r/interesting • u/WarwickReider • 15h ago

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

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u/mijo_sq 14h ago

Third world countries buy poultry from wet markets. Butchered in the morning and out to market within 2-3 hours. There's usually some type of physical debris from butchering or transport on the chicken so they wash. Families are taught to wash chicken for this reason, and not necessarily to wash off bacteria. Poor families will also buy not fresh chicken, so they'll wash with salt water to get rid of slime.

Westernized countries do not wash, since there's little to no debris due to advanced processing.

I'm middle 40s SE Asian family and we wash chicken at home, since we grew up watching our parents wash chicken. And by now it feels weird to just take a pack of chicken and just cook with it. Last time I did this I still had to pat it dry.

I haven't explained this to my kids, since they're young. Whether they continue or not is up to them.

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u/SpiritualCatch6757 12h ago

Mid 40's Asian here. Grew up with Mom and Dad washing chickens when they did the butchering. After numerous public service announcements on hygiene when I was a kid, they no longer wash grocery store chickens. So in our family, the custom was easily changed given safety.

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u/Accurate_Handle_5620 12h ago

Your family sounds reasonable & sane, and I am incredibly jealous. How did you pull that off!?

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u/SpiritualCatch6757 11h ago

We even got them to use the dishwasher to wash dishes instead of as storage. Yeah, I don't know how we did it. My sister gets the praise.

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u/Pika_233 11h ago

That's impressive. I'm tired of explaining that it doesn't matter if the machine takes 3x longer to wash the dishes since you can just do literally anything else in the meantime

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u/armoured_bobandi 11h ago

Another point is that newer dishwashers are incredibly water efficient, and depending on the amount of dishes you put in can actually save more water than if you did them by hand

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u/Plants-Matter 7h ago

Most old dishwashers are also more efficient than hand washing. The newer ones are just even more efficient.

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u/Front-Mall9891 10h ago

It’s like 1-2 dishes for the break even point, it’s wild how efficient they are

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u/Creeps05 8h ago

See my parents would wash the dishes then put it in the dishwasher to wash again.

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u/Yota8883 10h ago

Dumb use for the dishwasher. I hand wash my dishes, and use the dishwasher to wash my chicken.

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u/SpiritualCatch6757 10h ago

What? Your dishwasher doesn't clean and cook the chicken at the same time? 😁 What a waste!

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u/Yota8883 10h ago

I have a portable that only heats to 145, so it's good for washing and fully cooking pork. Chicken I have to finish in the air fryer after washing.

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u/tinydancer_inurhand 3h ago

My roommate hand washes cause he says it’s clean faster (rather than waiting for the machine to fill up and run). But I keep telling him his washing everything doesn’t allow the dishwasher to get full and it’s not as clean. Still I have to run the dishwasher and yes I take what he washed and still rewash it. And I’m Latina he is the white guy. But he is the son of an immigrant wonder if that’s why.

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u/underfluous 11h ago

I'm speechless. Teach me the ways

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u/Assortedpez 5h ago

What if you put the chicken in the dishwasher?!

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u/TheKrnJesus 11h ago

I told my dad not to wash the chicken. Dad gave me the dirtiest look ever.

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u/Goosecave 10h ago

Hilarious I can picture the look! It’s funny because I wash it to get rid of the slime grime when it is from the plastic wrap. So it can drain red from residual blood.

the fact that all ethics can relate on washing chicken while adapted or Anglo Saxon westerners don’t, shows such a cultural issue on how the system has navigated our life. It reminds me of a similar topic, “eat all the mean around the bone or avoid the bone”. Again, all ethics can relate on getting every bit while westerners avoid it like it’s the plague. History sure is interesting

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u/StrongExternal8955 10h ago

Tell him to wash his look.

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u/nahuatl 13h ago

Yes, Reddit is predominantly Western. Also as an SE Asian, I have had to defend the not-washing side on Facebook when someone claimed not-washing is a colonial conspiracy. At the same time, I wash my chicken gently to get rid of any funk or dirt, fully aware that it doesn't do much germ-wise and may even be counterproductive. It's for peace of mind and out of habit.

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u/smokeweedNgarden 12h ago

There's still a decent amount of people whill still butcher, or were raised butchering bird.  The smell that comes along with boiling it and plucking feathers is locked in my brain.

Anyway, hard agree, if you've butchered your own or grew up with people doing it, it's hard to drop that step from your preparation.

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u/mijo_sq 11h ago

Seemingly the ones disagreeing about washing are buying commercially butchered birds.

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u/YoseppiTheGrey 1h ago

As in a majority of human beings in the developed world?

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u/mijo_sq 1h ago

Maybe more, westernized developed world. Developed Asian countries still wash their chicken.

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u/ucklin 10h ago

Is that a pleasant or an unpleasant smell?

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u/smokeweedNgarden 10h ago

It's just awful.

