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?

Though for my question to make any sense you probably need to accept first that rinsing or washing in vinegar/lemon/line does bugger all to the bacteria.

I don't get all the cross examining TBH. As though meat washing is the only potential for cross contamination when cooking meat.

Amber, if I've prepared a chicken on my chopping board, my hands aren't dripping wet (with water potentially contaminated with bacteria) as I move them around my kitchen. That's what the difference is, to me.

Once I get to the sink, I've got kitchen taps I can turn on with my elbow, luckily for me, and I wash my hands thoroughly after stacking the dishwasher. I'm now looking askance at my soap dispenser as I probably am not as thorough with that as I should be (the side of my hand is not an ideal solution!)

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

Be polite to a dead animal that Im about to cook?

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

It's all coming out isn't it.

I expect lots of you consider yourselves liberal and tolerant too.

You are going to be eating animal flesh. A bit of blood it is sitting in is nothing really.

Amber, of course it's not. As I've said numerous times, it's one risk factor and it seems one that's pretty easy to avoid as it has no hygiene benefits.

It's also one that numerous food safety organisations (not just in the UK) feel strongly enough about to run campaigns on, now and in the past.

I'm not cross-examining - I'm honestly curious. Apologies if it came across as hostile.

Jassy I wash meat and always have done. That is how I was taught to prepare meat.

I have not poisoned anyone, nor have I been ill myself, either at my house or any of my friends/families houses where Ive eaten. They also wash meat first.

I am happy for people to do what the hell they like with their food and would like that to be reflected back to me and how I cook mine.

MamaPain your religious views dont entitle you to dictate what others think or say. I find the idea that random animals and random parts of random animals are unclean, absurd and odd as this might sound, insulting to the animal. My lack of religion is as valid as your religion. You are confusing respecting your right to hold religious views with respecting the views themselves.I do not think pigs are unclean, nor animal blood not unclean so respecting that is a,non starter.

Reminder....

ToBeSure Sun 09-Feb-14 15:46:12

I hate to introduce actual facts into this thread but I have worked in an abboitoir and in a meat packaging plant as an Environmental Health Officer. I specialized in food poisoning. Abbatoirs are a million times cleaner than they used to be but they are far from spotless.

....and I wash my meat if I can but I don't much worry about it if I can't. I wash it mainly to wash off bits of foriegn matter, such as bits of bone or hair, that may be on the meat. If done with a little care then there is no reason at all that you should end up 'contaminating' your sink and work surfaces.

Thorough cooking is the most important thing to do to kill harmful bacteria especially with chicken or minced meats.

*

This sums up much of what both sides have said. The majority of meat washers have not been up in arms about the fact the most of you dont do it.

Some non washers have been disgusted at the fact we do, and others have taken the logical approach being it probably doesn’t matter all that much.

And the comments about using all of the animal are laughable..... You have come to a board arguing against ethnic minorities about using most of the meat? Have you been to a supermarket or an ethnic butcher vs a British one?

Im not even sure why im arguing against ignorance and arrogance based on some sought of cultural imperialism. Meat washing is common in quite a few religions and cultures and these are the reasons we wash meat. It’s actually quite simple and if you take your heads out of your arses, easy to understand.

Its stupid to think people would stop forbidden practice because of the risk of splashing meat water around. Just clean it!

Water splashing is the only scientific evidence which exists for your arguments and know body can confirm how may deaths or illnesses are caused by washing meat so I'm struggling to understand your 'evidence' and how some find it so hard to think outside of what has been 'written'. Most scientists would never prove a thing if all they went by was what other scientists had said.

Oh yes, and I guess most of you have never eaten curries from a Pakistani restaurant.........

Anyway as you were! I'm out. Don’t forget to ask if people wash their meat on your next ethnic experience!

Honestly, if something I did made me sick, I would stop doing it.

Usual hygeine of washing hands etc. cleaning surfaces, I wash/change my dishcloths every day.

Amber - honestly couldn't care less what you do with your own meat in your own home. The evidence behind it obviously doesn't bother you and risk assessment is ultimately something each of us does for our own families based on the evidence and other factors such as religion and culture.

