Do you wash chicken?

[beebee25]

I have a friend who was horrified when a foreign visitor washed chicken and spread chicken juice everywhere. I don't wash chicken but back in the 80s I did as that seemed to be the thing to do. Do you wash your chicken?

yes. in my family culture, we wash our meet and chicken.

No, it's unhygienic and disgusting to spray chicken water around your kitchen.

Yes, always have done and always will. The amount of bits that come off chicken (and red meat to a lesser extent) is disgusting. I wash it carefully away from dishes and completely bleach the surrounding area afterwards. I've never heard of anyone in my family having salmonella and it's been done for generations. I love the outrage this always causes on mumsnet though. I rinse mince too.

How do you think chicken washers do it? This conjures up images of someone using a powerhose and purposely spraying it around the kitchen. When I wash any type of meat, it doesn't spray anywhere.

Love this, I did giggle!!

Rinsing meat isn’t washing it. Just like rinsing your hands under a tap after a shit isn’t washing them.

If you’re using an antibacterial soap or spray, then you’d be washing your chicken. But obviously it would not be edible for consumption once clean.

I don’t meet much chicken.

Yes I wash chicken, pat it dry with kitchen towel and sprinkle turmeric on it before cooking.

You’re not meant to but I do if I make certain Caribbean dishes. Just because I find it actually makes a difference to how the chicken pan fried or sticks to sugar or browns etc. Caribbean people wash it so I follow their way when making their dishes.

Noooooo

My MIL uses olive oil soap (completely natural but antibacterial) to wash whole chicken. Or coats it in flour and/or salt or lemon juice, then washes it off.

No. Cooking it thoroughly kills the bacteria. Washing it spatters the bacteria all over your kitchen.

I wash everything in my home. We have never had any food poisoning or illness from it (so far).

I do know not to wash anything in professional setting.

No. I saw something probably facebook were someone was shocked her host hadn’t washed her mince!

No official advice is not to wash it.
It spreads bacteria and you are likely to end up with food poisoning

Our chickens like a dust bath won’t even leave the shed if it’s raining too much.

Not always, but I have done on occasion. Sometimes the tray or vacuum pack the chicken is sold in has a sort of chicken slime at the bottom, so I do rinse it then. I do this with a really slow running cold tap and I thoroughly disinfect the whole sink area and tap afterwards.

You are possibly likely to get food poisoning if you don't have proper hygiene after food prep, I'm not sure how the millions of chicken washers around the globe are still alive.

Yes.

How do people wash things, if you think chicken juice is being sprayed all over a kitchen simply from washing it? Folk aren’t doing the Macarena with raw chicken and lemon juice in their hands.

I do wash my chicken, in a bowl, inside my sink, with water and vinegar, to remove all of the blood and gunk that comes on it (we use a lot of thigh meat which has a lot of crap on it).

I then clean down my kitchen sink, my bowl, my utensils, kitchen sides and chopping board, using the same disinfectant that I would if I was only cutting unwashed chicken on a chopping board.

Washing it isn’t the problem. It’s cleaning up after yourself correctly.

Again, cultural in our household (African).

Bits of what come off? I'm baffled.

No. I remember my mother washing a joint of meat before cooking.

Washing your meat doesn't mean holding a chicken breast under a running tap, it means making a bowl of water with vinegar lemon and lime, triming your meat/bird and placing it in the bowl and scrubbing the meat with the lemon/lime.
People who "wash" their meat are used to cleaning the area and not splashing germs about.

This is a goady post.

We always washed chicken in my house growing up - Nigerian mum. So that’s what I always did. Now I rarely cook but Scottish partner never washes chicken due to aforementioned comments.

Absolutely not! Big big no. Cooking it kills the bacteria, washing it just splashes it round the kitchen.