To ask what you do when preparing raw meat

[Rosesandthistles]

I have OCD with a contamination/germ obsession as part of my condition and have lots of excessive/irrational fears around germs and illness. One of the (many) ways that this affects me is that I cannot bare to prepare or even have other people prepare raw meat in the kitchen.

I am working through therapy on facing this fear and wondered how cautious everyone else is when preparing raw meat- do you:

• Wipe the sides down after for example sticking chicken fillets in the oven or do you just bung them in and ignore any spills?
• Avoid touching the oven/other ingredients with raw meat still on your hands or would you just go around touching the other ingredients and the oven without thinking about it?
• Put any chopping boards/knives that you've used on raw meat straight into the dishwasher or do you leave them lying around or wash them up by hand?
• Wash your hands for 20 seconds after handling meat? or just a quick rinse? And would you wipe the taps afterwards or try to avoid touching the tap with stuff on your fingers or just not think about it?

Also, have you ever had food poisoning after eating food that you've prepared?

I forgot to mention that i put the packaging into a plastic bag before i put it in the bin

I would
Wash hands immediately (twice 😳)
Wash chopping board and knife/scissors immediately with hot soapy water
Wipe surfaces with hot soapy cloth
Spray chopping board, washing up brush, knife and surfaces with anti bac.
Wash up/wipe over again.

I haven’t been diagnosed with ocd but my family all say I have ocd and I always score highly on the ‘do you have ocd?’ tests

So much sympathy for you OP. OCD is such a cruel and debilitating condition and I completely understand how it can make you lose sight of what "normal" is - especially with something like raw meat preparation where taking some precautions is sensible, it can be really hard to know where the line should be drawn.

What you describe in your original post sounds like a really sensible method to work towards.

Wishing you all the best with your treatment.

None of that - all seems very fussy. We need a few bugs regularly to build up our systems, so really not worth stressing about any of it.

@Hbh17

None of that - all seems very fussy. We need a few bugs regularly to build up our systems, so really not worth stressing about any of it.

Not sure you can build up your immune system to food poisoning.

@Hbh17

None of that - all seems very fussy. We need a few bugs regularly to build up our systems, so really not worth stressing about any of it.

I don't know if that's true or not but I've been cooking in my own kitchen for over 40 years without doing any of this. I rarely cook chicken as I don't like it but in season regularly cook (and occasionally pluck and clean) game birds without doing any of this.

I don't know if that's true or not but I've been cooking in my own kitchen for over 40 years without doing any of this. I rarely cook chicken as I don't like it but in season regularly cook (and occasionally pluck and clean) game birds without doing any of this

You wouldn't wash your hands?

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

I don't know if that's true or not but I've been cooking in my own kitchen for over 40 years without doing any of this. I rarely cook chicken as I don't like it but in season regularly cook (and occasionally pluck and clean) game birds without doing any of this

You wouldn't wash your hands?

Quick wash before, afterwards if I were actually plucking and cleaning game birds as that's a bit messy but the rest of the spraying, disinfecting, bagging up etc, no I wouldn't.

Ah right, I don't disinfect and bag up etc. Hot soapy water is all that's needed.

@RufustheFloralmissingreindeer

I forgot to mention that i put the packaging into a plastic bag before i put it in the bin

I thought the bleach was a wind up, but now I now you're trolling!

@BingoFucklinger

So much sympathy for you OP. OCD is such a cruel and debilitating condition and I completely understand how it can make you lose sight of what "normal" is - especially with something like raw meat preparation where taking some precautions is sensible, it can be really hard to know where the line should be drawn.

What you describe in your original post sounds like a really sensible method to work towards.

Wishing you all the best with your treatment.

Thank you Bingo! It is really hard as I have quite severe OCD (needed a long hospital treatment stay, affects all areas of my life etc).

Some people have suggested just becoming veggie and I would love to and actually might in the near future but I still have to cope with the fact that the rest of my household are desperate to get back to eating freshly prepared meat and work to face this aspect of my contamination OCD so hopefully I can just follow the basic hygiene regulations in my OP and drop some of my compulsions and safety behaviours!

old

No im not 😀

But as i said I don’t eat it myself so I’m possibly a bit more paranoid about spreading dead chicken around my kitchen and myself

Though to be fair I’d probably feel the same with a live chicken 😀

@ginghamstarfish

Oh yuk, the thought of people voluntarily eating raw chicken ..... puke.

It’s very thinly sliced, sashimi style, and incredibly fresh. But it doesn’t really taste of much. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about if it’s properly prepared…I imagine there’s a lot of training. Perhaps not as much for chefs in restaurants than serve fugu mind you!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18065372

The really skilled chefs can apparently serve you fugu with just enough poison to make your lips tingle, but not actually make you ill. Now, that’s something to be concerned about!

Oh yuk, the thought of people voluntarily eating raw chicken ..... puke

Or cooked for that matter. I really hate the taste and smell of chicken. I hate it when cold chicken gets hidden in a cold buffet salad. Yuk.

Everything you've said is pretty standard and not within the realms of OCD food preparation.

I have OCD, at its worst I would have to wash everything before doing the chicken, then I'd have to wash the board; and the knife, then disinfect it before it went to the dishwasher, then wash and sanitise my own hands, before sanitising the whole kitchen once before putting the chicken on to cook, sanitise again, then again before food could be served.

