Food Standard Agency Advert - Never wash your Turkey.

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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Just caught the advert from the FSA about how to make sure you don't make yourself ill this christmas cooking the turkey.

1 - defrost it properly
2 - never wash it
3 - cook it until the juice is clear

1 & 3 is simple and obvious but why can't I wash it? Does tap water + turkey = bacteria? Even though it is going into the oven within minutes?
 
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Never have turkey, always nice sirloin joint but I when I do have turkey, following this recipe


Idiots trying to cook a turkey once a year is not going to end well.
 
I think people that wash meat are a bit weird!

Unless it's for some kind of religious reason, it's pretty damned pointless!
 
It's a little contradictory. It says washing the turkey might spread the germs and follows up by saying cooking it kills all the germs. I say wash it, breed the germs, and commit germ genocide afterwards.

Although we never wash our turkey.
 
As said above. It's all about you splashing bacteria ridden water over surfaces, hands, cloths, taps, doorhandles etc..


Why would you wash it? Did you drop it in poop?


Cooking heat will kill all surface bacteria within seconds.
 
I always wash whole poultry, but not to get rid of germs as such. Especially supermarket bought stuff as there could be anything on it. I don't splash water everywhere, I just rinse it off inside and out and dry it with paper towels over the sink.
 
I never wash meat. I was always told it did more harm than good. The heat of the oven is going to kill all the bacteria anyway so I don't get why people think washing it first is going to help.
 
OCdude said:
I think people that wash meat are a bit weird!

Unless it's for some kind of religious reason, it's pretty damned pointless!
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Agreed.

Let's face it, you breathe in more dodgy bacteria every second of every day, and cooking meat at several 100C is going to kill most if not all bacteria. The air/atmosphere is loaded with micro organisms - people really worry too much. Then again I tend to cut pieces of a nice steak and eat it whilst preparing it for a quick bit of cooking! :o

You do have to be a little careful these days as heavily farmed animals in some of the conditions they live in will spread diseases and bacteria more easily - but at the same time, excessive fussing isn't conducive to a sensible lifestyle.
 
Freefaller said:
You do have to be a little careful these days as heavily farmed animals in some of the conditions they live in will spread diseases and bacteria more easily - but at the same time, excessive fussing isn't conducive to a sensible lifestyle.
Click to expand...

Actually, free range birds are more likely to carry the bacteria that cause food poisoning than intensively farmed birds.
 
Freefaller said:
That's interesting. How come?
Click to expand...

The most common food poisoning bacterium - Campylobacter spp., mostly C. jejuni but C. coli and a few others can also cause human disease - in ubiquitous in wild bird populations (in the same way that we have a whole load of bacteria that harmlessly live on our skin, so birds have a whole load that harmlessly live on their feathers). Since free range birds have much greater contact with wild birds, they're more likely to carry Campylobacter; in fact to a very close approximation all free range chickens and turkeys carry Campylobacter; whereas as merely most intensively reared chickens do.
 
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