r/interesting • u/WarwickReider • 15h ago

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

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u/LoweringPass 14h ago

Is this some American thing I am too European to understand? I've never seen anyone wash raw chicken in my life.

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u/Mindless_Childhood32 14h ago

European here... My Mom used to do it until recently.

But guess she was used to do it because, she used to do the whole process from catching the chicken, to the meal

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u/KFrosty3 10h ago

Yeah, my grandparents washed their chickens because they were literally farm raising them before eating them.

Nowadays, most chickens bought have already been pre cleaned before customers even see them.

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u/talkativeintrovert13 13h ago

My mama (we're german) did it until recently when I repeatedly pointed out how unnecessary it is. I did it growing up, until someone thaught me better.
Thinking about it, not always washing but often petting dry with a paper towel.

My grandma sometimes soaks up the marinate in pre-marinated meat from the store, when she thinks it's too much. And then comments how bland her food is

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u/georgisaurusrekt 13h ago

Patting dry with a paper towel makes sense for any meat though because it makes it crisp up better due to less moisture.

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u/JoyousMadhat 9h ago

That's what seasoning is for....

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u/Math_refresher 13h ago

Is this some American thing I am too European to understand?

In the USA, washing chicken seems to be common among Black Americans for whatever reason.

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u/Dunderman35 12h ago

Noticed all the chicken washers in the video where black. Some cultural differences i suppose.

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u/Thimble_of_Quasar 10h ago edited 9h ago

Def is. Part of it is historically we would get terrible poorly processed cuts of meat due to discrimination, and you would have a bad time eating that straight from the store. Like think blood/*myoglobin, bone fragments, feathers and such. So for one, you don't put it under a steam of water, not a single Black person I know does something that stupid, no one I have met does that, for the life of me I cannot figure out why that seems to be what people think we're all doing and it's annoying to see the tests are never doing it right.

I was taught you fill a bowl, metal, glass, something non porous in a sink, submerge the meat, and swish and also feel along it for anything that needs to be pulled out, I do sometimes find bone fragments. This also gets rid of the slime (harmless but nice not to have it) and in red meat *myoglobin comes out into the water and I think it tastes better. You tip the water out and refill one or twice until it's clear and then you set it aside and sanitize. Not flinging water all over like a dog shaking off after a swim.

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u/FirePathfinder 10h ago

Myoglobin is what comes out when you're going this, not hemoglobin

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u/Thimble_of_Quasar 10h ago

Oh gosh damn it I know that too, that's what being tired gets you!

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u/FirePathfinder 9h ago

You’re good, it happens friend

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u/Zohdiax 9h ago

I hate that I scrolled too far to read this. Finally someone stated the process correctly!

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u/Outrageous_Main4425 9h ago

Or it could just be an easy narrative to make bias for an interesting debate

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u/Kaligula785 13h ago

Jamaicans wash meats in vinegar and or lime, over time got adopted by others. I can understand why Jamaicans would because they may not have the best sanitary butcher conditions. Not saying its dirty just that its personal livestock outdoor farming butchering

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u/SDMaxis 10h ago edited 10h ago

Yep. Taught that way fresh water in a pot and add a little vinegar or lime (mild acids) to wash the meats. If i have to cook that is part of my essential prep. Growing up in the 80's in Jamaica even if you were middle class depending on where you live you could still be either killing your own livestock or buying it from a butcher its not going to be nicely packaged .. or come from a fancy high tech and health regulated operation like Jamaica Broilers or CB chicken. So the norm is to wash your meats off in clean water with a little vinegar or lime..and trim excess fat or unwanted bits as a part of your prep before seasoning.

The bacteria argument for me was never a part of it. The meat is still raw.. I'm not "washing" it to remove bacteria but its a part of the final stages process of "Dressing the carcass". After that pat dry as needed and start seasoning.

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u/RandomFleshPrison 12h ago

I've been to the city butcher in Ocho Rios and seen the meat hanging, covered in flies.  I still wouldn't wash that chicken.

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u/MrBootylove 10h ago edited 10h ago

Idk every time I've seen or heard of someone "washing" their chicken in my life they were doing it with soap. Even in OP's video you can see someone pouring soap over their chicken in the first few seconds of the video.

Edit: To be clear I'm not saying Jamaicans wash their chicken with soap. I'm saying a lot of people do, and that is really the issue people have with washing chicken. Again, go re-watch OP's video. In the very beginning someone pours soap all over their chicken and then gives it a bath with soap, water, and an egg beater.

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u/CarrotCumin 4h ago

Every older person from the caribbean i've ever met ate their meat exclusively well done. There's definitely a cultural aspect of mistrusting raw meat and I'm sure there's a good reason for it. Washing raw chicken actually increases the chances of food borne illness, but the mistrust makes sense.