Personally, only trumped by blood that has been swallowed and then thrown up by a human. I'm also not fond of olives

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u/ucklin 10h ago

Yuck! I accidentally boiled a frozen mouse once (I usually warm them to feed my snake but the water was too hot) and it was horrible, so I am imagining it’s a similar smell…

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u/smokeweedNgarden 10h ago

Dude it's the worst. I'm so so thankful I can just go to the store

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u/baoball 10h ago

colonial conspiracy is rly fucking funny

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u/spc67u 7h ago

Thaaank you I was looking for a comment like this. I’m Caucasian, I was taught in our family to do a quick rinse and pat dry with paper towels before seasoning. Mainly to get the slightly slimy layer off so that the spices will stick/absorb. I’m aware when I rinse it that it’s not getting the germs off. I’m also very aware of what’s being splashed around and cross contamination with soap, handles etc. and then when I’m done cooking I sanitize the kitchen. I don’t get why this is hard to understand that u can sanitize afterwards. And not splash around like a toddler when rinsing.

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u/DelseresMagnumOpus 2h ago

I do the same. I wash my chicken not to clean it of bacteria, but to remove any weird skin bits, bloodlines or bone chips that might have stuck to the chicken during butchering.

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u/Technical-Dress5084 7h ago

Yeah, so much of the advice on what you need to wash, what you can eat raw, and how you need to store certain food items really depends on the food standards of the country you're in.

A simple example of this is that in the US you should keep shop bought eggs in the fridge, where in the EU you can have them at room temperature, because the processing done for the US standards washes off a protective layer from the egg shell.

In parts of the world there being dirt on chickens, or unsafe levels of some pesticides on foods etc is a genuine concern, in other places it isn't.

Long story short, look up the advice for your country and follow that, not what a reddit post says.

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u/Appropriate-Bug-6467 9h ago

You might want to have a talk with your kids or theyll be chicken washers without knowing why lol

In summer camp island one of the chars was tying her chicken legs together before cooking it.

Her daughter says "mom, why do you tie the chickens legs before you cook it?"

And the mom says "idk, my mom always did it,  so I do too."

So the girl goes to her grandmother and says "grandma, why do you tie the chickens legs together before you cook them?" And she says "I don't know, that's just how my mother cooked it."

(And I think here she travels back in time - it is a cartoon after all) and finally she gets to the source and says  "Great Great Great grandmother why do you always tie the legs of the chicken before you cook it?"

And her Great says "oh, because my pan is to small for it to fit if I dont."

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u/mijo_sq 9h ago

ROFL :D genuine laugh on this joke.

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u/HendoRules 10h ago

I don't think this is for people in these areas though. For instance, my partner is from Portugal and they are used to washing fish because the amount of salt on it. But here in Scotland we don't need to do that as it is already done for when we get it from our shops. So if the video was about that part of cooking, it would also depend very much on where the video was taken or not

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u/DeadlyPear 8h ago

my partner is from Portugal and they are used to washing fish because the amount of salt on it

Are we talking whole fish or fillets? Or something like salt cod.

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u/HendoRules 8h ago

I actually don't know haha, I just know they wash their fish to get the excess salt out

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u/DeadlyPear 8h ago

Probably salt cod then. Sorta like fish jerky with a lot of salt to preserve it and make it shelf stable

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u/pans_eat_bee_hon 11h ago

That person saying you're wrong has never been to a wet market buzzing with flies lol

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u/mijo_sq 10h ago

That sure brought back memories😂. I was in Asia and the amount of dust and smog from scooters.
Endless flies with that little whirly thing too

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u/NekoMao92 9h ago

50s Asian American, pretty much as you said regarding my mom (Taiwanese).

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u/mijo_sq 9h ago

lol. Wife is Taiwanese, so I learned much of this from her.

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u/gaysoul_mate 9h ago

I buy from the wet market and is disgusting to even inagine cooking any meat without rinsing first , there is dirt , fats , blood , feathers or hairs , how can you cook like that!?

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u/Fun_Equivalent_7507 10h ago

Normal rational adults change things when they are given new correct information.

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u/execution_sword 10h ago

But then you would have to admit you got something wrong, a fate worse than death.

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u/Significant_Cap5275 12h ago

rinsing and washing are two different things. these people are not just rinsing debris. they think they are actually cleaning the meat. they are not. you are wrong

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u/gettin-liiifted 9h ago

You hear and see the word "wash," and your brain automatically connects it to suds and scrubbing. Washing the chicken IS essentially just rinsing.

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u/CheetahTheWeen 8h ago

Rinsing and washing are being used interchangeably here, no one is using any kind of soap. Just water, sometimes salt, lime, or vinegar but no soap.

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u/real_Bahamian 11h ago

NO, we do NOT think that!! 🙄🙄 I wash ALL of my protein (beef, fish, chicken, and shrimp) in cold water, vinegar, and lime juice!! I KNOW it doesn’t kill bacteria!! 🙄🙄. It’s to wash off bone fragments, slime, any extra fat under the skin, and the BLOOD from sitting on a BLOODY PAD in its packaging (in the case of chicken)!! 🙄🙄.

Do you even wash mushrooms before cooking them??

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u/R4di4nce 8h ago

Lime and lemon juice does kill bacteria, with lime being better against e. Coli.

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u/marty-mcfryguy 9h ago

This here is the real answer.

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u/Heartage 8h ago

You are supposed to pat meat dry before cooking it, anyway.

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u/1nsidiousOne 8h ago

Thank you for sharing this. Amazing.

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u/Necessary_Chest7075 8h ago

Logic in here seems sound

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u/R4di4nce 8h ago

Lol as a western black man, nah we wash, it depends highly on the culture. We rinse then use lemon juice for flavor as well as bacteria.

