DH and food hygiene

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Making lunch and chopping salad. Needed to open a packet of chicken thighs so I stabbed through the plastic film as there was no tab. Put chicken in roasting pan, washed hands. Went back to making salad. DH outraged and convinced I’ll kill us all because I used the salad knife to open the chicken packet. I think he’s overreacting.

With your DH on this. Why not just use a separate knife?

People all "you'll be lucky if you don't all come down with salmonella"! We used to live in caves ffs. And no-one knew what food hygiene even was, until, what? 100 years ago? Funnily enough, the human race survived!

Always one.

I'm with your DH too.

I'm with your husband, i'd have washed the knife even if i'd only opened the packet and not cut the chicken with it.

Nope nope nope clean knife even better use a different knife.

Yes, knife should have been washed.

without washing the knife as well as your hands? bloody norah, DH is a chef. he'd fire a commis for that

I call reverse. When has there EVER been a thread on here where the DH is more knowledgeable about food hygiene?

enjoy the shits

That's pretty risky.
I got bad food poisoning from a pot luck one time. It's not pleasant.

You have pretty much acted out the scenario used in all the food hygiene videos about how to kill people with salmonella.

Raw meat/juices + uncooked food = food poisoning

I'm with your DH and would be wary of eating stuff you'd prepared.

I’m with you OP. I do stuff like that all the time. Very lax.
If you’d cut the chicken then yes wash the knife, but just opening the packet? Nah.

Yep with your husband sorry. I'd have used a different knife, or given the blade a quick wash before going back to the salad.
I'm not super fussy with many things, but raw poultry is one where I like to make sure nothing is cross contaminating. .

Did you carry on using the knife to chop the salad after you had stabbed the chicken out of the packet?

Or was that job already done and he’s angry that you didn’t use a fresh knife to open the chicken?

If it’s the former he has a point, if it’s the latter I don’t see the problem

I'm generally very relaxed in the kitchen, but I like to think in a sensible way. So I'm afraid I'm with your husband too OP. In fact, I keep my smallest paring knife for the sole use of stabbing packets that have no tab. It's useless for anything else, and I use my 6" and 8" chef's knives for chopping veg and salad, so no danger of cross-contamination.

Salmonella poisoning is no fun. Yes, the 'elf and safety' rules may be getting out of control in other areas, but raw chicken hasn't changed it's risk factors, and raw and cooked food (or, in this case, raw chicken and uncooked to-be-eaten-as-it-is raw salad) should never meet each other.

I also agree with your husband. I would have used a different knife or cleaned the knife

He was right.

Maybe killing is an exaggeration but a nasty dose of salmonella poisoning is possible.

The underside of the film on the packet would have been coated with bacteria. Once the knife goes through that and is withdrawn the blade would have been contaminated. The chicken in the package would have been bounced and rolled around in its journey from the factory to the shop and then onto the shelves etc.
I wash the packaging in hot water and detergent before recycling because salmonella multiplies so fast.

I thought everybody knew not to contaminate things with raw chicken.

I've been vegetarian since childhood and I know it. Never prepped a chicken in my life but still know that raw chicken is potentially dangerous.

People all "you'll be lucky if you don't all come down with salmonella"! We used to live in caves ffs. And no-one knew what food hygiene even was, until, what? 100 years ago? Funnily enough, the human race survived!

As a species we've come close to extinction at least once. Life expectancy has increased greatly in the last 100-150 years and that's at least as much down to hygiene as it is to medical advances.

"We used to live in caves..." and what was the life expectancy then?

@Quarantimespringclean The outer packaging can be contaminated too. Know someone who went behind the scenes in a supermarket and saw meat packaging split open so the juices etc went over other packets that were then put on the shelves.

NEVER believe that outer packaging is clean.

at the moment it may even have covid on it if someone has shed the virus from their hands . It can live for 5 days on plastic.

I'd have washed the knife too. The meat will absolutely have been against that film at some point.

@zingally

OP, if it makes you feel any better, I wouldn't have washed the knife either!

Been cooking independently for best part of 20 years now - still alive!

People all "you'll be lucky if you don't all come down with salmonella"! We used to live in caves ffs. And no-one knew what food hygiene even was, until, what? 100 years ago? Funnily enough, the human race survived!

People died all the time 100 years ago, usually before the age of five. The human race surviving regardless of food hygiene wouldn't be much comfort to me while I was simultaneously puking and shitting.

When you open a packet of meat, there's almost always condensation or some juice on the film lid as things don't get transported the right away up and tend to sit sideways or even upside down sometimes so pretty impossible for a knife to pierce the film lid and not have contact with the juice from the raw meat. I would always wash the knife before using it again or put it in the dishwasher and use a new one.

I don't even cut raw chicken on a chopping board. I use pre diced if I need it for a curry, use scissors and hold it over the pan and cut it directly into the pan or I cook chicken first then slice it. I used to work as a chef and let me tell you, chopping boards hoard bacteria, even the plastic one's! The only chopping boards that are pretty safe are metal or glass one's but they are horrible to cut on

I wash the packaging in hot water and detergent before recycling because salmonella multiplies so fast.

Careful then to clean up the whole area that may have been splashed. Washing the chicken itself (not sure about packaging) can be quite hazardous www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/never-wash-raw-chicken/