In food safety study, 25% of participants contaminated salad with raw chicken

In a research geared toward assessing the affect of washing poultry on kitchen contamination, researchers discovered that greater than 1 / 4 of research members contaminated salad with uncooked poultry—together with many research members who didn’t wash the poultry. The research highlights the significance of hand-washing and cleansing and sanitizing the kitchen with the intention to cut back the danger of foodborne sickness when cooking at residence.

Washing uncooked poultry is just not beneficial, attributable to considerations about inadvertently contaminating different meals and surfaces—and rising the danger of foodborne sickness.

“We wished to know what impact an academic intervention would have on getting individuals to cease washing poultry earlier than cooking, and what impact any ensuing change in conduct may need on lowering contamination within the kitchen,” says Ellen Shumaker, corresponding writer of the research and an extension affiliate at North Carolina State College. “We additionally wished to get a greater concept of how, if in any respect, washing poultry really led to elevated contamination within the kitchen.”

For the research, researchers recruited 300 residence cooks who stated they washed poultry earlier than cooking it. The researchers despatched meals security info to 142 of the research members by way of e-mail, outlining risk-reduction efforts—together with the advice to not wash uncooked poultry throughout meals preparation. The remaining 158 research members didn’t obtain the schooling intervention.

All 300 research members have been then invited to check kitchens geared up with video cameras that filmed meal preparation. Members have been requested to cook dinner hen thighs and put together a salad. After getting ready the hen thighs, however earlier than placing the hen within the oven, members have been referred to as out of the kitchen to conduct a brief interview. Members have been then despatched again into the kitchen to cook dinner the hen thighs, put together the salad, and clear the kitchen as they might at residence.

What the research members did not know was that the hen thighs have been inoculated with a innocent pressure of micro organism, which the researchers would have the ability to detect. This allowed researchers to swab surfaces within the kitchen to see whether or not any cross-contamination occurred in the course of the meals preparation and cooking course of.

When research members left the kitchen to conduct the interview, researchers swabbed the kitchen to determine any potential contamination. This course of was repeated after every participant had accomplished cooking the meal and cleaned the kitchen. The ready salad was additionally examined for potential contamination.

Ninety-three p.c of the members who obtained the intervention didn’t wash the hen, as in comparison with 39% of the members who didn’t obtain the intervention.

Nevertheless, the researchers have been stunned to see that individuals who did wash the hen and individuals who did not wash the hen had related ranges of contamination from the uncooked hen of their ready salads.

So what offers?

“We expect the salad contamination stems from individuals doing a poor job of washing their palms after dealing with the uncooked hen, and/or doing a poor job of sanitizing the sink and surrounding surfaces earlier than rinsing or dealing with the salad,” Shumaker says.

“No matter whether or not individuals washed their hen, the kitchen sinks turned contaminated by the uncooked hen, whereas there was comparatively little contamination of close by counters,” Shumaker says. “This was slightly shocking, for the reason that typical knowledge had been that the danger related to washing hen was as a result of water would splash off of the hen and contaminate surrounding surfaces. As a substitute, the sink itself was turning into contaminated, even when the hen wasn’t being washed.

“Washing the hen continues to be not a good suggestion, however this research demonstrates the necessity to concentrate on stopping contamination of sinks and emphasizing the significance of hand-washing and cleansing and sanitizing surfaces.”

The paper is printed within the Journal of Meals Safety.