidence of salmonella in chicken has been successfully managed to historically low levels since the problem first arose. Studies in the UK have shown that levels of salmonella in chicken are as low as 6%.

Unfortunately, campylobacter, a bacteria that lives in the GI tract of birds is much more common in chicken meat, with incidence frequency in excess of 50%. Campylobacteriosis is the largest cause of food poisoning and usually results from eating poorly cooked chicken.

Poultry farmers, and producers, are fully aware of the hazards posed by campylobacter even though colonized chickens do not show signs of illness. Biosecurity measures in chicken houses, and critical controls applied to the slaughter and production processes, specifically aim to restrict contamination with campylobacter. However, in the UK, estimates indicate that more than 50% of broiler flocks become colonized with campylobacter before slaughter. The spread of campylobacter amongst housed birds, through contact with faeces or water etc., is such that once a member of a flock becomes colonized all the other birds will be colonized within hours. Campylobacter survive in chicken meat during the food production process but do not multiply. A survey of England and Wales by the FSA showed that approximately 50% of fresh and frozen chicken on retail sale was contaminated by campylobacter.

It would seem that, in addition to practicing good food hygiene, avoiding intensively farmed chicken meat will improve your chances of avoiding contaminated meat.

Heating, at temperatures in excess of 50C, is sufficient to kill most campylobacter in a few minutes. This process corresponds to relatively mild cooking conditions so that good practice during the preparation of chicken should be sufficient to remove the hazards associated with campylobacter. However hazards remain either because the cooking step is sometimes uncontrolled or uneven, such as at a barbecue, or because campylobacter is transferred, from uncooked chicken onto ready to eat food, during the preparation of a meal. Cross-contamination may occur via an intermediary such as a preparation surface, a utensil or unwashed hands. Bacteria are easily transferred as an aerosol created during washing. The minimum infective dose for campylobacter is believed to be relatively small, possibly a few hundred cells, so that cross contamination is effective for transferring the hazard during food preparation even though campylobacter populations do not grow outside of the avian gut. The relative significance of cross-contamination, during food preparation, as a means for initiating campylobacter infections in humans is a subject of current debate.

What many articles coyly avoid saying is that campylobacter contamination in chicken meat is a result of exposure to fecal matter - either through exposure to feces in contaminated bedding, water etc in intensively reared animals; or through poor hygiene practices when the birds are eviscerated.

On the positive side, campylobacter is killed at temperatures above 50c.

The Sweeper

On the flip side to this, how much cleaning do people normally do before, during and after preparing food?

I don't wash my whole chickens over a running stream of cold water that splashes everywhere. I put cold water into the sink, salt into the water, chicken into the cold brine. Clean out the bits I don't want and pick over with tweezers. Let the water out of the sink and rinse the chicken under a smal stream of water that doesn't splatter everywhere. Put chicken in clean tea towel, pat dry, then place on whatever preparation surface I'll be using and go and put the tea towel straight into the wash.

(Actually, if I don't have enough tea towels to go in the wash, the towel goes into a basin in the utility room sink that has a few tea towels in it already in a dilute bleach solution and they get washed every few days. I'll go through five or six clean tea towels a day easily, so we have about 50. I always reach for a teatowel instead of something like kitchen towel - and for some reason, once it's been used to dry the dishes, it goes straight back in the wash, not onto a hanger to dry. That and I always wash my tea towels on the hottest setting on the washing machine. Sorry, eco-warriers, but with those it's about hygiene, not sparkling whites.)

Then I'll use a clean cloth rinsed in boiling or near-boiling water to wipe down the counters. There it ends if I'm just preparing vegetables, but with meats and poultry I'll then spray with a light bleach solution, then hot cloth (rinsed again) a second time.

Then again this comes automatically to me, and I'll wash my hands frequently during food prep - every time I touch raw meat, I wash my hands. Between touching different ingredients I'll wash my hands. I wash off chopping boards as soon as they're used for meat - rinse off any bits, pour half a kettle of boiling water over them, scrub with a brush, then second half of the kettle.

It makes me wonder how many of the food posioning problems are through a lack of general hygenic practice, as opposed to panic on things like rinsing chicken?

Beerlao

think about it... how many times have you eaten roast chicken, and i'd say it's not been rinsed the vast majority of those times... and have you ever got food poisoning from it??

