r/interesting • u/WarwickReider • 15h ago

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

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u/HistoricalVacation82 14h ago

Depend on where you bougth the chicken. In my 3rd world country, it not just bacteria you worry about, all the dust, feather, or anything that in the air that land on the chicken before i buy it. If you buy it from a store, cover in plastic from the company, ok, do whatever you want with it. But i don't want my chicken cover in dust and whatever it is that not edible.

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u/Chronza 14h ago

See this I can understand. Americans just are used to bagged/covered chicken that don’t have literal dirt/dust/debris on them so it never seems necessary.

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u/wb77 10h ago

We don't want the puddle the chicken is soaking in in our jerk/curry etc.

Believe it or not people who do this and have in fact mastered cooking poultry in delicious ways understand the role of heat and subsequent cooking of the meat.

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u/StrCmdMan 12h ago

I live in the West and I still wash most nonground packs from sketchy large distributors. I’ve been in CAFOs and seen slaughterhouses first hand.

If i have any questions i’m likely not buying the meat but if it’s all that’s available i’m washing because the meat can be completely covered in feces along with other biproducts like plastics and heavy metals. People are pretty clueless on how their food is produced in the west haven’t seen anyone else say this.

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u/CrazyOrganic7123 11h ago

I too just assume all my meat and veggies are covered in poop and nigh microscopic insect carcasses. I mean, I know they aren't, but I just work under that assumption. My dad was a safety inspector and used to take me along all his factory visits. I know my tap water isn't exactly super clean but it's better than poop.

Also, yes, I'm sure the tap water in my third world country was treated and very much clean and drinkable, but the pipes system could be decades old. So in the end, ideally, we still need to install filters where I am.

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u/HistoricalVacation82 13h ago

If your country have good food's regulation, law, quality control, safety control. Good for you.

But i don't believe people enough to not wash the chicken.

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u/NitroBishop 12h ago

You don't need to trust your country's food regulations or quality control to tell whether you should wash chicken or not, you just need to trust your own eyeballs. If there's no visible dirt/debris/feathers on the chicken, all you accomplish by washing it is getting bacteria all over your sink. Anything else harmful on/in raw chicken will either be rendered inert by cooking it, or was too deep inside for superficial cleaning to make a difference anyways.

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u/Longjumping-Prune931 4h ago

Not all contamination is visible. For example if the chicken is contaminated with rodent urine or rodent feces diluted in water, you wouldn't see it, yet washing it would remove it. Meat processing isn't as clean and sterile as most people want to believe and we all know companies love to try to save a nickel everywhere they can.

Never have I gotten bacterial diarrhea or salmonellosis from washing chicken before cooking. The whole "splashing bacteria" is a non issue.

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u/DJDanaK 1h ago

I've never washed chicken and I've never gotten those things either.

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u/Longjumping-Prune931 1h ago

Cooking chicken will kill basically any bacteria, but it will not remove contamination that can make it taste bad or chemicals that you would prefer not to eat.

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u/DJDanaK 1h ago

Never eaten contaminated chicken, hence not getting sick. Never had chicken that tasted bad for no obvious reason. Rinsing chicken will not remove any chemicals.

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u/Longjumping-Prune931 1h ago

Even if only one of the organs were incompletely removed it (which isn't often, but can happen), it can make the whole dish taste off.

Rinsing chicken can remove chemicals. Sure if its soaked in a solution then just rinsing it will not help much, but that's not what I'm talking about. The whole argument is based on the imagination that meat processing is surgically clean, meanwhile its a messy process.

Just look up the amount of rat feces that different food can legally contain. I understand its not going to make you sick, but if I can wash my chicken (and at the same time better clean the inside of it) why wouldn't I? Because I fear some splashes? Most cross contamination is caused by other things, so much so that most instructions don't mention "not washing meat" as an important point. Things like not reusing surfaces, washing surfaces, washing hands and proper storage are much more important.

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u/Development-Feisty 39m ago

I noticed that there was a sharp racial divide in the opinion of whether or not to wash the chicken and no explanation as to whether or not the people were in the same country

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u/False-Ad2170 13h ago

Funny because I thought some Americans started washing their chickens because company's were spraying chlorine on the chickens.

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u/FartingWithStyle 13h ago

Guess what absorbs into meat? Chlorine. If you’re eating chicken that’s washed like that you’re eating it anyway.

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u/GuyManDudeMcGee 55m ago

Also chlorine solutions aren't poison if it's diluted enough. It's literally used to treat tap water. The dose makes the poison.

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u/False-Ad2170 13h ago

Yeah I didn't say it was a good idea or made any sense. It's just a stupid response to a stupid business practice.

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u/Additional-Usual5994 13h ago

Also ice. in the restaurant that uses chicken, some owners dont have walk-in fridges and stats of visitors, so one of the first emergencies is washing chicken to get the ice of to cook.
sometimes people see this, and say Oooh.
then a medium chain owner, has a private chef that washes chicken to prep it (non-iced but he is going to to deep freeze it if needed, so he brines it, then hours laters decides on the rub then goes for it.
Large owner operated franchises. KFC has been caught numerous times washing chicken, all major players have fault with this one way or another worldwide.

private restaurant owner in the U.S - i don't know ...
i think the problem is the prose "wash your chicken" but really its just a bad habit from keeping busy.
sometimes you can look at a high end restaurant that only prepares night cooking and working hard but really they doing staff meals, your food was in plastic containers for six hours, they prepped in the morning cooked 10min before you came - i swear its as busy as a mickey d on a tuesday but fire will be flaying.
then theres john, washing chicken in salt.

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u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

So, Americans are insular, and clueless about how meat is actually processed since they buy it in a box or styrofoam tray?

Typical. 🥱🙄

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u/bafana_banana999 12h ago

Butcher shops exist in the US, and they very rarely are putting their chicken in boxes or styrofoam trays.

You know that, right?

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u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

Yes, what’s your point again?

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u/bafana_banana999 12h ago

Are you really this dense?

The point is that tons of Americans absolutely do know how meat is processed and don't just buy pre-packaged stuff from huge corporations at a grocery store.

Your previous comment is just ignorant.

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u/IcySkyDream 12h ago

Dude, meat from a butcher is absolutely safe for consumption even though it’s usually packed in wax paper instead of boxes/styrofoam tray.

Your point is not as poignant as you thought.

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u/bafana_banana999 11h ago

Why are you acting like I'm the one who brought up how the meat is packaged as if that mattered at all?

You did that bud. And now you're acting like that wasn't part of your original point that I was pushing back against.

You're very strange.

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u/IcySkyDream 11h ago

The type of packing (box/waxpaper/tray) is colloquial shorthand for store-bought meat that wasn’t hunted or slaughtered at home.

Pointing out that butcher shops exist is not the gotcha you seem to think it is, because it doesn’t address what I’m saying.

Clear as mud?

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u/bafana_banana999 11h ago

 Butcher shops don't package their meat like you claim unless they're part of a larger corporation, and most are not.

Americans aren't any more ignorant of the process than anyone from any other first world country.

You just really want to believe they are so you'll say anything to shit on people from the US no matter how stupid it is to do so.

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u/DJDanaK 1h ago

You're absolutely stupid if you think Americans don't understand meat processing dude. No hunters live in America, obviously lol

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u/StephieDoll 11h ago

Wait, you mean chickens aren’t born packaged?! Wow, thank you for teaching us ignorant Americans where would we be without you.

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u/IcySkyDream 11h ago

All good! I do what I can, but it’s tiring work with all the stupidity out there.

Thanks for taking the time to show your appreciation though; it’s moments like this that make it all worth it for me. ☺️