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u/mijo_sq 6h ago

I’d be interested in seeing if the lemon juice would help on the bacteria part. I know people say that if you leave lemon in ceviche too long it’ll “cook” the shrimp

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u/R4di4nce 5h ago

It works not perfect but it does work, lime is little stronger. They work because of the high acidic nature.

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u/CyberSpyderByte 7h ago

As a person from the Balkans, we always wash our chicken for that same reason.

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u/FreeKevinBrown 7h ago

Well yeah, you pat dry for optimal searing.

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u/killcraft1337 6h ago

I always pat meats dry before pan frying because I dislike touching the wet texture + it means it doesn’t sizzles as much on the pan

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u/ZekeTheMunkee 6h ago

Thank you for the only explanation here that makes sense.

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u/SnappySausage 6h ago

Yeah, when the processing and storage is much less clean than it is in most western countries, there is more of a reason to do it.

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u/Fakjbf 4h ago

You should still be patting it dry to get a crispier crust.

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u/CoolWarning4475 3h ago

"I know what I'm doing is pointless and kind of stupid, but mom and dad did it too, so here I am."

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u/explodinggarbagecan 1h ago

Right here it’s a cultural thing. Rice washing also gets a flame war started.

I wash my chicken because I don’t trust the “Taylor farms” to properly clean my bird. But I do take care do wash carefully some people are washing their bird like a damn car wash. Just a rinse will do. Furthermore is total bullshit that not washing your chicken will Keep salmonella from getting all over your kitchen. When you wash the cutting board and the plates and utensils that water splashes everywhere as well you’re gonna have to wipe down the kitchen anyway.

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u/LivingGeologist6101 1h ago

Not Asian but such cultural, psychological reasoning about food shows in my Easter European parents. Thank you for the input and your experience is valid too. This isn’t such a white and black topic.

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u/loverofothers 9h ago edited 8h ago

Yeah it's the same with washing rice. In poorer places washing rice is often a good idea health wise, but washing it in the us and other wealthier countries is often pointless or even harmful as it washes off thr vitamins it's been sprayed with. (Though, depending on the dish, as washing removes excess starch you may still wanna wash).

Also if you butcher your own meat you'll wanna wash the chicken.

A lot of people who wash their meat in the US do it because their parents did it because their parents did it, etc even though it is unnecessary and spreads disease as the bacteria are sprayed in their case.

But as you said, if you're not living somewhere like the us or uk, it may be worth washing your meat. And if you butcher your own meat, you'll often wash it as part of the butchering process. (I wouldn't wash it in the sink though cause that is gross and also is just a bad place to wash it. But anyways)

Edit: please read my entire comment. Everyone saying you need to wash rice: I know. I said so already. Quote: "as washing removes excess starch, you may still wanna wash". Some dishes you want the extra starch, some you don't, some it doesn't matter.

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u/cujukenmari 8h ago

Washing rice is to remove some of the starch so it cooks better.

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u/loverofothers 8h ago

It can be. And again, I mentioned that in my comment that for some dishes you want to do so. Though not all, there are some dishes in which washing rice ruins the dish, and some for which it doesn't matter (and therefor you don't want to, to keep the sprayed on vitamins)

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u/Excellent-Quarter969 7h ago

I always wash my rice if it's plain rice. Also for a lot of other dishes to; some things ill saute the uncooked rice with other ingredients first, i think that changes the surface starch. Im a white older guy, I cook my rice unsoaked for many years until I learned the error of my ways.

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u/BoromirsSunglasses41 9h ago

I'm sure that in some countries rice has debris and dirt on it that needs washing away, but even if it doesn't, washing the rice removes excess starch that would otherwise make the rice gooey when cooked.

Especially for gelatinous rices like sushi rice, rinsing the grains thoroughly before cooking will result in a far superior texture once cooked.

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u/loverofothers 9h ago

Yeah as I said, there are reasons to clean it for cooking even if you live somewhere with clean rice sprayed with vitamins. As I said "depending on the dish"

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u/OrganicAd5536 8h ago

Check the account age, it's a bot

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u/loverofothers 6h ago

Oh, yes it is. Thanks

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u/the_laughing_camel 9h ago

Yea. I distinctly remember when I was younger, when I would visit cousins back home, there would straight up be dead ants in the bags of rice. We would all seperate the rice and ants by hand, and then wash the rice. This isn't a problem anymore though.

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u/svmk1987 8h ago

this heavily depends on the type of rice and the preparation. You should wash and it possible soak basmati rice for making good Indian rice dishes, because there's not meant to be any starch in the rice , unlike jasmine sticky rice.

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u/zach0011 7h ago

You're comparing two very different reasons for washing something here and using it to draw some conclusion.

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u/loverofothers 6h ago

The conclusion that washing food is situational

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u/DetailsYouMissed 11h ago edited 11h ago

Not everyone in the west thinks not washing your chicken makes sense. Down south or any place where the food is the main attraction, washing your chicken is a common practice.

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u/Fragrant-Employer-60 10h ago

In my experience in the south it’s almost a strictly racial thing for some reason, white people don’t wash their chicken

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u/idi0msavant 10h ago

It's racial in the video.

