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?!

It's for the first month and it depends how traditional the family are.

The baby wears second hand clothes and you are not supposed to compliment it.

Basically there are demons wanting to posses / steal or interfere in the later life of the child.

Traditionally mum does not leave the house and doesn't wash, or may wash but not her hair.

At 30 days there is a big welcoming party, this is when gifts for the baby are given, mum can leave the house etc and the day after the baby should have its head shaved

Sorry I sold my textbooks so I don't have my original reference but this lists not 'coddling' the child.

theculturetrip.com/asia/vietnam/articles/9-vietnamese-superstitions-people-still-believe/

Different cultures do different things. I always wash my meat with lemon & water and everyone I know does the same

This. It seems that most English people don’t wash their meat so I’m sure your colleagues were either Black, Asian or maybe even Arab/Middle Eastern. Everyone I know washes their meat because it’s just what we do in our culture.

I always see the argument, ‘you’ll contaminate your kitchen with bacteria,’ etc. You know we’re grown adults who are more than capable of putting a lime/lemon into a bowl and letting that sit on the side for some hours. We’re then able to rinse the meat carefully without it splashing all over the kitchen sides as if we’re kids! We then clean the kitchen with anti bac in case any water did splash over onto the sides. People have been washing meat for hundreds of years so I think it’s more than a safe practice when done correctly

Can someone even explain to me where this ‘splashing of the water’ comes from? There’s literally no splashing involved whatsoever

I wipe chicken and pork with kitchen paper. Don’t do anything with beef or lamb.

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.

Would you please explain why not washing meat is so unhygienic - also why so many of us who don't wash our meat have reached a good age with rarely ever being ill. There is absolutely no need to wash meat - where do you think it has been that it needs washing? Incidentally, I'm not British but do live in an agricultural country.

I saw a TV chef wash mince once, I couldn't believe it.

Yes i do. Again, cultural thing. We were taught it is nasty not to wash meat/veg.

Splashing scenario is nonsense. Meat is put in a bowl (used mainly for only meat) with lime/lemon and salt. It takes of debris you cut away unwanted fat. It also cuts the roar meat smell. Rinse and season/marinade.

I'm sure white British do the same for fish/seafood?

Meat blood isn't dripped all over the place on clean dishes because ideally they wouldn't be there. Wipe down kitchen sides with a cleaning cloth. Wash out sink. Simples.

Are they washing or brining? A lot of the U.K. are now soaking meat in water, salt and herbs/seasoning much like in the US which is meant to make the meat more tender and taste better

Exactly this:)

Ignorant comment. Washing meat isn't necessary in your eyes.

Where did you get your statistics of non meat washers living longer or being healthier?

Is it hard to accept different cultures do things differently and don't follow the ever changing advice of some health board.

‘Dirty meat’ is making me giggle. I’m obviously very immature.

Anyway, no, I don’t wash meat. I did used to wash chicken back in the day until I read it’s likely to cause cross contamination of your kitchen.

How come?

@SquirrelG There is absolutely no need to wash meat - where do you think it has been that it needs washing?

Try washing the next whole chicken that you buy with lemon/salt in a bowl and then all the grime and scum that you will see floating around the bowl when you take the chicken out should answer your question.

I don’t wash meat, but my mother does. She ran water over it and then seasoned it.. I hated doing it as a teen. Hated the feel of raw meat. Saying that, I don’t rinse the meat here in the U.K. because it is not swimming in liquid. Definitely did it when I lived in the States for that reason.

I pat whatever meat (not mince) with kitchen towel to absorb the extra moisture after letting it get to room temperature, season all over, wash hands, prep the skillet and put meat on, cook til done. Meat always comes out hot, flavourful and juicy.

Find prepping and cooking meat a faff anyway so don’t really do or eat it on the regular, but DH does and almost want to kick him out of the house for the mess he leaves behind from it. Don’t get how it can be so difficult to tidy as you cook.

No never, and I understand it's especially bad to wash chicken due to the risk of splashing bacteria around the sink/prep area.

Never. I don't wash fruit and veg either. I'm alive and I can count the times I've had a dodgy tummy my entire life on one hand.

I dont buy sealed packs of meat from the supermarket. I buy from halal butchers. I rinse off any debris on the meat in a bowl of water.

No one who is washing their meat is then shaking it out like a freshly rinsed t shirt. This spread of bacteria nonsense just replaces one poor hygiene practice with another bad one. After you wash anything in your sink, would you not wipe it down anyway. With meat, you would just make sure to wash down with anti bac.

No I don't but lots of people do. I have never seen any evidence that it makes a difference to the flavour of the finished dish so I'm not about to start doing it.

No never

Ignorant comment. Washing meat isn't necessary in your eyes.

It's not necessary in most people's eyes I think you will find. If some cultures do it then that is fine, but it is ignorant to say that people who don't do it are unhygienic!!!

Where did you get your statistics of non meat washers living longer or being healthier?

I'm not talking about statistics - I'm talking about all the people I know (including myself) who have never washed meat. As I said, I live in a country where agriculture is a big thing, we know our meat, and we don't wash it.

Try washing the next whole chicken that you buy with lemon/salt in a bowl and then all the grime and scum that you will see floating around the bowl when you take the chicken out should answer your question.

I never cook a whole chicken - but I eat a lot of chicken when out, or visiting other people, without suffering any ill effects. I couldn't care less about grime (??) or scum.

I’ve watched white American women wash chicken under the sink, not everyone puts it in a bowl with slices of lemon (women in question East Coast college educated).

I don’t come from a chicken washing culture.

After reading the thread I wonder if people are mixing up washing with brining.

Washing is rinsing so,etching under the tap

Brining is the process of submerging a cut of meat into a solution of salt and water. It adds flavor, seasoning from the inside out, but it also changes the meat's physical nature. The salt in brine denatures the meat's proteins to allow the cells to retain more moisture.

@SquirrelG I never cook a whole chicken - but I eat a lot of chicken when out, or visiting other people, without suffering any ill effects. I couldn't care less about grime (??) or scum.

If you don’t care about grime or scum, then why ask where it has been that it needs washing? I imagine that it’s a similar place to where your hands have been after you use the toilet? Somewhere where there are germs, I presume? 🤨

It's cultural.

The same with the way people use the toilet, yes people use toilets differently.

If you went to a new fictional place where no one washed their hands after going to the toilet, because there was some over way of cleaning - maybe your arse is washed and dried by an automatic system, or your hands were cleaned by a new form of light or the new place had irradiated bacteria so your poo was sterile you would still want to wash your hands.

It's a cultural norm in this country, we use the toilet, we wash our hands. If we all lived in this new place where it made no difference we would still do it.

Think about the meat we eat, we don't eat some animals, there are some meats / food that are not eaten for religious reasons but then there are some that it is cultural.

In the UK we eat hens eggs, or duck eggs if you can get them, in other parts of the world you might eat a penguin egg or roast a puffin for dinner.