Do you wash your meat?

[DramaQueen]

Exactly the drippy stuff on chicken or the blood on a huge beef tender can have a bit of smell the meat is fine Im just rinsing to get rid of that little bit of funk.Nothing more nothing less.It has nothing to do with bacteria.Its just when it is in a package it just needs a little rinse.

That's exactly why I wash my chicken. You aren't going to sterilize the meat, but you get rid of the funky water residue and bits and pieces of God knows what. I just feel a lot better knowing the meat has been cleaned of the dirty stuff. Cooking will take care of the bacteria.

 

[YT2095]

only beef mince

 

[Robo410]

will rinse the inside of a chicken (turkey goose duck) if it has been frozen to dislodge any remaining ice...otherwise I just brine, drain and dry.

 

[krichardson]

I work in the restaurant industry and we always rinse our meat. The reasoning is not to rinse off bacteria, but to rinse off the chemicals that are added during packaging. Most of the time there is a mixture of preservatives in with your vacuum sealed meat and it is recommened that you rinse this off. This goes for grocery store meat as well.

 

[Caine]

I force my chickens to run through the local car wash before I chop their little heads off.

 

[justplainbill]

I work in the restaurant industry and we always rinse our meat. The reasoning is not to rinse off bacteria, but to rinse off the chemicals that are added during packaging. Most of the time there is a mixture of preservatives in with your vacuum sealed meat and it is recommened that you rinse this off. This goes for grocery store meat as well.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. I thought the blood in the cryovaced lamb smelled like embalming fluid.

 

[keltin]

I wash chicken and some cuts of pork (large pork loins and pork butts), then pat them dry on a large cooking sheet that I use just for handling large cuts of meat (I also have a dedicated cookie sheet just for taking meat to and from the grill). I wash the chicken, loin or butt in the sink and immediately wash and clean the sink with hot soapy water.

I’ve never washed the meat to remove bacteria like the USDA article suggests. I always wash it to get the slimy film off of the meat. When you open chicken or a pork loin, or a butt, the blood/juice have gotten all over the meat, and I don’t like it. And since I often cut up large portions of meat to smaller portions for freezing, I don’t’ want a blood juice popsicle surrounding my meat!

This doesn’t happen often with a whole chicken, but it always happens with large loins and bags of chicken thighs, and very often with a butt. But, with a whole chicken, especially one with the organs inside (which is actually getting rare here lately), I wash it anyway since I like to rinse out the cavity of the bird. Again, it’s not about washing out bacteria, but about getting any coagulated blood and bits from out of the cavity.

I never wash beef as this never seems to happen to beef. And If I buy the meat from the meat counter and pick out myself, I don’t wash it since it doesn’t have the slimy blood juice all over it.

 

[Claire]

I do rinse poultry, especially the cavity of a whole bird. But I never have steaks or roasts. Don't ask me why. A lot of things we do in the kitchen we do because we've watched Mom do it.

 

[YT2095]

seriously, the one thing I do wash (more a case of Having to also) is the packs of Bacon off cuts. I soak them in cold water for a good hour before cooking them (with leaks and poratoes), if you Don`t soak them it gets Way too salty and is inedible after.
I`m a lover of plenty of salt, but these are even over the top for me unwashed.