is everyone still eating chicken or am i putting my family at risk?

[mugface]

Was about to make a chicken casserole for tea!

Is there any risk in us eating chicken or is it just confined to elswhere at the moment?

help!

Erm, we have chicken at least 3 times a week! Don't think you can catch anything from cooked chicken.

I have heard a few times that there is no risk that it could be passed on that way and we are still eating lots of chcken.
I do worry about it though!

No risk from cooked chicken. Only very very strange semi-diseases like BSE can survive cooking.

Why would there be a risk from eating chicken?

Even IF - and that's still an if as far as the UK is concerned - avian flu spreads to British poultry, it is NOT a food-borne virus.

bbc bird flu guide

thanx i'll go and cook it then!

I am waiting for people to get really worried about it and then the supermarket will have loads left over to sell to people like me at reduced prices!!

I think chicken will become more expensive rather than cheaper, don't you think?

We are still eating chicken, but I am concerned. Dont think that I will buy organic free range eggs any more or free range chicken. Less chance that the chickens can catch anything if they are in a barn all day.

Also, not sure what to do about a Turkey, may buy one soon and keep it in the freezer.

According to today's paper, even if you were to eat an infected chicken (unlikely), you'd be fine if it was thoroughly cooked (casseroled should be fine!). The virus is quite fragile and doesn't survive cooking. It doesn't even survive in dead birds for more than about an hour after death. Biggest danger is from the poo of infected birds. You can get it from inhaling the dust of the infected poo.

So the moral is, keep eating chicken, but try not to breathe in any bird poo!

The virus has to mutate to cross over to humans. It is very difficult to pass it to humans even in the mutated form that has passed to humans already.

Even if it crosses the channel and infects our birds.... there is nothing to say it will mutate to a strain that can cross to us!

So much panic is being caused by this.

Jenkel

The chickens that are shut up in a barn all day don't catch stuff cos they're full of antibiotics and artificial growth hormones.

Stick with your free range organic. You CAN NOT catch avian flu from eating cooked chicken.

I'll continue to buy organic and free range. FangAche is right, it's actually quite hard to catch. Battery farming is responsible for a number of diseases that have come into the human population over the years - BSE, for example - in addition to being terribly cruel and inhumane towards the animal.

Our motto is and will continue to be: buy local, buy British!

Jenkel
Please see the BBC Q&A 'Bird Flu' link provided further down in the thread.

Surely if the virus could pass from poultry on sale to humans, it would have got into the general population in SE Asia, not just passing to people who keep poultry? As far as I know, the human victims have all been people who keep poultry.

I am poised and ready to get my 3 chickens culled if the situation deteriorates. Can't face neck wringing myself so hope it doesn't come to that.

Not only have the victims all been keepers of poultry but also live side by side w/their poultry in less than ideal conditions - where say, hygeine is an issue - and/or have eaten 'delicacies' like raw duck blood.

Despite millions of Central Asians living with live poultry in what is basically their living rooms - and breathing in dried faeces and urine - only about 100 people have actually been infected.

HMC
How about building a wire chicken run for your chickens? That's what my sister has done. They area also housed in a shed at night - it's a type of garden shed made for small animals, but still pretty inexpensive and easy to build - from a kit.

Culling just toys w/nature and doesn't solve much. It won't make the strain disappear from the bird population and may indeed prolong the natural attenuation curve of the virus.

Chicken is fine to eat

Saying that i ONLY consume organic chicken, but thats due to the appauling consitions the battery chickens live in. I REFUSE to add and £ to fuel that industry)