To ask if you wash your meat?

[over2021]

No, not another penis beaker!

Today two colleagues in another department were talking about their dinner and it came up that they both wash their meat with a mix of lemon, water and salt before cooking it.

AIBU or is that not the norm? Or have I been feeding my friends and family dirty meat my entire adult life?!

Not sure about "the advice" changing. My nan's generation didn't get government advice on hygiene in the 20s.
I think the microbiologists' advice is fairly sound. The more messing about with raw meat the bigger the chances of contamination.

No, I'd never heard of this before MN when there was a discussion about rinsing mince and how it could spread bacteria around your kitchen. Although, I think the reason for this is to get rid of the blood before cooking.

Thank god this isn't a thread about penis hygiene

I don't and I think Irish and English people generally don't. But many of my colleagues consider it dirty not to, including my Australian colleague who says they didn't get meat packaged from a supermarket or butcher, but from a farm. The meat would literally have bits of grass or grit on it (and probably insect matter) which would need to be washed off.

Another colleague says if you use the water from washing meat to water the garden (obviously no salt) your plants flower better.

They wash meat in America. It’s not recommended in Britain, it splashes bacteria around everywhere.

I've been in the catering industry since I was 15.. I'm now in my 50s, and I've never heard of this until I read this on here..

but I'd assume most people will pour that water down the kitchen sink so you still have the potential contamination issue if it splashed onto, say, drinking glasses drying on the draining board.

But again, if people are routinely doing this and not getting ill, then all good, surely?

I can’t imagine there are many people who are consistently getting food poisoning - and enjoying it so much, that they just keeping giving it to themselves.

I have no skin in the game. I don’t wash my meat. But it must be pretty frustrating to be told you shouldn’t be doing it for X reason - when X reason has never actually happened to you. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I thought this until recently.
Its a cultural thing. "Washing" meat seems more like it's being submerged in water, not being rinsed under a running tap. So I think very little risk of much splashing.

I think the microbiologists' advice is fairly sound. The more messing about with raw meat the bigger the chances of contamination

Yep, this. I sometimes brine white meat in water/salt/lemon, but never 'wash' under running water.

I literally open the packet of meat, put it in a mixing bowl purely for meat. Put water in it, with lemons. Leave it for a few mins, have a swish round and then pour the water away
I do that sometimes,
no idea how the splashing around theory originated , surly most people would wipe down the surfaces later on.

I actually wash my meat with a pinch of salt and all the bad stuff like blood releases and then I cook it after a few rinses. Feel a little left out here lol

Just to add this is done in a bowl I then rinse the water in the sink. Further antibac the entire sink boil kettle water and sterilise entire sink. I pour boiling water in the empty chicken.bowl too just to cleanse it.

It was normal in the 70/80s. I remember my (White British) mother doing it. Then advice was given not to do it as it was unnecessary and risked spreading bacteria around. I don't know anyone who still does it.

I used to because that was the done thing at the time, and I’d watched my mum and my granny do it. Then it was don’t wash because of contamination in the kitchen, and I saw a video showing a couple cooking lunch, washing the chicken, and the spread of invisible chicken juice, that was stomach churning to see. No longer wash meat, but still bleach the buggery out of the kitchen after cooking chook.

For everyone saying that washing meat splashes germs everywhere, that’s ridiculous. You can soak the meat in the sink with lemon. When you remove it, you wash the sink and clean the kitchen counters, stove etc. I don’t see the issue with this?

Nevertheless, yes, I believe it is a cultural thing. Caribbeans wash meat before cooking. The only meat I don’t wash before cooking is mince as it’s pointless since it all just falls apart whenever I’ve tried in the past.

Are your colleagues Jamaican?

This is one of the questions I ask students when I teach 'Equality and Diversity', it is recommended that you do not wash meat in the UK, it doesn't need washing, but it is common around the world and one of those things that gets passed down the generations.

And the question can cause huge arguments a lively discussion.

I actually tease one of my friends with this, we will be cooking together and I suggest putting the meat in a stew unwashed - it gives her a nervous tick and she practically rugby tackles the meat out of my hands.

OP

Ask your colleagues if there is a difference between fruit and vegetables grown under ground v above ground eg carrots v tomatoes, you may well find that they will tell you the sugar content is different and if you are diabetic you should eat one and not the other.

Getting away from food, Vietnamese people basically ignore their new born babies, not because they don't love them, but due to cultural beliefs. They will feed and change them but no one hands the new baby round for a cuddle.

Can you tell I loved teaching this stuff?

I've been doing it years and never got ill. I use vinegar or lemon and water.

It's a carribean and African culture thing.

I know a lot of people to rinse the soap off of dishes and glasses when they wash up also... again I always have

Then it would be the action of pouring the water away that spreads the pathogens.

I've never heard of anyone washing meat, other than on MN. Why would anyone want to?

The Caribbean side of my family do. They're quite obsessive about a clean kitchen. But you get used to white British people telling you you're doing it all wrong 🙄

Getting away from food, Vietnamese people basically ignore their new born babies, not because they don't love them, but due to cultural beliefs. They will feed and change them but no one hands the new baby round for a cuddle.

Sorry but where did you hear this? I'm not viernamese but from my experience of vietnamese friends this isn't true at all.

I do think it's mostly a cultural thing, as a PP said above it makes sense if you're in a hot country and the meat hasn't been stored correctly.
However I do distinctly remember watching my mum (White British)
wash whole chickens under the tap when I was a kid back in the late 80s-90s.
It's not a thing she does anymore.

No I don't

In many Eastern cultures, meat is always washed. In general, hygiene standards are more stringent in many eastern cultures. Whether it be washing yourself after going to the toilet, washing your dishes under running water rather than soaking them in dirty dishwater in a sink bowl, or washing your meat.

Exactly, by British standards, anyone being more careful about hygiene in anyway is a flat earther, doesn’t understand science, is too obsessive and weird. What a very peculiar attachment to a low hygiene bar.