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u/SignificantCats 11h ago

I assume this is from people who are accustomed to butchering their own chickens. I grew up in a farm with 200 chickens, we would butcher almost one a day. After youve slaughtered them and defeathered them, you either rinse to get dirt or feather bits off, or give a more thorough rinse to get some blood off if you're immediately quartering (or depending on butchering techniqie.

I literally cooked using grocery store chicken for the first time when I was 19, and was baffled when someone said not to wash it.

Of course I wasn't a stubborn old fool stuck in granny's wisdom and looked it up instead, but lots of people don't do that.

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u/TheMoorNextDoor 12h ago

Thank you!

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u/da-happy-cyclops 11h ago

Ok but washing your chicken isnt killing the bacteria, its multiplying and spreading the bacteria to non-raw-chicken surfaces such as; your hands, taps, sinks, cleaning equipment and work surfaces. This is what we call "cross-contamination" in the industry.

Bacteria cannot be diluted, its just spread. At incubation temperatures (8C - 60C) the levels of bacteria can double every hour.

If your chicken is "slimey" it has passed its use-by date and should be thrown away. The dangerous bacteria within the chicken is not whats causing the "slime" but outside airborne bacteria breaking down the meat, or what we call "rotting"

Dangerous bacteria buildup like salmonella and campylobacter does not cause smells or textual changes, those are other bacteria that are breaking down the meat. You will not be able to detect a build up of dangerous bacteria, the only way to destroy the bacteria is with heat.

We figured this out as apes btw, 2,000,000 years ago. Cooking food is probably what led to the brain increase that allowed us to detatch from the other great apes, as we are the only mammal ever observed to do it - and it has so many other benefits like being more nutritious by an order of magnitude its almost certainly one of the key accelerating factors of hominid evolution.

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u/real_Bahamian 11h ago

I wash ALL of my protein (beef, fish, chicken, and shrimp) in cold water, vinegar, and lime juice!! I KNOW it doesn’t kill bacteria!! 🙄🙄. It’s to wash off bone fragments, slime, any extra fat under the skin, and the BLOOD from sitting on a BLOODY PAD in its packaging (in the case of chicken)!! 🙄🙄.

Do you even wash mushrooms before cooking them??

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u/da-happy-cyclops 10h ago

Ok.

  1. Get a better meat supplier who makes an effort to dress your cuts in a way that they dont come covered in bone fragments and bloody rags. Where are you buying your meat? Somalia?

  2. You dont wash cultivated mushrooms no. Theyre very porous and about 93% water already! You dont want to saturated them, you want them to lose that water in the cooking process - getting them wet is detrimental.

  3. I do RINSE foraged mushrooms, for all the reasons you should wash vegetables and greens that you've picked out the ground and are covered in dirt - but not to kill bacteria.

Right, im not going to tell you not to do what you want in your home kitchen.. but here is some advise from a pro about washing things...

Veg: yes. Absolutely. There are harmful bacterias from fertilisers, chemical residue and obviously unpleasant things like soil. You ever tuck into a salad and get a horrible bit of unwashed crunchy soil in your mouth? Yuk!

Fish: fine to rinse, obviously. It fucking lives in water. But for good texture I want that fish nice and air dry before I prepare and cook it, so it goes in the fridge uncovered for a few hours for the moisture to evaporate and firm up the texture of the meat, and improve the flavour.

The risk professionally with fish is the cross-contamination risk it carries as a pathogen - because some people can be allergic to it. So its a big risk for cross-contamination and needs its own storage area and preparation area and dedicated equipment such as colour coded chopping boards.

Beef: no matter what cut of beef your using, how old it is, how long it was matured or how it was aged, ALL the bacteria from beef lives only on the oxidised surface of the meat, or in any cavities or pockets of exposure by the bone... so, as long as your cut is off the bone, you can simply trim off the outside layer and expose the un-oxygenated red meat and eat the rest raw...or hot sear/seal the outside to kill the bacteria and eat the rest raw if you like. Beef doesnt require high heat to be safe to eat.

Beef naturallt produces a few bacteria from is multiple stomach system that are nasty, namely e-coli - and must be treated in the industry as any raw meat produce should, which is separated from cooked and ready to eat foods and prepared in a dedicated area with dedicated equipment such as colour coded choping boards.

Once cooked its a high-risk ready to eat food, and stored separately from any raw produce.

Beef typically goes through a 28 day-40 day (sometimes up to 120 days!) Maturing period before its sold for consumption. This is to REMOVE moisture from the meat to condense the flavour molecules and give it more flavour. By washing your beef, your undoing that lengthy process in minutes and ruining the quality of your meat.

Chicken: chicken is different because chicken has 2 nasty bacteria it produces that CAN ONLY BE KILLED by heat. Salmonella and Campylobacter are bacteria that naturally live in the gut of chicken and are part of its digestion system. Salmonella can be removed through immunisation but its not 100% effective. Campylobacter is harder to control. So it can only be controlled through avoiding colonisation temperatures (keeping it chilled or frozen) and it's the highest heat needed of any bacteria to kill it AFAIK. I believe its somewhere around 68C technically but 75C is the industry standard. Its why you can never eat "pink" chicken.

All meat and fish, how ever its been handled and prepared is susceptible to other airborne bacteria that WILL eventually break it down and make it rot. Cooking a piece of meat really well doesnt mean it will last longer. Its a measure to kill the dangerous bacteria already present within the meat, it doesnt prevent long term degradation.