However what does bother me is when people make statements about something being clean, unclean or ignorant based on no evidence whatsoever, because their statements could influence others. I'm sure I irritate many on Mumsnet with my pernickety questions about what the science says but for me, that's a signficant factor in how I make (and re-evaluate) my decisions. Said evidence has led me to change my practices on a number of things over the years.

The evidence behind it obviously doesn't bother you

It doesn't mean anything to me because my many years of experience say otherwise.

If it is a whole chicken, I might give it a rinse under the tap but nothing fancy.

I just make sure to clean my hands and work area thoroughly before handling raw meat.

I have seen how other people prepare food and it makes me not want to eat anything prepared by them. I have also gotten food poisoning from a work pot luck.

The nastiest things I have seen is someone throwing a raw chicken into their dirty sink and running water over it and preparing food with unwashed hands.

Men are good at not washing their hands. You see them scratching their balls, picking their toenails and going into the kitchen and handling sliced meat etc. without washing their hands. yuck.

Episide what is laughable about the idea of eating all of the animal?

Hang on, episode. The insulting of people who don't wash meat in general started at around the 5th post and continued quite strongly from there until others pointed out that there is actual science behind this. Throughout the thread people weren't citing religious reasons for washing meat, it was something they did because it was clean/hygienic as well as for cultural or religious reasons for others.

I'm interested in the science, which I shared as evidence beind my own decision-making. Others have done the same. That's not cultural imperialism or arrogance, that's an evidence-based risk-assessment, using the best available empirical data.

I asked if you had any evidence behind your statements; you declined to provide any.

I'm foreign myself, though you've no idea of my ethnicity.

Great, Amber.

Ultimately the risks of food poisoning are there, we all make decisions on how to minimise them based on what we see as important.

For you, it's your family's experience. For me, I'm a statistically-significant samples and scientific method kind of person. I prefer to look beyond my immediate past experience when trying to avoid future nasties - recognising that we might just have been lucky so far.

Mamapain, even though chicken/turkey isn't dripping in blood it still does contain blood. That's why when you check to see if it's cooked and stick a knife in you see if the juices are clear....

Meat is muscle and muscle needs blood to function, so all meat contains blood. If a religion forbids the consumption of blood then I presume that religion promotes vegetarianism? Forgive me, I'm not clued up on any religious activities.

This is completely irrelevant but a friend of mine who is a plumber went to do some work at a restaurant. He was led into the back room and there was a man kneeling on the floor chopping chicken on the carpet. On the actual carper - no chopping board or special meat rinsing bowl or anything. Put me off eating out for almost an hour.

Caitlin I'm not confusing the two. I am getting frustrated at some posters repeatedly dismissing and underestimating how important these rules are for some people. I have from the beginning said I happily eat unwashed meat and understand that there is little if any scientific support for washing meat.

Some posters seem to wilfully ignore the cultural explanation. Obviously you know that many people's lives are dictated by their religions, so the way some posters are acting as if that is not a valid reason has really pissed me off!

carpet - not carper. Carper would arguably be worse.

Episide what is laughable about the idea of eating all of the animal?

I think she said arguing with ethnic minorities on that matter is laughable.

If you go to an ethnic butcher you will see that you can buy every last piece of the animal!

I think this thread is hilarious now

Never let it be said that we don't take our meat seriously on Mumsnet!

Yes the cultural explanations being dismissed as silly is rather rude.

Jassy, for you,I know exactly how I wash meat because I have a thing about cleaning my taps and draining board

1. Wash hands and faff around in the kitchen in until I once again remember what I'm supposed to be doing.
2. Take meat from fridge, get meat bowl and place it in left sink, turn the tap on low.
3. Remove meat from packet, place it in bin (pedal bin, I don't touch it), place meat in bowl, and push bowl under running water.
4. Move meat about in the water gently until it is submerged then lift bowl out of left sink and into right sink.
5. Use my soap dispenser then rinse hands under water. Turn off the tap.

This is one of the reasons I have a deep, wide double sink. I can go through the next steps if necessary.

Tallforadwarf exactly you cannot separate the blood from the flesh. As you say if you cut into undercooked chicken it runs red. A rare steak runs red when you cut it, a well done one won't but that is due to the cooking process not the absence of blood.