To ask if you clean your meat?

[Cleopatois]

I use lemon and water or white vinegar and water to clean all my meat.

A colleague said she didn't just through it from pack to pan :O

Her reasoning was 'its free range so that means it clean'.

Another colleague said it is a culture thing. What do you do?

The blood does make me squeamish as does human blood and I personally wash it in a bowl so it's not splashing everywhere and still clean the area after. Never had food poisoning from my washed meat :)

the OP wasn't misunderstood mamapain..just unpleasant.

who hasn't been back btw after being called on being a racist twat. Funny that.

the blood makes decent stock.. why the fuck would you want to wash it down the sink anyway? Own your meat

The blood is part of the meat, surely. It's not like washing potatoes to get the mud off. It's like cutting an orange up and plunging it into a bowl of water to get rid of the taste of the juice. I like blood, me.

As I said, it's not always about being squeamish. There are often cultural reasons. I'm not particularly religious but we still follow many practices likes the washing of meat as part of kashrut.

Amber, from my perspective I'd rather do what I can to remove the risks as much as possible - which means avoiding as many potential causes of cross-contamination, including droplet spread, as possible.

Here's an interesting study on microbiological risk factors (well, precis of the study. Twas ever thus). Campden BRI seem actually to have done two linked studies on this in 2003. Naturally the full studies are behind a paywall but most food safety organisations (not just in the UK) recommend people don't wash meat based on evidence of cross-contamination. Paragraphs 8.11 onwards of this one seem to give more detail on the droplet studies.

I imagine it's very difficult to determine exactly how the many cases of food poisoning reported each year were linked to a certain practice as it almost always depends on a degree of personal bias (the person who is ill, the person who cooked the food if that person is different), and there may well be multiple ways the pathogen could have survived.

I have no axe to grind about washing meat being unhygienic. I had never heard of it and if a piece of meat is not fresh I cannot see how washing it will make it better or why fresh meat needs it.

I do think if you're meat eater being squeamish about the blood is a bit hypocritical.

Out of interest - those who wash in a bowl, exactly what do you do with your hands before and afterwards?

Blood is here nor there with regard to stock imo. Its the fat that counts.

I'm not squeamish about the blood per se, I just dont see blood as clean and that lends itself to religious and cultural inluence I guess.

I am not practising and do eat out but in preperation its something I have been taught should not be present when eating and/or must be removed or washed off.

The meat Ihave grown up eating is 9/10 halal so I blood being present is alien to me.

Just my experience!

Jassy - We do what I would expect any one handling meat or any food to do before and after, wash them! Im confused at the question....

if you're eating a dead animal then blood is part of that experience.

Eat the flesh but don't want to see the blood... seriously? christ! This is a dead animal that has died to feed your arse.. you don't want to see any blood? that's offensive to the damned animal.

which is ironic since more blood has been spilled in the name of religion more than anything else.

How is blood "unclean"? That blood was coursing through and essential for sustaining the life of the animal you are about to eat. If the blood is unclean how is the flesh in which it passed through also not unclean?

Wash them of course as you would when you handle any food. If I'm using chilli I wear gloves cause I bite around my nails and it kills when chilli touches it

yeah chilli kills when you go for a piss when you've got dick.

Here is a link to a study carried out in 2009 by the Food Standards Agency looking at "campylobacter and salmonella prevalence on fresh chicken at retail".
Things (I sincerely hope) may be better now but this finding "The prevalence of campylobacter in chicken at retail in the UK was 65.2% based on the combined methods for the 927 samples tested." is quite surprising.

Link from the CDC about campylobacteriosis.
"Most cases of campylobacteriosis are associated with eating raw or undercooked poultry meat or from cross-contamination of other foods by these items." "It only takes a very few Campylobacter organisms (fewer than 500) to make a person sick. Even one drop of juice from raw chicken meat can have enough Campylobacter in it to infect a person!"

apparently.

gamerchick The chef Ferguson Henderson agrees with you.

A famous quote from the book, and personal slogan of Henderson that is often cited by newspapers and used by master chefs reads, "If you're going to kill the animal it seems only polite to use the whole thing."

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whole_Beast:_Nose_to_Tail_Eating

Episode - I mean, is the tap already running, or do you have to turn it on? Have you moved the meat away? How far away do you move it? Is it still dripping (if it is dripping it is probably shedding bacteria). What do you do with the cloth you use to wipe the surface?

Thinking about it though those are valid questions for all meat handling (apart from my occasional 'open pack, dump mince in pan') so actually reasonably irrelevant, apologies. Still interested in what happens with your wet hands though.

But since when is meat dripping with blood. Admittedly I don't eat red meat or pork but I've never once found blood dripping from my chicken or turkey.

As I have repeatedly mentioned, my religion forbids the consumption of blood. I'm not that strict but for many people it is a consideration.

Don't be so rude and dismissive of other people's religious choices, there's no pride in being a smug or nasty.

it's irritating.. if you're going to use an animal then at least be polite to the damned thing.

no respect to a religion or culture who thinks it's above another life that's died to feed it.

and the OP hasn't been back so I know it was on a wind up anyroad.

hides thread.

If you are going to wash meat and you just hold it under a tap, you're going to get splash back.

People have talked about bowls, you wont be getting splash back from a bowl as you won't be running a tap into it.

Out of interest - those who wash in a bowl, exactly what do you do with your hands before and afterwards?

Wipe them across the mouths of my children...but seriously, what kind of question is that?

Amber, I've already clarified. Didn't think it through fully - but if you're washing meat for hygiene reasons, how do you prevent the drops from your hands contaminating your surfaces?

Also, wouldn't you need to be very careful when putting bird into /out of the bowl not to get even tiny amounts of droplet spray?

Jassy if you prepare for example, chicken breast on a chopping board. What do you to prevent your hands contaminating surfaces, including when you wash the contaminated chopping board and knife/scissors?