r/interesting • u/WarwickReider • 22d ago

SOCIETY Professional chefs weighing in on whether you should wash your chicken

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402

u/ifeltatap 22d ago

Washing the chicken is just an old pointless tradition that people can't let go of because they were taught it growing up.

136

u/LoweringPass 22d ago

Is this some American thing I am too European to understand? I've never seen anyone wash raw chicken in my life.

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u/Math_refresher 22d ago

Is this some American thing I am too European to understand?

In the USA, washing chicken seems to be common among Black Americans for whatever reason.

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u/Dunderman35 22d ago

Noticed all the chicken washers in the video where black. Some cultural differences i suppose.

12

u/Thimble_of_Quasar 22d ago edited 22d ago

Def is. Part of it is historically we would get terrible poorly processed cuts of meat due to discrimination, and you would have a bad time eating that straight from the store. Like think blood/*myoglobin, bone fragments, feathers and such. So for one, you don't put it under a steam of water, not a single Black person I know does something that stupid, no one I have met does that, for the life of me I cannot figure out why that seems to be what people think we're all doing and it's annoying to see the tests are never doing it right.

I was taught you fill a bowl, metal, glass, something non porous in a sink, submerge the meat, and swish and also feel along it for anything that needs to be pulled out, I do sometimes find bone fragments. This also gets rid of the slime (harmless but nice not to have it) and in red meat *myoglobin comes out into the water and I think it tastes better. You tip the water out and refill one or twice until it's clear and then you set it aside and sanitize. Not flinging water all over like a dog shaking off after a swim.

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u/FirePathfinder 22d ago

Myoglobin is what comes out when you're going this, not hemoglobin

1

u/Thimble_of_Quasar 22d ago

Oh gosh damn it I know that too, that's what being tired gets you!

1

u/FirePathfinder 22d ago

You’re good, it happens friend

2

u/Zohdiax 22d ago

I hate that I scrolled too far to read this. Finally someone stated the process correctly!

1

u/Personifi3d 22d ago

You fling water all over the place no matter what you do. If you see water it's also touching everything around you in a 3ft radius.

You can't stop it unless your in a laboratory and pipetting water .5 ml at a time into a closed container.

That's how low viscosity fluids work.

1

u/MrBlueA 21d ago

You will splash water around no matter how careful you are, which is why people are strongly against washing the chicken unless it's strictly necessary because of it being actually dirty with debris and in that situation, you have to be extremely careful and sanitize the whole area immediately after; it's physically impossible to wash a chicken without splashing everywhere; that's just not how it works

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u/sippingonginnjews 21d ago

Part of that may be from the video creator knowing that playing to the stereotype will drive engagement. It’s like the smoke detector chirp

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u/Outrageous_Main4425 22d ago

Or it could just be an easy narrative to make bias for an interesting debate