You aren't alone! I'm always very careful with chicken. I usually put the package in the sink and remove from there to pan or plastic cutting board in a small area. Cutting board goes into DW and the whole area/sinks are washed down with hot, soapy clorox water. I ask the checker to double or triple bag it and keep it away from other food. Sometimes they look at me like I'm psycho, but thats ok!

Yeah, raw chicken isn't fun to handle, but I don't think you have to super obsess about it. I use a plastic board just for chicken/raw meat which I can bleach. I'm careful about hand washing, I use tongs to handle the chicken for flipping and such when seasoning, and then when it's all set, I use a disinfecting cleaner on my counter (spray and let it sit for awhile...don't just spray and wipe) and of course wash my hands. It's been a really really long time since either DH or I were sick, so we must be doing something right.

I'm that way about washing chicken hands. Neurotic. But I've come to terms with chicken in general. I also have the butcher do my cutting. I could just snip out the spine with my poultry shears, but he can do it more easily with his sharp knife and he gets to keep the mess. I've gotten pretty good at containing it, even when I'm pulling the bag from the freezer with the giblets and spines that will go in stock.

It helps if you start with a clean and uncluttered kitchen and a high quality, small-ish farm chicken. Organic, free range chickens are less likely to have salmonella, etc., because they have to be maintained in healthy flocks, rather than stuffed in overcrowded, too small cages. That doesn't guarantee that they're disease free. They're just a lot less likely to be contaminated. The eggs too. Chickens that get to peck instead of only eating feed tend to taste better too.

If you can't declutter you kitchen, why not get yourself a chicken tub? Just a deep stainless pan that you can handle, clean and trim your chicken in, which you can easily sterilize with boiling water, or pop into the dishwasher. Also, you can get the food service gloves that are like plastic bags, so easy on and off, for handling the chicken. Just slide a hand out, leaving the glove in the tub/on the chicken, when you need to touch something clean.

Yes, I was going to say that. You're chickens can't be so poisenous or they would be banned! There isn't another country on the planet as litiginous as yours, so I think the breeders must be very aware of health and safety. Normal hygiene has to be enough?

I'm a food safety "nut", and not just with poultry - but with the proper handling, cooking, and storage of all foods. I don't fear it because I use the suggested protocols and make them a habit with ALL food. I try to be well-informed on the subject through food safety classes I've taken, having studied the subject, and keep up-to-date with it.

I had food poisoning once, and not at my own hand, but from a commercial food product from the store, so it was something I wanted to avoid at all costs. People make all kinds of food safety mistakes. Just teach home canning classes or food safety classes to the elderly at the Senior Center, or our local Food Bank, like I do (I'm a certified trainer) and you'll see how many safe food practices people omit and still live to tell about it. YIKES! Ask people - what is the proper temperature for a refrigerator, and do they have a thermometer in their refrigerator to check the temperature? That's a good place to start with food safety that is given very little thought on a day-to-day basis. I have encountered elderly people taking my classes who unplug their refrigerators overnight to save money!!!! People who smoke, or who sample food while preparing it, may never give a thought about the hand-to-mouth contact and potential for bacteria contamination from it. And that's just a few ways we spread bacteria to our food.

Microbial contamination comes basically from the animal skin. As Harold McGee points out in his book "On Food And Cooking" The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (page 100), "The skin prevents bacteria from penetrating into live muscle, but this means that it [the skin] harbors great numbers of microbes that can be transferred to the muscle when the carcass is cut up. ... For example, a typical piece of pork in the supermarket will have a few hundred bacteria per square centimeter, while a piece of chicken may have 10,000 in the same area. This simple statistic is the reason for cleaning hands, knives, and cutting boards thoroughly with hot, soapy water after handling chickens and before handling other foods, and for cooking poultry well, especially its surfaces."

Bacteria must be under the right conditions to turn into a toxin. It's the toxin that is the problem, not the bacteria. There are bacteria everywhere, but they aren't all toxic because they aren't under the right conditions to develop from a bacteria to a toxin. That's the one key point people seem to miss. Proper handling, cooking, refrigeration, and cleaning practices will take care of the bacteria. As Harold McGee points out, "Most of our storage techniques are designed to counteract microbial growth in some way. Bacteria and molds generally thrive in moderate temperatures, high humidity, and low salt concentrations, and there are accordingly several different antimicrobial strategies: refrigeration, dehydration, and salt curing, as well as drastic treatments as antibiotics and radiation."

I'd just like to add that when you're talking broilers, the term "free range" is a marketing ploy. Broilers put on weight so fast and are processed so young that they can hardly walk their last few weeks of life. They would never leave a house/feed trough even if there was good range outside it. That's why I purchase "pastured poultry", birds raised in outdoor floorless cages that are slowly dragged daily the length of the cage onto fresh, clean grass. Pastured birds have an exceedingly low bacteria load.

Free range has meaning only for laying hens, who will indeed forage some distance from the hen house.