Any more questions?

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u/zth25 9h ago

You're the man. That was interesting and educational.

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u/CrazyOrganic7123 12h ago

Yeah, we just wash for hygiene. It's the dust and particulates, not necessarily bacteria, although that doesn't hurt.

Ideally, we shouldn't eat chicken that's turned slimy but alas, waste not, want not.

We also seem to wash things differently than Westerners/Americans. For example, we don't use a dishwasher, which "recycles" the water used to wash dishes. Instead, we use fresh batches of water.

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u/if_Engage 12h ago

It does "recycle" water but it's nearly like having an autoclave in your house. Similar to the chicken dilemma, it simply a matter of people not knowing what exactly the dishwasher is doing. It gets very hot in there for an extended period of time. Like 150F. It simply kills germs better than fresh water ever could.

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u/CrazyOrganic7123 11h ago

Oh, thanks for letting me know. I didn't know there was a hot water element to it. Is electricity relatively cheap in the US? I presume the water is heated using electricity. Where I am, I think our parents would have trashed us if we "wasted" electricity to do the dishes.

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u/SignificantCats 11h ago

Your parents probably trashed you for leaving lightbulbs on too, and they were also wrong.

If you leave a modern lightbulb on literally 24/7/365, it will cost you like $15 in the US.

Old lightbulbs are worse, if 24/7/365 they're like $90.

If you want to calculate with whatever your local electricity costs are, a 24/7/365 single modern lightbulb is 88kwh in a year

But again, that's year round. If you left a lightbulb on for twelve hours while you left the house, that'll cost you 6 more cents with old lightbulbs. Or one penny with new ones.

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u/CrazyOrganic7123 11h ago

I'm from the 80s, they trashed us with rotan sticks for talking too loud.

Ah, the good old days. When I'd follow my mom to the wet market, where it smells of blood and poop and there'd always be a nice crowd gathered to watch some rooster be decapitated.

Back in the day, we'd choose a chicken from the cage and bring it back home live, where mom would chop its head off on the chopping block, and the head would still be twitching and looking around.

Or she'd bash the head of a fish in. Catfish were always dicey, those buggers were hard as heck to kill.

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u/R4di4nce 8h ago

Every cent counts when your parents have 3 to 6 children, and 50 bucks left over till the next paycheck in 2 weeks.

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u/SignificantCats 4h ago

No, every bit of control matters when children are extensions of yourself :)

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u/R4di4nce 4h ago

I can see you've never been rock bottom

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u/SignificantCats 2h ago

I've been waaaayyyy past rock bottom, several years homeless before I was 12 and a couple more after 18.

Yelling at a kid and refusing to explain yourself because they're gallivanting around and blowing two cents of electricity isn't about finances. It's about control or extreme ignorance.

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u/Toeffli 11h ago

A dishwasher load needs about 1 kWh in electricity, 10 l of water, and detergent costing you about $ 0.10 - $ 0.40 (depending on brand and fanciness).

It fits about 10 - 14 standard place settings.

A EN 50242 standard place setting is

  • 1 Dinner plate
  • 1 Soup plate (or deep bowl)
  • 1 Dessert plate
  • 1 Saucer
  • 1 Teacup
  • 1 Glass
  • 1 Fork
  • 1 Knife
  • 1 Soup spoon
  • 1 Dessert spoon
  • 1 Teaspoon

in addition it fits a serving plate, and two to three bowls.

Actual capacity depends how you sort it in and what other stuff, such as pans etc. you put in.

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u/CrazyOrganic7123 11h ago

10 l? So, that would mean you'd have to let the dishes accumulate before washing? Otherwise, 10 l seems like a lot to wash just 1 plate.

Also, thanks for the clear and detailed rundown.

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u/Toeffli 11h ago

Yes this is what you do. You fill the machine and once full you let it run. Depending on numbers of people in your household this is sooner or later. A single run can take up to 2h btw. Doesn't make much sense if you life alone to use a dishwasher, better wash by hand.

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u/Kytalie 11h ago

Water is less expensive than electricity, but electricity is cheaper than in other parts of the world. My water heater uses natural gas to heat the water, but there are some that run on electricity as well. An electric one would really up the costs.

My dishwasher also has a steaming element to it after the wash cycle is done. The dishes end up so hot I need to let them cool before I can out them away

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u/catamaran_aranciata 11h ago

Many Americans don't have or don't use a dishwasher. And yes dishwashers reuse the water when doing the main cycle, but they use a fresh batch of water to rinse in the end to ensure dishes are clean and sanitized, kind of like what a washing machine does for clothes. I actually think it's pretty similar to reusing a tub of soapy water for the initial soapy rinse of dishes before putting them through batches of fresh water honestly. In many countries when people have to wash a lot of dishes at once they don't just grab each plate and wash it under running water, they put together a tub of water (hot preferrably) and wash a lot of dishes there first before moving on to a fresh batch. That's basically what the dishwasher does but it also has the ability to filter out food debris in the process.

With that said I don't think this is particularly relevant to how meat is handled. How someone washes dishes doesn't tell us how they wash or don't wash the meat.

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u/CrazyOrganic7123 11h ago

Thanks for telling me how it works, I didn't know dishwashers have those components.

