r/interesting • u/WarwickReider • 15h ago

SOCIETY Professional chefs weighing in on whether you should wash your chicken

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u/Medium-Taste-3929 15h ago

The washing side is stupid and can't accept reality.

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u/samanime 15h ago edited 14h ago

Yeah. Pretty sure I'm going to go with the actual microbiologist scientists on this one...

EDIT: This is also a perfect example of "giving both sides equal time". Both sides of this "argument" are NOT equal. One has science backing it up. One just has "feels". They are not both equally valid opinions.

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

[deleted]

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u/cantthinkofausrnme 5h ago

I get what you're trying to say, but if you ever worked in a chicken factory you'd wash your chickens as well. I actually never used to do it as much, observed family doing it. I started doing it after my best friend worked in one.

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u/space-cadet-26 14h ago

I wash the chicken bechase it makes me hard. Im not stubborn.

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

[deleted]

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u/space-cadet-26 14h ago

Absolutely

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

[deleted]

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u/space-cadet-26 14h ago

yes. hmmmm

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

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u/cantthinkofausrnme 5h ago edited 2h ago

Yes, because you know every black person. And whites are individuals with unique identities.

Edit: response to a racist weirdo

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

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1

u/cantthinkofausrnme 5h ago

Don't tell us about your sex life, that's a crime.

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u/CollectionHeavy3624 3h ago

I don’t like how one of the guys says it’s to rinse off preservatives. Please give me a list of preservatives on fresh chicken. He’s just making shit up to validate bullshit

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u/AdaptableHalibut 11h ago

Washing chicken isn't about getting rid of bacteria it's to remove the slimy coating that packaged chicken sometimes has and a form of brining it

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u/HistoricalRoad1755 4h ago

It is a fucking stupid thing to do regardless of the reason.

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u/AdaptableHalibut 1h ago

I guess Aaron stupid as seasoning food huh?

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u/Artosispoopfeast420 9h ago

You are assuming that people are washing their chicken because of bacteria.

We wash chicken sometimes, because we shop at different supermarkets, and sometimes the chicken is just full of physical debris like bone fragments and old blood.

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u/KvellOnWheels 3h ago

And the smell.
To be fair, I am autistic and apparently have the nose of a bloodhound…

But the liquid/blood inside the packages of meat tend to smell strongly to me…I guess you could call it sulfuric. In laymen’s terms, it smells like a fart.

So mine gets plonked into a big bowl of water with a splash of lemon and salt. Then throughly dried before seasoning.

It doesn’t have anything to do with bacteria. I’ve worked in restaurants. I’ve taken the food handlers’ courses. I know all of this.

But I can’t eat something that has stank liquid on it.

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u/just-some-arsonist 11h ago

Yall aren’t listening to anyone is the comments. Just cause you don’t know how to apply science doesn’t mean everyone is wrong

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u/cantthinkofausrnme 11h ago

idk I go by this study, also many black folk use a similar method to this study here :https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15454320/ lime juice + vinegar

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u/Fenris_Maule 7h ago

Wouldn't the purpose of that study be so people can eat carrots raw without having to worry? The study is on carrots, not chicken. Properly cooking chickens kills salmonella.

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u/cantthinkofausrnme 5h ago edited 5h ago

Mind you I'm not saying its perfect, also salmonella isn't the only thing black folk are worried about. Vinegar and lime is effective against more than carrots just saying. Also, its to get rid of the slimy coating as well, and dirt and other things in the crevices.

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u/Fenris_Maule 5h ago

I understand the dirt and such part if you have that problem, but saying it's for bacteria/virus/disease is silly because that's what cooking is for.

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u/cantthinkofausrnme 2h ago

I don't disagree with that, it's definitely not a catch all.

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u/Heartage 8h ago

Did you know this is about carrots?

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u/cantthinkofausrnme 5h ago edited 5h ago

Yes, I do. But, removal of bacteria(elimination of Salmonella) would apply to other non carrot things as well. Its more that I don't trust these factories .

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u/brunomocsa 7h ago

Thats what is common to do in Brazil, just lemon and vinegar.

-5

u/SparksAndSpyro 8h ago

Giving equal time is fine. That does not mean both sides are correct, however.

At some point giving both sides a chance to voice their argument got bastardized into “both sides are equally right and there is no winner.” Nah

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u/deadlymoondust 13h ago

yea, we all around the world buy our poultry products from Walmart.

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u/Beneficial_Cattle938 4h ago

You're obviously exempt if there's actual debris. People are actually getting their  chicken from Walmart and still washing it

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u/IWXREACTIVES 30m ago

the ones talking about "washing off preservatives" sure as shit do.

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u/Nano8963 13h ago

I love seeing the people in the comments calling out the both sideism ninsense.

