Is Your Chicken Making You Sick?

Photo Source:  CDC

It could be depending upon how you handle and prepare it.

Take this short quiz to find out:

If you answered �true� to any of the above statements, you could be opening yourself up to food poisoning.
Chicken can contain Salmonella and Campylobacter, two bacteria which have been associated with close to 2 million cases of food poisoning among Americans.  According to a study in the Journal of Food Protection, the majority of cases of foodborne infections (also known as food poisoning) are associated with eating raw, undercooked poultry, or with cross-contamination with over 15 percent of incidences occurring in your kitchen.

In this study, researchers surveyed over 1,500 grocery shoppers and estimated from this data, how consumers handle and cook poultry once they get it home from the supermarket.  This is what they found:

• Nearly 70 percent of the consumers surveyed reported washing or rinsing raw poultry before cooking it.  This is a recipe for food poisoning.  Giving your raw chicken a bath can increase the chances that you are splashing the bacteria from the raw bird all over your sink and other kitchen surfaces.  If you don�t properly clean these areas after the bird bath, you could be setting the stage for cross-contamination.  Let�s say that a food such as raw veggies or a kitchen utensil comes in contact with these infected areas, and you eat the raw veggie or put the utensil in your mouth.     Eating the contaminated food or coming in contact with the bacteria-laden utensil can transfer the nasty bacteria into your body and could make you sick.   The only way to destroy harmful bacteria is to kill them through proper cooking.  You can�t wash the bacteria away.
• 
  While 62 percent of consumers surveyed own a food thermometer, fewer than 27 percent actually used it when cooking pieces of chicken or ground poultry.  They were more likely to use the food thermometer when cooking a whole bird.  Unfortunately, bacteria can be in all parts of the chicken, and safely cooked poultry can range in color from white to pink to tan so using a thermometer is the only way to know that it is safe to eat.
• 
  Lastly, only about 17 percent of those surveyed correctly stored raw poultry in the refrigerator.  Allowing raw poultry to stay between 40 degrees F and 140 degrees F (room temperature) for more than two hours can encourage the bacteria to multiply to dangerous levels and more likely to make you sick.

Here is what you need to do:

1.    Don�t wash poultry before you cook it. 

2.    Use a food thermometer to alert you when the poultry is thoroughly cooked.  Place the thermometer in the thickest part of the poultry.  When it registers an internal temperature of 165 degrees F, it is safe to eat yet moist to eat.

3.    Store raw poultry in your refrigerator and make sure the inside temperature is at 40 degrees F or below.  Stick a thermometer inside your refrigerator to make sure that it is cold enough and adjust the temperature setting accordingly.  Store raw meats in the back of the refrigerator, which is likely to be the coldest part, in a container to catch any bacteria-laden drippings.  You don�t want to cross contaminate any other foods in the refrigerator with the leaking drippings. Thoroughly wash the container with hot soapy water before reusing it.

Be safe,

Joan

Twitter:  @JoanSalgeBlake