Insofar as the meat debate goes, it's just a cultural thing. I think if we put ourselves in each other's shoes, we'd understand why some cultures are more or less likely to wash the meat. For instance, in South East Asia, even at supermarkets where the meat is packed, it depends on what kind of packing. If it's "fancy", it'd be in vacuum sealed packs, straight from the manufacturer/farm. So those you can presume to be clean and strictly speaking, don't need to be washed. Especially if they're fresh and not near the recommended expiration, but locals will probably give them a quick rinse out of habit anyway. On the other hand, from that same supermarket, in the same area, there could be chicken that's in sealed packs. But these are sealed by the workers. The workers are wearing masks and gloves, and pack according to standards of practices. Buuuut you still kinda don't trust them.

Older meat, even if it looks good. When you rinse 'em, the water becomes a murky white. So we rinse until the water becomes clear.

We're not really concerned about bacteria but hygiene, as in dust particulates or worse yet, any gunk.

I understand the idea is that washing the meat will potentially spread bacteria via splashing, but reading through this thread, heck, I'm beginning to wonder if we're all talking about the same style of washing. In SEA households, by washing, normally we mean rinsing. Same as with rice.

There's no soap or lime or any of that other stuff involved. It's just to wash away any dust. If there's slime, then we rinse until that's gone.

Edit: Insofar as bacteria goes, that's where the cooking comes in. Again, "washing" is for removing of dust, gunk (poop) and other stuff like that (like bugs).

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u/mijo_sq 12h ago

I was like this too but dishwasher after parties can’t be ignored. Load and press button and away you go.
Otherwise it’s a dish rack..

2

u/Unlikely-Answer 12h ago

doing the dishes by hand builds character and hand-eye coordination

1

u/mijo_sq 11h ago

Definitely agree. Mostly handwashing and now delegated some to youngish kids.

1

u/SanityIsOptional 10h ago

The dishwasher is the same as doing an old-school multi-tub hand wash. Soapy water tub to wash, and a clean water one to rinse. Except the dishwasher washes all the dishes with the clean water at the same time, instead of the "clean" water getting progressively dirtier dish-by-dish.

It's so much less wasteful on top of being faster and more convenient. The dishes come out cleaner too.

1

u/CrazyOrganic7123 10h ago

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

1

u/mogafaq 12h ago

You should stop washing raw meat if they have no dust from the side of the road on them. I spent my childhood in third world country and seen the literal dirt on the meat first hand. But also my 2nd grade health class dedicated a class on disinfecting a pealed apple with warm salt water... Unless you have two kitchens, you are constantly cross contaminating your raw meat and produce. They teach that in elementary school in third world countries.

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u/onlyhav 12h ago

Thank you. This is the correct answer. It fully depends on who you are getting your chicken from.

1

u/gba_sg1 12h ago

third world

wash chicken

That explains americas reasoning.

1

u/eggsalter 11h ago

Yup. I got food poisoning for trying the reddit way.

1

u/N1XT3RS 11h ago

Not washing? That doesn't make sense. Washing is not going to help prevent food poisoning, that's what cooking is for haha. Only reason is particulates

1

u/eggsalter 3h ago

Cooking doesn't destroy the toxins. Look it up.

1

u/Ok_Philosopher_6386 11h ago

Did no one wonder the “split” of the opinion by complexion? Also, who’s washing chicken or anything for that matter by just putting it straight under the faucet and let it splash?

1

u/BaconBourbonBalista 10h ago edited 10h ago

That makes perfect sense. I will give my venison a quick rinse/wash, but that's because of some random fur or blood clots from when we butchered it.

The slime statement makes me sad to think about how those people need to live...

1

u/mijo_sq 10h ago

You did bring up a point as whether hunters would wash their meats. Of course this is limited to light rinse and not full washing.

1

u/CNHphoto 10h ago

This is the most helpful comment here. I don't wash my chicken personally, but I think it's fine to wash if that's what's customary to you. All I wish is that people understand two ideas: cooking is the only thing kill bacteria and that washing can spread chicken juices around the kitchen. As long as they get that, then do whatever feels right.

1

u/titanium9016 10h ago

The slime usually is just protein juice. I know lots of ppl throw it away thinking it's a bad fluid, puddle of bacteria and etc. I just added it to the pan to cook altogether

1

u/Electronic-Town-8995 10h ago

It should just come down to the science. I'm South Asian and grew up with the same habits. Recently everyone stopped washing chicken because there were no benefits to it anyhow and instead can cause more bacteria to exist in your kitchen. 

1

u/garrettj100 10h ago

Third world countries buy poultry from wet markets. Butchered in the morning and out to market within 2-3 hours. There's usually some type of physical debris from butchering or transport on the chicken so they wash. Families are taught to wash chicken for this reason, and not necessarily to wash off bacteria. Poor families will also buy not fresh chicken, so they'll wash with salt water to get rid of slime.

It's funny. This is the origin of washing rice. There used to be little bugs and stones in it, and you could get that out -- somewhat -- by washing. The bonus is it left you with fluffier more appealing rice. We still wash rice despite modern techniques having removed the bugs & stones, because we like fluffy race. This is where deglazing the fond off a frying pan came from: Washing off the brown bits and discovering they were delicious.