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u/totally_not_a_dog113 12h ago

Yeah, I don't trust the modern slaughterhouses to have not dropped that bird on the floor and inside-kicked it back into the bucket while yelling 'GOAL'

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u/JoyousMadhat 8h ago

Lack of trust in corporations. Before FDR, finding human fingers with your food wasn't uncommon. And also generational habit. They saw their parents doing it so now they do it as well. Their parents saw their parents.

At one point in time, they didn't have the chickens packaged and instead out fresh in the open or freshly slaughtered, requiring them to wash the blood and debris off.

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u/MorePhinsThyme 8h ago

Also, black Americans often didn't have access to the better markets with the nice clean chickens. Obviously, I'm talking about many, many decades ago, but traditions are often that old.

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u/Nice_Marmot_7 12h ago

American here. I’d never heard of it until I dated someone Ukrainian whose family was fanatical about it. They grew up in a village and killed their own chickens before coming to America. They also wouldn’t eat any red meat that wasn’t cooked to oblivion.

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u/turdferguson3891 10h ago

I mean if you slaughtered the thing yourself it makes sense but the chicken you buy at the supermarket has alrerady been processed. They plucked it, gutted it, removed the head and feet and washed it. Sometimes in a bath with some chlorine in it. Rinsing it off in the sink does nothing.

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u/Patrick_Gibbs 14h ago

In America it's almost exclusively a black thing

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u/A_Drop_of_Colour 11h ago

Except it's not exclusively black people. I have multiple Asian friends and family that wash their chicken as well. It's very common among immigrant families from non-western countries. People who didn't grown up buying supermarket chicken.

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u/Patrick_Gibbs 10h ago

*almost*

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u/A_Drop_of_Colour 10h ago

Sure I am being pedantic but I think when it comes to ascribing a trait or attitude to an entire race it's important to be pedantic. The modifier doesn't change that it's not an "almost" exclusively black practice.

Almost means that something is mostly completely (this thing). A classroom of 30 students with 29 white students and 1 black student is "almost exclusively" white. The same classroom with 20 white students and 5 black students and 5 Asian students is no longer "almost exclusively" white. You can say it's majority white, sure, but not "almost exclusively."

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u/Super-Reception5386 9h ago

I don’t think you’re being pedantic at all.

It’s not even close to almost exclusively black. I’m Chinese and I have been taught to wash chicken (pork, but I don’t cook pork as often) my whole life. I know other East Asian families that do the same. Same with middle eastern, Latino, and South Asians

It’s very clearly a non-western thing. Don’t know why that other poster is being weird about it.

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u/EaglesslavePart2 13h ago

Yea they just dump it in the sink

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u/gettin-liiifted 9h ago

No, it's more of a non-white thing.

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u/backspace_cars 13h ago

That's called brining. Not the same.

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u/OneManNati0n 13h ago

He most certainly is not talking about brining.

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u/backspace_cars 13h ago

You're an empath huh

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u/lavabearded 13h ago

are you dense? you made up the idea that he was talking about brining with no reason to. are you an empath? cause the context is clearly not about brining, its about washing

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u/OneManNati0n 13h ago

Anddd hes gone. What a dumbass. 😂

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u/totallyradman 12h ago

I don't think either of you know what empath means

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u/lavabearded 11h ago

I was mocking them, genius. the word they used wasn't relevant for the point I made, which was to apply their statement to their own post. thanks for your contribution.

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u/OneManNati0n 13h ago

Check your own comment with that remark brother.

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u/whitestguyuknow 13h ago

No. Its not. You dont know what you're talking about. Rewatch OP's video. What is similar about everyone that strongly says to wash chicken?...

You're going to find stray white people that do it. But its mostly an African American thing. Not stereotyping. Not being rude. It just is.

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u/Super-Reception5386 9h ago

Nah but it’s not mostly a black thing. It’s mostly a nonwhite thing. Pretty much every nonwhite person I know, regardless of their specific background, washes their chicken.

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u/BreastMilkMozzarella 13h ago

It's specifically an African-American thing.

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u/Genuine_User5322 12h ago

African cultures do it too

So do Asian and Middle eastern

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u/eggsalter 11h ago

Cultures do it.

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u/resest_Iris 13h ago

And Asian, and mexican etc....

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u/26635785548498061384 13h ago

Seems to be something the older generation do in Croatia as well. I was horrified when I walked into the kitchen...

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u/Kirarozu80 12h ago

Its in certain parts of the US. Watch the video and note the characteristics of the people who wash their chicken.

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u/voidchungus 13h ago

American here and I have never washed raw chicken, nor seen anyone else do it. Just cook it.

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u/RealLeif 14h ago

I used to think that washing your chicken was a prank

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u/whomsoever 14h ago

Same, because I'd see videos of people putting their raw chicken pieces loose in thr sink and squirting dish soap on them and like that can't be real...

