While I appreciate Alton's stringent holding to the proper rules of food preparations and storage, I have to admit I fall somewhere shy of that.
I look back on my habits over the years and realize how much I've changed to become more strict to reduce cross-contamination and potential disease. The reason I wasn't as picky before wasn't laziness, it was a lack of knowledge. I simply didn't know any different. I didn't learn to cook growing up, it was something I picked up later after I got married.
Considering that, I am more paranoid than ever to eat something from someone else's kitchen. From the scary relatives at family reunions to the well-intentioned acquaintances that just have to share some baked good, I have become more hands-off than ever.

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I'm lazy. I do try to keep the chicken 'juice' under control when I am marinating & cutting things, but I have been known to then use that knife to cut up the next ingredient (which 99% of the tie is going in the pot with the chicken anyway). I can't easily find gloves and sometimes due to space issues the raw and the cooked end up right next to each other on the counter. I do try to clean up really well when I am done cooking, but the chopping, mixing, blending process gets a bit 'cross contaminated'. I'm just not that afraid of a chicken.

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I've been cooking in a conventionally clean kitchen for 40 years. That's well before salmonella scares and omnipresent antibacterials in everything from sunscreen to building materials. Since I've never had food poisoning and I don't know anyone close to me who's actually had it (but I have heard the horror stories of someone who knows someone) I'm fine carrying on eating raw cookie dough and using my kitchen towel to wipe up my counters.

I understand that if infected chicken crosses my path my kitchen towel and hot water (I do use VERY hot water) aren't going to do the trick. But I also understand that, short of salmonella, mad cow disease (BSE) and botulism, the every day bacteria and beasties actually strengthen our immune systems. So I'm going to live, live, LIVE until I die and I hope I won't take too many with me but, meanwhile, I'm going to be enjoying my ice cream with raw egg yolks, carpacio and anything else I get an opportunity to.

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I'm right in them middle of Brown and Oliver. One's over the top the other is, well, sloppy. Still, I take above average common sense precautions. Don't want to get any sickness from the food I prepare.

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As someone who has actually *had* food poisoning, I
tend more toward the Alton view, particularly when
cleaning up after handling raw proteins. I have a
bleach/water solution all ready in a spray bottle,
so it's not too much of a hassle.

That said, I still eat runny eggs, raw oysters,
sushi, and probably a few other things that aren't
necessarily safe. It's all a tradeoff for how badly
I want to eat something.

Monika's point about picking up a bit of immunity
along the way is a good one. If the govt standards
were a bit lower, even though people would get a
little bit sick a little bit more often, the threat
of death from foodborne illness would be a lot lower.

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If I cut chicken, and then some peppers with the same knife and they're both getting cooked through... well, I don't worry about it.

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As someone who actually *had* food poisoning (exactly three weeks ago to be exact), I have actually become less stringent about cleanliness since then.

The type of food poisoning I had is something that is very common, but most people don't have issues with it because they have built up immunities to it after a while due to basic hygiene.

I, on the other hand, wash my hands fifteen times every time I cook, scrub the counters down with an antibacterial cleaner after I lay anything on it, wash my hands before plating the meal, wash my hands after getting my drink, and then once more before I actually sit down to eat. Thank you fiance for turning me into a germophobe.

So, while I've been sick a lot less than the average person, when I do get sick, it is BAD.

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Americans have become a little bit hysterical about EEK GERMS! in recent years and I think it's a little bit overdone. All this sponge-microwaving and sterilizing anything in sight is counterproductive; what you're actually doing when you use your toxic chemicals to "kill 99% of bacteria on contact" is creating selection pressures that force the germs to evolve in order to survive. We're simply breeding better germs, not eliminating them. If you want things clean, wash them with soap, don't douse them with chemicals!

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I always keep my foods and juices and separate for different reasons than microbes (I worked in a micro lab for a few years and I work in a hospital . . . I show no fear). I am a vegetarian and many of my friends are too. However, many of my friends wouldn't come over without some chicken or something meaty.

I'm always very careful to prepare the meat separately and sterilize in between. I guess a little laziness wouldn't be known by my friends, but why not take the extra effort.

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I believe that the current trend with the 'hyper' sterilisation of the kitchen is just counter productive. In the end your children will succumb to the tiniest of bacteria, because their immune system hasn't had time to develop. Just think of all the allergies people have developed in the last decade.

That said, I'm pretty relaxed kitchen wise and think Alton is way over the top - relax dude, it's chicken not anthrax you're handling.

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I'm somewhat lax in terms of suface and dish sanitation (I do keep separate meat and not meat cutting boards), however I am an obsessive person in regards to food that has expired/gone stale.

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The difference between AB and Oliver is one of context.

AB is making a show for people who will be purchasing chicken from a typical supermarket and thus is not over the top at all because the risk really is there.

Oliver is making a show where he is VERY sure to mention that he uses free range chicken. So the risks that AB is mitigating aren't really there. Or, at least, are much much lower.

Context is everything and between the two examples in this story there's an obvious difference.

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I have to say, I'm pretty sure Jamie Oliver doesn't eat or taste things that have been in contact with raw meat. I can tell you're referring to his Jamie at Home episode where he makes a BBQ sauce for some chicken, some lamb, and some ribs. He tastes the sauce before he puts any meat in it, and then he coats all the meat and puts everything, sauce included, in the oven. Seems like fine food safety to me. He never tastes anything that's touched raw meat.

Sure, we don't see him wash his hands often on the show and it does make me nervous... but that's the magic of TV. You can see his hands get magically clean in the next shot. They just don't show it!

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I'm not that cautious, I think people are too ruled by weird sterilization fears - but I am amazed that anyone would use a knife to cut one thing and then the other even if it is the difference between onion and parsley. I always clean my knife in between different ingredients. ALWAYS. I don't think of it so much as sanitary, but good practice.

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