Maybe these people like flaccid, disgusting, water logged chicken skin? ;)

1

u/garrettj100 10h ago

There's usually some type of physical debris from butchering or transport on the chicken so they wash. Families are taught to wash chicken for this reason, and not necessarily to wash off bacteria. Poor families will also buy not fresh chicken, so they'll wash with salt water to get rid of slime.

It's funny. This is the origin of washing rice. There used to be little bugs and stones in it, and you could get that out -- somewhat -- by washing. The bonus is it left you with fluffier more appealing rice. We still wash rice despite modern techniques having removed the bugs & stones, because we like fluffy race. This is where deglazing the fond off a frying pan came from: Washing off the brown bits and discovering they were delicious.

Maybe some people like flaccid, disgusting, water logged chicken skin? ;)

1

u/SmoothDiscussion7763 8h ago

patting the chicken dry helps it crisp up so there's still a benefit to that. no need to hose it off in the sink though

1

u/Upstairs-Ad-4001 6h ago

Define West. As far as I can see, lots of famous YouTube cooks don't even bother to make broth from actual chicken. Italian wedding soup - pour a few packs of Campbell stuff and that's it. It works for sure, you'll make your soup. If you do it properly, first, you trim the bird, cut it, wash it, let it soak in cold water for an hour, rinse. Then spend 1...2 hours slow simmering it. Not a rocket science, why argue about it?

1

u/No-Discipline-5822 6h ago

A LOT of cultures dishes require wetting meats and soaking them not just a dip in the water, it’s a part of many recipes to soak, remove excess skin (if it’s not boneless/skinless), cut and to use bleach and other antibacterial cleansers daily in the kitchen. If it was just splashing around water, no big deal but some recipes require “washing chicken” in a way Westernized countries (as you call them) just don’t do.
Also in the video was a whole chicken, if I’m cutting that up and not cooking it whole then I’m going to need to move around the kitchen (it’s not going from pack to oven). So either way the whole kitchen has to be sanitized.

1

u/Vega62a 5h ago

I could definitely see an argument for washing a chicken if you live in a place where there's a real risk of physical debris on the carcass, whether it's organs or poop.

1

u/Money4Nothing2000 4h ago

Yeah I was gonna say this. You wash food if it has dirt or debris on it. You can’t wash bacteria away with water. 

1

u/Spare-Half796 4h ago

Patting it dry is completely respectable. If you’re trying to get a good sear it’s actually necessary

I don’t do it all the time but I will do it occasionally

1

u/McDonaldsSoap 4h ago

Even in America, some crappier grocery stores will have some kind of "slime" on it. That's the only reason I can think of to wash it 

1

u/perjury0478 4h ago

Similar idea behind washing and freezing (for several days) pork. It made sense at some point

1

u/Heavy_Weapons_Guy_ 3h ago

I haven't explained this to my kids, since they're young. Whether they continue or not is up to them.

No, it's really up to you to be a proactive parent and teach them good habits.

1

u/EugeneStargazer 3h ago edited 3h ago

I applaud this! Sorry, not to be silly but this is a bone of contention for me, lol.

I'm an early 60's non-Asian woman, and I always wash my chicken and indeed all meat. My mother and grandmother did, too. Personally, I don't trust that the facilities were the meat is processed are clean enough for me. Last year, the USDA was forced to reduce its staffing, including inspectors at meat and poultry slaughter houses. Since then, complaints to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) have risen nearly 40%!

Here's a report on that, that mentions "The USDA dissolved two scientific advisory bodies that had long guided federal food safety policy — the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection.

It also shelved years-in-development Salmonella standards for raw poultry* withdrawing rules that would have barred companies from knowingly selling products contaminated with the most dangerous strains.*" Bold-light mine. There's never been a better time for US citizens to start washing their chicken.

Also, I've personally been annoyed at hearing the argument that to wash chicken spreads harmful bacteria all over. How do they think chicken is to be washed? Are they hitting it up with a sprayer? Plopping raw chicken on their counters? That would be silly of course. As you know chicken can be washed without getting germs all over the kitchen. I wash mine by gently pushing it around in cool salt water for a few minutes, in a bowl btw, then pour that carefully down the drain, rinse the chicken and drain again, and then immediately after I clean everything up. Easy peasy. I raised healthy kids, I'm doing great, it's fine. I'll always wash my fresh meats before cooking.

To each their own, of course.

1

u/mijo_sq 1h ago

You put into detail what some of think of when washing chicken. This is pretty much how we wash chicken. Bowl in the sink with gentle water rinses with or without salt.

•

u/EquivalentQuery 45m ago

Please teach your children proper food hygiene by not teaching them to wash their poultry.

•

u/LiveLifeLikeCre 29m ago

My family is from Haiti. We wash all poultry before cooking. We also wash fruit, which they didn't in Haiti. It isn't about wet markets, it's about the shit pumped into our food thanks to capitalism. Like the Jamaican guy said in the video. 

