How much do bacteria fears rule your kitchen?

by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Jun 4th 2008 @ 4:02PM

After some comments in my post about shrimp cocktail, I began to think about kitchen fears. Shayna covered "risky eating" in April, but what about how you run your kitchen and how you prepare your food? Are you an Alton Brown, who treats raw chicken like an infectious disease with his gloves, sterilizing, and paranoia? Are you like a Jamie Oliver, who will run ribs, chicken, and lamb through a barbecue sauce, and then run his finger through it to lick and taste? Maybe somewhere in between?

I am, by no means, going to refute the possible dangers of bacteria. Everyone's immune systems are different, and one person's healthy, bacteria-filled oasis is another's stomach-bugged hell. That being said, I'm happy to say (knock on wood) that it's never been an issue for me. In my early cooking days, I would try to keep things clean, but would always get a little lazy with my chicken/meats -- until I dated someone who looked at my kitchen practices with horror. I got more particular and careful, especially when cooking for others, but when I'm only cooking for me, I'm still fairly lax.

And I see no reason to change my habits. I've never had food poisoning, and I have only been sick a few times in the last 10 years. It's hard not to buy into the notion that exposure is great for building resistance when my lifestyle has kept me ridiculously healthy.

How about you?

Filed Under: Health & Medical
Tags: bacteria, germs, kitchen practices, KitchenPractices

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

6-04-2008 @4:56PM thefishie said... 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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6-04-2008 @6:58PM Barry said... 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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6-04-2008 @5:23PM stacey said... 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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6-04-2008 @6:26PM rainey said... 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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6-04-2008 @7:30PM Chris said... 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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6-05-2008 @9:18AM Emily said... 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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6-04-2008 @10:29PM Big John said... 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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6-04-2008 @11:01PM pIrish said... 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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6-04-2008 @11:51PM STH said... 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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6-05-2008 @8:03AM DaftDude said... 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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6-05-2008 @4:40AM Amanda said... 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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6-05-2008 @2:37PM sng said... 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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6-06-2008 @5:12PM mmiles said... 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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6-09-2008 @4:38PM bsh711 said... 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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