"Don't wash your chicken in the sink". I think it must be the same people who is telling you never flush your toilets, because flushing will spread germs all over your house.

It is crazy now I see they are putting sanitizes next to elevator call buttons in office buildings. Why? Do you use your tongue to push the up and down buttons?

dcarch .

I did take the food safety classes required by the local Health Department when my first husband and I owned the bar/grille, so I'm not completely unaware of food safety issues. I've also "graduated" from the Extension Service canning program and finished the one available through the National Center for Home Food Preservation, so I'm aware of the "dangers" of improper food handling. Being afraid to touch our food, though, has taken education from simple food safety to fear mongering, which is unnecessary and counter productive and our government requirements are designed, as explained to me "for the dumbest person in the dirtiest environment who makes every mistake possible and still people won't die from it." It's all about "liability". That's why extension services will no longer check my pressure canner gauge, they might get sued. And yes, I worked for lawyers for 35 years, and have a degree in criminal law, so I recognize that problem too.

dcarch, my old doctor used to tell me that we are "sanitizing ourselves sick" and that a person should avoid hand sanitizers in normal conditions, as our children are not allowed to actually develop any immunities to anything. He did note that the elderly, the chronically ill and the immune-compromised, as well as infants, have different "rules". He also reminded me that if I urinate on my hands and then use hand sanitizer, I still have urine on my hands, it's just sanitized, LOL. Sanitizer cannot take the place of washing your hands, although many use it in that manner.

That said, I carry them in my Jeep for times I am at the farm and need to adjust a hydraulic cylinder on the tractor or handle the chickens.

I did use them on grocery cart handles when I had the grandkids, as they always ended up chewing on those plastic handles and that grossed me out.

Lacey is right about broiler chickens, they sit at a feeder and eat until they have heart attacks, it's kind of creepy. I put a feeder at one end of their space and water at the other end, so they have to move, even when they have new grass. They stay cleaner and have to at least walk around from food to water, and that's just about all the walking they do, although they will forage for bugs and eat some green stuff.

Annie

LOL, DC! ! !

I've often thought much the same thing!

Personally, I think that being OCD over "cleanliness" and sanitizing everything within reach only contributes to more widespread infections (for lack of a better word).

Toxic bacteria, etc., is just being encouraged to become stronger and stronger.

Yes, I agree, use common sense and standard, basic practices when handling chicken, or any other raw meat, for that matter. But I seriously doubt the whole kitchen needs to be sterilized every time a raw chicken is brought in from the store, or prepared.

I've bought, cut up, and cooked many MANY chickens in my decades of cooking.

It's only in the last decade or so that I started using a separate cutting board for meat and poultry. Neither I, nor anyone in my family has ever been sick from it.

I think 'careful' is good, 'fearful' and/or 'overly cautious' is unnecessary.

Rusty

It's true. The commercial free range chickens just walk around the shed, mostly, but that's still healthier than the ones that can't walk at all. And they taste better if they peck bugs. :) I like the idea of pasture chickens, but the ones we get are all tough old birds.

I'm with all of you sensible people except where bits of chicken go flying around the kitchen when the cleaver is too enthusiastically wielded. Unfortunately, salmonella can live for a month on a hard dry surface. When the chicken comes home already prepped, I don't have to worry about, erm, "someone" getting happy with a knife. :) Oh, and I'm neurotic about wash your hands after touching the chicken. I try to be really organized, including tops off jars I'm using, so that I can avoid cross contamination without washing my hands a dozen times. I think helping someone through a phobia, however, requires more baby steps than "just get over it".

So...what's the difference between washing the chicken in your sink and washing the bowl it marinated in? The reason for not washing a chicken that came to you well cleaned is to keep the skin dry so it'll crisp up. The reason for not using your sink is if you stack dishes in the sink. Put them away first (in dishwasher, or wash and put in cupboard), then wash the chicken, then wash the sink. No biggie. Have your pan ready, though. so you don't drip chicken water all over. :)

You can get color coded cutting boards, too; yellow for chicken, red for meats, etc. Tundra Supplies has them, as does Amazon. I try to get all my stuff organized so that once I'm done fiddling with the chicken, the board gets rinsed off in hot water and placed in the dishwasher, then I wash my hands well with antibacterial soap.

I started washing my chicken back in the 70's when the news was that they were tainted with fecal bacteria. I still wash them.

Okay, I just put chicken tenders in the oven. I usually buy whole, but if I'm not at my butcher I find tenders are least likely have issues. Same principle for any package of parts. This was for a coated chicken dish: First I set the oven and made the "wet" in a prep bowl that goes easily in the dishwasher. Mine was mustard (peppercorn/garlic and whole grain Dijon with a splash of white wine), but it could be egg wash or what you will. Then I made the coating in a pyroceram (Corning) pie plate (hemp hearts instead of crumbs, parm and fines herbes). They're easy and convenient, and again, go easily in the DW. I got out press tongs (easier than scissor style) and the baggie gloves, took the lid off the trash, and put the oven pan with the wet and coating dishes. Then I got out the chicken. Never put it down on the counter.