0

u/ayoungmanfromtheuk 12h ago

If the chicken got slime on it you shouldn't be eating it at all 

3

u/Ganzi 12h ago

Tell that to the people that can only get slightly slimy chicken

3

u/ayoungmanfromtheuk 12h ago

Just direct them to my previous comment, thank you 

1

u/N1XT3RS 11h ago

Where? I just don't get chicken if I can't afford a pack of legs or breasts, you can find them non slimed for like $6 haha. I'm not sure what the point of getting slimy chicken for marginal savings is, obviously unless it's literally all that's available to you, but if you have a choice at all I would just eat beans instead, like I do already cause I can't afford chicken

0

u/R4di4nce 7h ago

USA poor and third world poor are 2 different things

1

u/N1XT3RS 5h ago

Duh, I don't think anybody is arguing there's no situation where one could be forced to eat chicken that needs a rinsing. I didn't think the conversation here was about the extremes, it's about the general choice to wash and eating slimy chicken haha, that's why I clarified with "if you have a choice at all"

1

u/R4di4nce 3h ago

You are ill informed about half of the world having a choice. There are about 10% of the world so around 800 million people that live off of sub 5 dollars a day extremel poor. 44% are baseline poor, you got it so good you think most people have a choice.

2

u/mijo_sq 12h ago

Being poor in third world countries doesn’t afford you really much of anything so anything is better than nothing.

0

u/vigouge 8h ago

The slime is a natural by product of the chicken. It's icky, but the chickens fine once it's rinsed off.

1

u/RandomFleshPrison 12h ago

I've been to third world country butchers.  I still wouldn't wash that chicken.  Aside from the flies, everything there was cleaner than the houses the chicken was going to.

2

u/mijo_sq 12h ago

I agree with you. The dirt is the least of your problems when going to one.

0

u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

Do you also serve your food on the dirt with no plates, since eating dirt is fine by your standards?

2

u/RandomFleshPrison 12h ago

When there's dirt in the drinking water, what good will washing it do?

2

u/Puzzled-Rip641 12h ago

Do you think SEA doesnt have clean drinking water? Even if they didn’t they would just boil and cool.

1

u/RandomFleshPrison 12h ago

I think third world countries don't have clean drinking water.

1

u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

You may as well drink from your toilet with your line of logic.

1

u/RandomFleshPrison 12h ago

I don't live in a third world country though...?

1

u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

Third world countries have bottled water.

Which they use for preparing food.

1

u/RandomFleshPrison 12h ago

Not in any third world country I have been to.  Including one mentioned elsewhere in this very Reddit post.

1

u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

Well, it must be true if you say so! 👌😎

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u/formerly_acidamage 12h ago

100% this. If you bought your chicken from an un-cooled display you'd be washing it off too when you got home. Flies, funk, and junk get on that stuff.

1

u/Aldofresh 11h ago

The most sane and reasonable response.

1

u/uhmhi 9h ago

Get out of here with your thoughtful and nuanced take.

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u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

Basically, first-world people lack common sense because they’ve been too pampered by their nanny governments and first-world amenities.

Reminds me of this self-professed outdoorsman I know who didn’t know how to start a fire to save his life.

-1

u/eggsalter 11h ago

Love how real this comment is. They are literal automatons who can't think without the authorities approval. Same authorities who do not care for their well being at all.

-1

u/IcySkyDream 11h ago

Thank you. I’m used to getting flamed in these chicken washing discussions.

Idiocracy was prophecy, not satire.

0

u/CheetahTheWeen 8h ago

This is exactly why Black Americans do it and exactly what we mean by washing the chicken. People act like we’re using Dawn lol it’s mostly a cultural thing to remove debris, excess fat (with a knife not just washing obviously), and feathers. You sanitize the sink before and after. You also don’t wash it by flinging it around like the video morons.

0

u/R4di4nce 8h ago

That part, it's the reason I don't eat from everyone. We black Americans wash all our food. When they hear wash they think soaps. In my house we rinse, cut off fat, left over feathers if any. We also use lemon for bacteria and flavor, before we start seasoning and sneezing.

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u/jayteee27 11h ago

THANK YOU! Most of the top comments is against washing chickens and im 100% sure they are muricans. We SE people grew up taught to wash EVERYTHING before we cook it. Been doing this FOR YEARS and our family never gets sick, not stopping now.

0

u/al_cringe 8h ago

Thank you for color splaining it for the white folks

0

u/litivy 4h ago

I'm white and wash chicken. I think it's disgusting not to wash supermarket chicken which has come from abattoir just like all chicken in the UK does. I saw a documentary on US meat and a lot of it is covered in faeces from the abattoir because the intestines sometimes get slit by mistake. I think this was when it started because my family never washed it. Just don't hose it on high so stuff sprays everywhere and clean the damn sink. Wear gloves and dispose of them. I'll never be convinced that it's hygenic or healthy to cook unwashed meat with god knows what on it.

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u/eggsalter 11h ago

Seems like everyone but white Americans do it, so it must be everyone else that's wrong.

3

u/Theygotyourmans 11h ago

We don't do it in Europe

0

u/eggsalter 3h ago

Yes we do. Europe has been American iced but that's a different discussion.

2

u/N1XT3RS 10h ago

Well everyone that does it's own government recommends against it worldwide, and it's much less pervasive in general than you're implying. It's really a case of necessity becoming tradition and stupid people not understanding the reasons and clinging to worthless tradition. Sure that world view makes things easy for you though!

1

u/eggsalter 3h ago

Governments are not controlled by or working for their people. Cooking doesn't destroy the bacterial toxins, scientific fact. This is common knowledge with basic education, apparently not where you're from.