chicken

[bigbobby]

I know that chicken is one of the best proteins that you can eat when you're trying to lose weight and stay healthy. THis is espeically true when it comes to the white meat, because it's far lower in fat than the dark meat. So go for the chicken breast if you're looking for the right option.

But I just learned 2 things that i find very helpful for making my choices and prepping my meals:

1- don't wash your chicken. It doesn't make it any safer (it really doesn't!) but it risks spreading more chicken bacteria around your kitchen sink area.

2- frozen chicken is actually lower in bacteria than fresh. The bacteria on chicken that most commonly causes food poisoning has a hard time surviving freezing, so once the chicken has been thawed, it's safer to eat than it was whne you first got it at the store!

[sarah]

OMG that's freaky! I've always been told to wash my chicken before cooking it. On second thought i guess it doesn't really make that much sense to wash meat before cooking it since you're only washing the outside of it and that's the part that will be getting cooked the most haha.

It's funny how we do things out of habit just because we've been told that it makes things more "clean" and we don't even give them much consideration. I have to admit, though, even though I know that it doesn't make a difference, it will feel very weird not to wash my chicken.

[kellykatt]

If I'm really neat about washing chicken in the sink and I make sure to disinfect the area then I don't see that I'm doing any harm by rinsing it off. At least I'll be getting off anything that it came in contact with at the butcher shop. I know that I'll be cooking it, but I still like to be very clean. Especially if I'm cooking chicken that has skin on it!

[lia]

It's really hard to keep a kitchen clean from chicken. It's even hard to wash chicken off your hands. The less I can spread that around, the better!

[treehuggertodd]

As long as you wash your chicken in a neat way, I can't see that you will really spread bacteria all over your kitchen. For example, if you don't blast the water onto it, but you just wash it neatly under running water into your sink, then transfer it directly to a pan or cutting board, then you are keeping the bacteria contained. Just make sure that you keep your sink and area clean by washing it with appropriate products after you have prepped your food.

I don't personally wash my chicken. I don't see why when I'm going to be cooking it anyway. But I still don't see that washing it is actually bad.

[bruceH]

As long as you wash your chicken in a neat way, I can't see that you will really spread bacteria all over your kitchen. But I still don't see that washing it is actually bad.

But if it's not necessary, why risk it?