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Don't Wash Your Raw Chicken

Shel_B

By Shel_B
in Food Traditions & Culture

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Shel_B

Shel_B

Posted
Posted

Julia Child got it wrong when she suggested washing your raw chicken ... or so says Drexel University food safety researcher Jennifer Quinlan . Do you think Quinlan's got it right, or did Julia Child give good advice? What do you think of the article?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/08/23/213578553/julia-child-was-wrong-don-t-wash-your-raw-chicken-folks

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 ... Shel


 

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted (edited)

I have heard this several times over the years. The washing is an ingrained habit for many I think. The theory about germ distribution and not washing makes sense. Has it changed your chicken practice?

Edited by heidih (log)
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Dave the Cook

Dave the Cook

Posted
Posted

There's a similar piece on Slate by L.V. Anderson, who for once has done her homework. She provides a list of authors who tell you to wash:

Martha Stewart
Mark Bittman
James Beard
Alton Brown
Marion Cunningham
Marcella Hazen
Sheila Lukins
Harold McGee
Michael Ruhlman
Marcus Samuelsson)
Irma Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker

Dave Scantland
Executive director
dscantland@eGstaff.org
eG Ethics signatory

Eat more chicken skin.

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gfweb

gfweb

Posted
Posted

There's a similar piece on Slate by L.V. Anderson, who for once has done her homework. She provides a list of authors who tell you to wash:

Martha Stewart

Mark Bittman

James Beard

Alton Brown

Marion Cunningham

Marcella Hazen

Sheila Lukins

Harold McGee

Michael Ruhlman

Marcus Samuelsson)

Irma Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker

I've lost respect for them all. Except Beard who was from another age. And the Rombauers for whom I never had respect.

You wash things you eat raw not things you cook.

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dcarch

dcarch

Posted
Posted

Ridiculous!

There is no harm in washing, as long as you don't lick your sink dry afterwards. IMHO. There is always germs everywhere before you wash your chicken anyway.

I had seen a study advising never flush your toilet. The flushing spreads toilet "stuff" all over your house.

dcarch

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gfweb

gfweb

Posted
Posted

Ridiculous!

There is no harm in washing, as long as you don't lick your sink dry afterwards. IMHO. There is always germs everywhere before you wash your chicken anyway.

I had seen a study advising never flush your toilet. The flushing spreads toilet "stuff" all over your house.

dcarch

I see no harm in washing chicken. I just don't see the point.
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Martin Fisher

Martin Fisher

Posted
Posted

I remove the kidneys, any remaining pin feathers, singe (most birds aren't properly singed), general clean-up and then I wash (rinse, really).
Always have, always will.

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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scott123

scott123

Posted
Posted

I had seen a study advising never flush your toilet. The flushing spreads toilet "stuff" all over your house.

From the things that I've read about chicken farming, this analogy is especially appropriate. Chicken feces supposedly ends up everywhere. Baking chicken might render feces harmless, but I don't want to eat it.

My research dates back about 15 years, so maybe chicken farms have gotten cleaner, but I doubt it.

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huiray

huiray

Posted
Posted (edited)

I knew I read this somewhere before......on eGullet

Prior discussion: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/134309-dont-rinse-raw-chicken-says-bfsa-cfia-usda/

...and the poster "Percival" in that thread had this to say:

Posted 23 August 2010 - 07:17 PM

Sounds great in theory, but as long as you have to break down your chicken, gunk is getting everywhere anyway: your hands, your board, your counter, your sink, your knife. In an ideal world, it would come pre-prepped in vacuum sealed zip-locked bags..
I rinse my chicken. I really don't want to have the residual gunk on it, or other debris it has acquired during the processing and packaging (including being dropped on the floor, as someone commented)
That video in the article(s) looks overly dramatic, IMO. Why would anyone wash/rinse a chicken (or anything else) under a stream of water so strong that it splashes everywhere? It almost looks like the person is using a power hose (a.k.a. your garden hose at full water pressure with a power-wash/jet attachment) to wash that chicken.
BTW, when cooking Hainanese Chicken it is often recommended that your chicken be given a vigorous rub with salt to scrub off all the "nasties" and exfoliate the skin (of the yellowish stuff on it plus other skin residues) followed by, what else, a good rinse :-) and then patting dry before stuffing it with the scallions/ginger etc and poaching. That's how you get that smooth, lovely skin. ;-)
Edited by huiray (log)
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nickrey

nickrey

Posted
Posted

There is no harm in washing, as long as you don't lick your sink dry afterwards. IMHO. There is always germs everywhere before you wash your chicken anyway.

But is there any benefit?

If not, it's just another useless habit.

Nick Reynolds, aka "nickrey"

"The Internet is full of false information." Plato
My eG Foodblog

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annabelle

annabelle

Posted
Posted

I can remember (back in ancient times) my grandmother running a freshly killed chicken over a gas flame to singe off any feathers she was unable to pull free when she dressed a bird. If the goal of this piece is an entirely germ-free kitchen, the author may want to live on the food the astronauts eat: cooked within an inch of its life and vacuum packed.

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janeer

janeer

Posted
Posted

I absolutely rinse my chicken--and my steaks, or anything bought from the market as opposed to cut off the cow at the butcher or purchased at the farm. May I remind everyone that the USDA tells you to do ridiculous things (reading some of their older recommendations about preserving is hilarious), mostly out of an abundance of caution for the clueless. Rinse your chicken in your sink, dry it in paper towels; it will never touch your counters, or spray them with bacteria.

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Jane

Little Compton Mornings

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gfweb

gfweb

Posted
Posted

Ruhlman discusses Alton Brown's point of view on this issue which is "We all need to calm the fuck down!"

Ruhlman post

Ruhlman is the guy who ages his egg nog for a year and keeps stock on the stove top, unheated, for days.

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