The package had been in a produce bag in the fridge. That helps get them home while not having a drip issue. I used the end of the spoon from the wet to poke a hole in the package and opened it, dumping the chicken into the oven pan so I could throw away the wrappings straight away. Washed hands in very hot water and soap because I'm a freak about chicken hands. Put on the gloves and used the tongs to turn the pieces in the wet and coating, then arranged them in the pan. When I was done, I pulled the gloves off inside out to contain where I touched some chicken, and threw it in the trash. Rinsed the dishes with hot water in the previously emptied sink and put them in the DW. Washed my hands and sink then put the lid back on the trash. Put the pan in the oven once it was hot.

If I'd been more deft with the tongs I'd never have touched the chicken at all. :) With pieces there are no flying bits. This is cheater chicken since there are no bones or skin or giblets or anything. :) Maybe a way to start getting over fear of chicken?

Better to understand that there's no reason to have a fear in the first place.

I have no fear of chicken and cook it often. We roasted an organic chicken yesterday, and I did rinse it off in the sink first, but just to remove excess juices. I grew up on a farm and was not protected from too much there, and so I have probably developed immunities from childhood. We definitely had free-range chickens, and I used to chase them around the yard when I was little so that I could catch them and pet them. I was not good at catching them, but eventually they would get tired of running from me. I don't think they liked being petted, but i was only about four when I did that.

The only time I got food poisoning was when I had eaten chicken from a buffet (at a fashion show) where the chicken had probably not been kept at the proper temperature. Everyone who ate that chicken got sick, but I've never gotten sick from chicken at home or in Mexico.

My grandparents lived next door when I was little. I loved the little chickies but not that big bad rooster! I remember gramps beheading the chickens and watching them run around without their heads... I remember my Christian grandma coming the closest ever to swearing when she was trying to get those pin feathers out. Roosters scare me. Chickens do not, dead or alive. I have no fear of cooking chickens from the grocery meat department. I do disinfect my cutting board after cutting any meat or fish or chicken.

As to the hand sanitizer, when I would (the time of year) use those, I am not touching anything with my bare hand at any point anyhow! I press the buttons with my sleeve covered elbow right about that time of year. I don't what them button lickers are giving.

Don't be afraid. Just find a system that works for your kitchen.

Ask your meat/deli/guy/gal to sell you frozen chicken. Not the thawed so called 'fresh' in the soggy meat rack/case. Most groceries get it by truck and it is frozen. They thaw it and put it out gross and wet. Just tell them it is going home and into the freezer for a later meal...

We don't all have access to a good butcher that will prep properly.

Thaw in your fridge in a glass or metal bowl and handle it in your sink. Clean up before, clean sink, and after. What you read about not cleaning chicken is the potential for most people to slop a leaky package all over the counter, fridge, and drip juice everywhere. Fling it, lol.

When DH gets out the cleaver, out he goes to the deck on newspaper. (man hands, oy) We also prep whole rosters outside. Often for the grill rotisserie. So out it is anyway.

Nothing to fear. Just keep it very cold, semi-frozen and firm. No stink or slimy texture if kept very cold. If you have to buy it meat rack, double wrap it and put it in the freezer, even for just an hour if cooking that night. And scold the teen grocery bagger that tosses meat packages on top of salad and non-perishables, : )

At one of my groceries we avoid the crazy check-out person and the nut bagger. His name is Kenny and we have noticed his line is always empty so we are not the only ones...(i most often bag my own. Food is expensive. I like to bag where it ends up together in the home...downstairs, upstairs, freezer etc.)

I'd say, how much chicken have you eaten in your lifetime? How many gastro illness have you gotten in your lifetime? Of those, how many were food born? I do actual butchering (not culling, just gutting and cleaning) of the chicken right in our kitchen. So statistically I'm probably even at a higher rate of contamination risk and we've never dealt with it here. I do have chickens that free range though so they are outside all day long on grass in nice weather. Perhaps that does make a difference. I've never looked into it so I don't know. I guess I do have an advantage though that I know no intestinal or fecal contamination has occurred.

I just make sure I wash everything down well and I normally put a very small amount of bleach to clean the sinks before the process starts and after I am done. I wipe down the counters and surrounding area after everything is finished.

Sleevendog, your description of your chicken is enough to put anyone off chicken! Sounds like something out of a horror movie LOL Glad I live in a place where chickens aren't slimy an wet LOL

If that grocery was the only one for miles, i would move, right next door to littlemonkey, : )

(i've only been in that market probably once the past year...for some oats)

We have good markets nearby in NY. The chickens we were to roast last night are from Quebec. Nice little poulets. Rock hard frozen taking a while to thaw. Packaged properly.