God that was hard, and I'd usually burn food because I was so focused on getting rid of all the germs that would certainly kill off everyone in the house.

Now, I usually pay for pre diced chicken, cut it open directly over the dish/pan it'll cook in. Put the package straight in the outside bin, wash hands, sanitise the immediate area incase of chicken splash, wash my hands and it causes 0 distress now.

Ps. My in laws get food poisoning quite regularly, their food hygiene practices are scary. They're still here. Try not to focus on food poisoning too much, especially given that you are carefully handling the food to avoid that outcome.

@RufustheFloralmissingreindeer oh god please please stop the bagging at least! There's enough plastic waste as it is.

I’m not overly cautious at all, but I do wash my hands after preparing raw chicken, and use my only plastic chopping board for raw meat/fish (everything else gets chopped on bamboo boards) which goes straight in the dishwasher. I wash hands before touching other stuff. I don’t wipe down surfaces until I’m done completely in the kitchen. Am less careful with meat than I am chicken. Wash my hands but probably not for the full 20 seconds.

Never had food poisoning (from food I’ve prepped myself)

When I'm cooking, I tend to get everything ready before I actually start - so I chop the veg and meat, make up the stock etc. I make sure that the meat is the last thing I prepare, and then I wash the knife and chopping board, and my hands before I start the actual cooking. I think this minimises the risk of raw meat juices ending up on the kitchen surfaces - and it also means that the raw meat juices don't end up on the veg either, although that isn't an issue for me, because I know they are going to get cooked.

[quote oldwhyno]@RufustheFloralmissingreindeer oh god please please stop the bagging at least! There's enough plastic waste as it is.[/quote]
I use the bags the shopping comes in and i cook chicken 4 or 5 times a year….so I’ll carry on

@RufustheFloralmissingreindeer

I forgot to mention that i put the packaging into a plastic bag before i put it in the bin

Why? What's it going to do once it's in the bin?

I'm pretty lax about it and have never had food poisoning.

Use seperate chopping board/knife which gets washed up with the rest of the dishes - no idea what the point of doing it "immediately is".

Hands will get a quick wash before/after handling.

Don't feel the need to bleach every surface in sight like some it would seem.

@Girlmumdogmumboymum

Everything you've said is pretty standard and not within the realms of OCD food preparation.

I have OCD, at its worst I would have to wash everything before doing the chicken, then I'd have to wash the board; and the knife, then disinfect it before it went to the dishwasher, then wash and sanitise my own hands, before sanitising the whole kitchen once before putting the chicken on to cook, sanitise again, then again before food could be served.

God that was hard, and I'd usually burn food because I was so focused on getting rid of all the germs that would certainly kill off everyone in the house.

Now, I usually pay for pre diced chicken, cut it open directly over the dish/pan it'll cook in. Put the package straight in the outside bin, wash hands, sanitise the immediate area incase of chicken splash, wash my hands and it causes 0 distress now.

Ps. My in laws get food poisoning quite regularly, their food hygiene practices are scary. They're still here. Try not to focus on food poisoning too much, especially given that you are carefully handling the food to avoid that outcome.

Hi Girlmum,

Yes I know- sorry lots of people didn't understand that my OP was just about normal hygiene precautions.

I don't prepare meat at all and can't even cope with it being prepared in the kitchen because of possible cross contamination and because even the thought of it sitting in the fridge makes me anxious. It's been prepared (not by me) twice in the last six months in our house- each time I've covered the kitchen sides/surfaces in bin bags and kitchen roll, insisted that the person preparing it has worn disposable gloves (this is for meat that only needs bunging onto a tray) and insisted on multiple glove changes, long handwash, special handling of a double-layered bin bag for the packaging and extensive disinfecting of the non-existent spills etc.

I have had hospital treatment for my OCD but still struggle with it and have had 18 years of on/off treatment (I'm in my early 30s).

That's great that you can deal with raw chicken with 0 distress now!

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius

When I'm cooking, I tend to get everything ready before I actually start - so I chop the veg and meat, make up the stock etc. I make sure that the meat is the last thing I prepare, and then I wash the knife and chopping board, and my hands before I start the actual cooking. I think this minimises the risk of raw meat juices ending up on the kitchen surfaces - and it also means that the raw meat juices don't end up on the veg either, although that isn't an issue for me, because I know they are going to get cooked.

That sounds like a good way of dealing with it SDTG.

@CapMarvel

I'm pretty lax about it and have never had food poisoning.

Use seperate chopping board/knife which gets washed up with the rest of the dishes - no idea what the point of doing it "immediately is".

Hands will get a quick wash before/after handling.

Don't feel the need to bleach every surface in sight like some it would seem.

Oh sorry the 'dealing with it immediately' thing is so that you remove the possibly 'contaminated' items to avoid the risk of cross contamination in the kitchen rather than for example leaving a chopping board, covered in tiny leftover bits of chicken/juices lying around in the sink or on the side.

I think you should use proper hygiene practices for raw meat that would be acceptable in a professional kitchen. And then no more.

So red chopping board or scissors is fine. Put the tap on before you handle the raw meat to wash your hands and yes anti bac raw meat spills if there are any.

If you start washing your hands 10x and bleaching them after handling raw meat you're going too far.