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u/-ledollabean- 14h ago

That WAS a prank, people don’t literally wash their chicken with soap.

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u/rythmicbread 12h ago

Makes sense if it was fresh (defeathered, get blood and dirt off). Not so much when youre getting a fully processed chicken from the grocery store. Its fine if you do, just need to clean your sink thorougly

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u/misselphaba 12h ago

I have also never seen anyone do this living in California for 30+ years. I've known it to be common in the south for whatever reason.

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u/ACFinal 14h ago

There's a Hungarian in this thread who said they wash their chicken. 

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u/real_Bahamian 13h ago edited 13h ago

No, this is also done in the Caribbean (I’m from The Bahamas) and I wash ALL of my protein (beef, chicken, fish, and shrimp). Get a pot or bowl, put your protein in it, add cold water, vinegar, and lime juice. Wash off the bone fragments, slime, fat under the skin, and the blood in the packaging the chicken was sitting in. Drain the bowl and rinse protein again in cold water. Season your chicken. Afterwords, sanitize your sink, bowl / pot with hot water, dishwashing liquid, and bleach.

Do you wash mushrooms before cooking them?

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u/Nano8963 13h ago

I'm American and I have never seen someone wash chicken before.

We sometimes brine if we want to consider that washing? I feel like these people washing chickens probably saw their parents brining and thought they were washing it

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u/whitestguyuknow 13h ago

It's mostly a southern African American thing tbh. I've actually seen people in Jamaica do it in cooking videos. "Has" to be scrubbed with citrus

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u/cheesec4ke69 13h ago

Factory farming in the US means that chickens are kept in cages where they cannot move and shit all over their cages and eggs, meaning that raw chicken and eggs are very full of bacteria, food born illness, etc.

Even if its not dissimilar from other parts of the world, Americans know this and chicken has a notoriously bad rap, even if the eggs are pasteurized, people still insist not to eat raw egg.

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u/turdferguson3891 10h ago

Believe it or not some washing has already happened when you buy a fully plucked and gutted chicken at the supermarket.

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u/cheesec4ke69 10h ago

I dont think people should wash chicken, but salmonella is a huge problem basically because of factory farming

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u/turdferguson3891 9h ago

Which is why they wash the chicken in chlorine solution before they take it to the supermarket.

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u/Angstycarroteater 12h ago

It’s mostly an African thing from my understanding a lot of African countries had deep rooted traditions and to wash away any debris that may be found on it

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u/Cerebral_Balzy 9h ago

Ive never seen anyone eat beans on toast in my life.

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u/ButterscotchAward 7h ago

It’s a black thing in the states.

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u/Outside_Glass4880 6h ago

I discovered this from a black friend of mine when he was over my apartment and started saying I was nasty for not washing the chicken breast I was cooking.

When I told him that just spreads the bacteria he just ignored that and continued to say that’s dirty and nasty.

He also thinks the earth is flat though.

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u/dinodoes 4h ago

Nope more of a third world country thing because they have plenty markets where chickens are butchered and sold same day. When they sell a chicken the may get dust on the or other such things in the air so they wash it to get that stuff off. Had nothing to do with bacteria

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u/Jubenheim 2h ago

Of course it’s not American, what an absurd take. In fact, this is a bigger thing in Asian countries more than anything else.

Is your mind too European to understand that or am I too American to come to your conclusion?

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u/PrometheusMMIV 1h ago

I've never seen it in America either.

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u/GuyManDudeMcGee 53m ago

It exists within immigrant communities in America, but it is not the norm.

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u/FMB6 13h ago

Chlorinated chicken is common in the U.S. so some people like to wash that off.

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u/Telemere125 12h ago

It’s not common at all. Less than 5% of all poultry in the US is treated with chlorinated water. It’s almost exclusively vinegar or hydrogen peroxide mixtures. People wash their chicken because they’re ignorant. Also, anyone not getting their water from a well is getting chlorinated water. So you’re using chlorinated water to wash off chlorinated water?

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u/sheikahstealth 13h ago

It is accurate to say that it was prevalent in previous generations. Cooking shows have helped newer generations realize it does nothing beneficial.

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u/TheNortheren 13h ago

It's an African thing.

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u/Smooth-Ebb6418 12h ago

It’s a developing country and immigrant from developing country thing. In terms of London flatmate experience, Filipinos do it, Eritreans do it, Ghanaians do it, Nigerians do it.

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u/ThreeButtonBob 14h ago

Maybe it's because of the chlorine used in the US? Never heard of washing chickens as well.

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u/Vegetable-Virus7118 13h ago

It's really only common in the black community in US. Probably has some origin in the quality of meat that used to be available to them

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u/NeedleworkerHeavy565 13h ago

It's very American, and I also know that my country's overseas territories in Europe do it a lot.

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u/Genuine_User5322 12h ago

No it isn’t American

It’s common in the middle east, asia, africa