The Sweeper

When I was living in England, I bought a packet of raw, whole chicken wings from a store in London - wasn't a particularly hot day, and had them in one of those supermarket foil-lined cold bags. Went home on train - 30 mins.

Got home. Started prepping dinner. Opened packet of chicken wings.

Now I would always, always wash chicken wings before deep frying and using them as buffalo wings. Same deal as my whole chickens - sink of salt water, put them in, rub and rinse each one, pick out feathers.

There was chicken poo on two of the chicken wings. I saw it as a sort of greenish brown goop under the wings, then I smelled it. Yep, chicken poo.

Didn't return them to the shop, because it was just a supermarket I had popped into while passing up in the city and I was now 25-odd miles away.

One of the pluses of washing and picking over the wings is that I noticed it - I might not have if I was just going straight from packet to oil.

Saying that, if I ever bought skinless chicken fillets I wouldn't wash them before use, but to be honest I just never buy them. I nearly always buy either whole chickens, or very occasionally a packet of wings or thighs for a specific recipe.

Honey-ec

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

It makes me wonder how many of the food posioning problems are through a lack of general hygenic practice, as opposed to panic on things like rinsing chicken?

An absolutely huge amount, I would imagine. The Food Safety Authority did a survey at the beginning of the summer, and 52% of the respondents said they would prepare a salad on the same chopping board that they used to cut raw chicken. I was like WHAT THE FOOK??? I was actually genuinely gobsmacked, and to be honest, still am. How can people not know that that's just a no-brainer???

My friends used to think I was a bit mad because whenever I go to a BBQ in anyone's house, I insist on doing ALL the cooking. That survey just reinforced every suspicion I ever had, and then some.

Talliesin

Honey-ec wrote: »

52% of the respondents said they would prepare a salad on the same chopping board that they used to cut raw chicken.

The thing is, that's understandable in one way - it's lazy. Now, that doesn't say it's a good idea, but it's understandable; its smart to try to get as much result out of as little effort, they've just gone to far and its stopped being smart and started being very, very stupid. But still, laziness is understandable.

Similarly, I know there are things I'm more at risk of because I like beef sashimi and rare burgers, but they taste better. So I'm getting something for my extra risk.

Rinsing chicken or other meat* has only one practical purpose; you really hate the people you're cooking for and look forward to laughing your ass off as they are choosing which end currently most needs be pointed at the toilet or are carted off to hospital.

* Not counting a case like MAJD's, it really does help to pluck remaining feathers and is a completely different thing both in what she's doing and how she goes about it

axer

Talliesin wrote: »

The thing is, that's understandable in one way - it's lazy. Now, that doesn't say it's a good idea, but it's understandable; its smart to try to get as much result out of as little effort, they've just gone to far and its stopped being smart and started being very, very stupid. But still, laziness is understandable.

Similarly, I know there are things I'm more at risk of because I like beef sashimi and rare burgers, but they taste better. So I'm getting something for my extra risk.

Rinsing chicken or other meat* has only one practical purpose; you really hate the people you're cooking for and look forward to laughing your ass off as they are choosing which end currently most needs be pointed at the toilet or are carted off to hospital.

* Not counting a case like MAJD's, it really does help to pluck remaining feathers and is a completely different thing both in what she's doing and how she goes about it

If you dropped a chicken breast onto the floor before it reached the frying pan - would you pick it up and put it straight into the pan or would you rinse it first? (or just throw it out?)

Mr Benevolent

Simple solution. IF you're going to wash poultry, use boiling water.

jam_mac_jam

you never every wash chicken or any poultry,or in fact any meat this is extremely dangerous and I am actually amazed anyone is stupid enough to still think you do. You kill germs by cooking food properly not by spreading germs all around your kitchen. jesus I feel sick reading this.

Talliesin

axer wrote: »

If you dropped a chicken breast onto the floor

...then rinsing has acquired a point (actually, depends on the state of the floor).

bonkey

Hmmm...

Seems some people's emotions run quite highly here about just how moronic it apparently is to put running water near uncooked poultry.

So I've a question....you have your chicken, and you've prepared your dish. You now have knives and chopping boards with raw chicken and those self-same germs on it.

What do you do?

Surely you're not irresponsible enough to wash the stuff, with, like, water.

axer

Talliesin wrote: »

...then rinsing has acquired a point (actually, depends on the state of the floor).

how do you know that the chicken breast was not dropped onto the floor before packaging?