Chicken contamination

[cats]

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Just wondering here what you guys are thinking about this latest news on chicken contamination? Apparently, a recent study/inspection determined that 83% of roasting chicken is processed under very unsanitary conditions and things like E.coli are prominent. Personally, I'm always very careful with handling and cooking chicken, as I suspect you guys are, but I find this really scary.

 

[PytnPlace]

Yes I'm always careful with it. We eat a lot of chicken and I mostly buy boned chicken pieces. When I come home with them I wash and dry and trim the pieces b4 I freeze them. If you wash your chicken and cook thoroughly you should be O.K. But yes, it is scarey and a little gross isn't it?

 

[Uncle Bob]

As previously stated....Use good sanitation in your kitchen (you know the drill..No cross contamination!)
and cook to a safe temp. You will be fine!

 

[Constance]

This is not big news. Chicken has always been nasty. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Picken ****with the chickens"? They eat whatever's in front of them, including their own droppings.

Though it may seem strange, the "experts" now say not to wash the chicken after you take it out of the package, as that tends to spread contamination to your sink and working surfaces. The germs are killed by thorough cooking.

One suggestion I'd like to make: don't use wooden cutting boards for chicken, or other meat, for that matter. There's no way you can sanitize them. The cheap acrylic ones can be bleached or put in the dishwasher, and are safer, IMO.

 

[auntdot]

E Coli is a bacteria that resides in the colons of chickens and humans, just to name two species.

The contamination of the meat comes from the evisceration process.

Knick the colon when taking it out and E coli is on the meat, and probably on the tool that was used to take out the guts. Use the same tool for the next bird and you get cross contamination.

It is hard for me to believe that grandma knew how to take out the intestines in a pristine fashion, and that no contamination of the meat ever arose then.

But then again she probably washed the bird and cooked it immediately thus getting rid of the nasty, but ubiquitous, germ. The bird did not sit in a wrapped package for a day or two in a case before someone purchased it for eating two days hence.

Yep, just clean and cook the bird well. And relax. The nasty germ has been around longer than we folks have been, and will probably still be there when the last human turns off the light.

So it goes.

 

[BlueCat]

Not that I'm denying any of the dangers, but I heard a second source say that those findings were not accurate. I can't remember the source, but they had much more realistic sounding statistics. I have to think that this is correct or I could never eat another chicken.

BC

 

[boufa06]

It seems to me that worrying about chicken contamination by E. Coli is hard to fathom. If this was the real problem, there should be many reported cases of food poisoning to humans perhaps reaching epidemic proportions. To me, the real danger is what the effects are on humans resulting from growth hormones, antibiotics, and questionable feeds that their use has become so widespread in the poultry business. In addition, let's not forget the incredible practice of injecting water to the chicken flesh to increase its weight and also adding a number of substances to stabilize the water as well as avoid detection of the water stabilizers.

Come to think of it, unless you can raise your own chicken, worrying too much about what you eat will probably not help much no matter how well founded such worrying may be. So don't worry, be happy (contaminated or not).

 

[Robo410]

cook the bird ... wash your hands tools counter and sink...
nah, think I'll just eat the bird raw today...and clean the kitchen next year. NOT.

 

[Constance]

I have friends that used to raise their own chickens. They'd order 50 baby chicks from the feed store, keep them inside under a light and feed them until they were big enough to go outside, at which time they were put on a special feed until they were ready to kill, at about 4 lbs. (Country people talk about slaughtering beef and pork, but they kill chickens.)
The whole family would pitch in the day they "processed" the chickens. Dew (our friend) used a hatchet to chop the heads off...he didn't have my Grandma White's skill at ringing the necks. He had a special machine (formidable looking thing) the plucked the birds.
I couldn't tell you how the birds are gutted, except that if you look at a whole chicken from the market, you can tell it's done through the back end...the part where you stuff the lemons and thyme.
But I can tell you that, at least on the farm, the chickens are scalded in boiling water after they're naked. I would think that would take care of the bacteria.


[By the way, did you know, that when you cut open the chicken, you will find a string of eggs, from small with almost no shell, to increasingly larger ones with stronger and stronger shells? While I've never had a chance to taste them, I've been told that the chicken and dumplings made with those immature eggs are wonderful. Incidentally, in our neck of the woods, dumplings mean homemade noodles.]