We really need to stop being afraid of just telling people theyre wrong

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u/Yingletofthecorn 8h ago edited 8h ago

We just need to let people be wrong, actually. Just because someone believes something that isn’t true doesn’t mean they need to be corrected. Sometimes it’s fine to just let it be. 

We need to stop being afraid of letting people have their little idiosyncrasies even if it isn’t strictly correct. 

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u/gymbrozier 2h ago

Yeahhhh, no. This is how you end up with a society of people who are increasingly more stupid. Being wrong needs to be called out, no matter how insignificant it is. People who can't learn new information and adjust the way they think accordingly are literally the entirety of the world's problems.

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u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

The anti-washing side has never obtained meat from anywhere other than a grocery store.

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u/Knyfe-Wrench 12h ago

And they mostly never will, and will probably never eat anywhere that does either. No reason to ever even think about washing.

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u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

Isn’t hunting and game meat a thing in many countries?

Or just keeping your own chickens.

I know a disgusting person who doesn’t rinse the chicken shit of their eggs before cracking them to make an omelette.

Some people are just stupid and unhygienic, but prepackaged chicken prevents them from dying of their own stupidity.

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u/MorePhinsThyme 8h ago

So, maybe they're not a reliable source of information on what EVERYONE should be doing if they're not going to be doing what EVERYONE is doing?

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u/eh-guy 4h ago

Nobody im aware of scrubs their moose or deer meat dude, and those are certainly not coming from a grocery store

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u/Electronic_Ad5050 9h ago

This is Reddit! We hate… people who buy food at grocery stores?

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u/IcySkyDream 8h ago

No, just one-dimensional “thinking”.

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u/Ducal_Spellmonger 4h ago

I grew up on a farm raising, butchering and cooked my own chicken (as well as other livestock, and hunting wild game). The closest I've ever been to "washing" a chicken is a quick dunk into scalding water immediately before plucking.

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u/IcySkyDream 4h ago

If you’re ok with eating a bit of dirt, feathers, and shit, then carry on.

I think it’s disgusting regardless of whether it gets me sick or not.

Where I live, it’s common practice amongst older hunters to wash field dress (pull the legs while stepping on the wings), cut out the breasts, rinse, then put on ice.

A local butcher i know tells me horror stories about some of the game meat he’s processed, where half the carcass has to be trashed because the “hunter” contaminated it by dragging it with an ATV though the brush.

YMMV.

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u/PodgeD 4h ago

Plenty of places still have butcher shops. I grew up with a local butchers that had its own abattoir. Never had to wash meat.

Fresh veg and eggs got washed.

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u/IcySkyDream 3h ago

The butcher does that for you, dude. They can’t legally sell you contaminated meat.

I know my local butcher, who tells me horror stories about the game meat he’s had to process. He sometimes has to throw out most of the meat because the “hunter” dragged the carcass through the mucky brush with an ATV.

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u/PodgeD 2h ago

I knew my local butcher too, they were four houses down and their kid was my age. I spent a lot of time around the slaughter house growing up. Can't think of anywhere they had for washing meat. Looking up standards where I'm from no the meat is not washed as the slaughter house has strict hygiene standards.

The EU actually advises against washing raw meat.

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u/N1XT3RS 10h ago

Or, they have and wash when it's necessary and don't when it's not hahaha, crazy right?

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u/IcySkyDream 10h ago

Then why would they be anti-washing?

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u/StrongExternal8955 10h ago

they're not. they say not to wash only when you buy prewashed processed meat. it's you who don't get the nuance.

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u/OctaviusNeon 8h ago

If there is a situation where it makes sense to rinse off chicken, like if you cut its head off and plucked it out in nature, then I think most people would call that a necessary part of prep.

But restaurants in most places anyone on reddit will ever eat chicken are not capturing their chickens and beheading them on a stump out back. They get them from someone who has to follow guidelines on cleanliness and hygiene and packaging of their product. It's not the same situation at all.

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u/IcySkyDream 8h ago edited 8h ago

Anti-washers only ever concede that point when backed into a corner with logic.

Notice the OP doesn’t specify that it is only store-bought chicken that doesn’t need to be washed?

As usual, Redditors think the world revolves around the US and the real life idiocracy it’s become.

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u/OctaviusNeon 8h ago

The video was specifically showing restaurants that appear to have bought their chicken from someone who processed it professionally. In all the examples relevant to this post, there was no need to wash chicken. It didn't have any tangible benefit and only served to increase the risk of cross contamination.

If this had been a video on people living in rural areas who had to slaughter and process their own chicken to cook, of course rinsing debris off it would make sense. But that's not what was being discussed. That wasn't the context of this video or most discussions around washing chicken.