https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/netflix-doc-poisoned-the-dirty-truth-about-your-food-contamination-1234798703/amp/

Watched this the other night and eye rolled some of it and was kinda shocked at other parts. Specifically how dirty romaine lettuce is. Also a little concerned at how dirty chicken is. Really felt like I needed to be more careful in regards to cleaning vegetables and avoiding cross contamination.

Anyone else seen this? Do you have any strict methods you follow when handling poultry?

NColoradoAG said:

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Is this going to start another round of tik tok videos where people wash their chicken with dish soap and splash bacteria all over their sink, faucet, countertops, and other appliances?

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I had never heard of anyone washing chicken and then ended up on a Twitter thread and found out most of the black community does this (assuming the people commenting were a representative sample).

Concur

I worked with a guy who at a previous job inspected the produce packing plants. He always said "beckdiesel, it's not what is on the plants, it's what's on the workers and packers hands that they don't wash off , that you need to worry about" . I got much better about washing off all produce after that and a few other stories.

JoCoAg09 said:

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NColoradoAG said:

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Is this going to start another round of tik tok videos where people wash their chicken with dish soap and splash bacteria all over their sink, faucet, countertops, and other appliances?

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I had never heard of anyone washing chicken and then ended up on a Twitter thread and found out most of the black community does this (assuming the people commenting were a representative sample).

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Forget washing chicken, apparently it's a black thing to season chicken in the sink. When I first heard it, I had to search the internet to make sure it was real. Turns out it is.

But I do know some people from other countries that rinse their meat as well.

We talking boneless skinless chicken getting washed? Thats a thing?

I could maybe see doing a whole skin on bird.

Almost forgot about my husband's uncle who is a retired USDA beef inspector. He does not eat beef , or really chicken for that matter. Sticks to seafood and lives in Florida. I won't dare ask him stories.

I actually wash all the citrus we get.
Most of it is cut for drinks or squeezing limes on tacos.

my favorite grade from the USDA is "inspected"

Tell me more, please.

Tanya 93 said:

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I actually wash all the citrus we get.
Most of it is cut for drinks or squeezing limes on tacos.

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100%. I wash all fruit with soap. Rinse all veggies.

I don't pay much attention to "disinfecting" fresh stuff I bring home from the HEBery whether it be meat, vegetable or fruit. Been eating raw hamburger meat and raw beef for 67 of my 73 years. Eat cheese with mold on it and just scrape the white or blue part off. Have used heavy cream with a few "lumps" in it. Potatoes and fruit with bruises on them. Don't wash the veggies or fruit when I get them home. Pay more attention to what my nose tells me than what the "expiration date" is on the package. We had an unopened pint of heavy cream in the fridge that I thought I had just bought. Pulled the top seal off and there was some white "goop" on it and the carton was about half empty. I tasted the white goop and said "Dayum that's tasty" and wondered what the heck HEB had sold me. I looked at the expiration date on the carton and it was 14 months earlier. What was in that carton was some of the best Creme Fraiche I have ever eaten. I found the new one from HEB setting on the shelf in another fridge.

We have become such an aseptic society that our bodies have no natural defense to any harmful bacteria that may enter it. I swear my mom snuck a spoonful of dirt into everything I ate when I was a kid. I would imagine if I could test the level of lactobacillus bacteria in my digestive system it would be off the charts

New spin on the football coach classic "rub some dirt on it and get back in there".

If you look at how many kids were getting rsv and generally more sick than usual after the world started opening back up, food is no different. I'm not advocating taking a snort of uranium daily to fend off the radiation following a nuclear attack, but there is something to building up your immune system. That isn't done by only taking shots or forever chasing a perfectly clean environment.

In the 90s I took a dairy science class that was food microbiology. After listening to that guy you wouldn't want to eat anything from anywhere. Guy was so uptight that he said if any of his groceries in heb checkout touched any of the meat as they were checking out he'd make them replace it. Word on the street at that time was someone saw him taking a leak in Kleberg bathroom while holding his pecker in a paper towel the whole time hahahaha

The more sanitized we get as a society, the more we will find ourselves having problems with bacteria and viruses that ordinarily our immune system would be designed to handle.

Not saying to throw your tomatoes into the septic tank before eating them, but worrying and spending so much time washing and thinking it is doing some miracle for you is not as productive as people want it to be either.

schmellba99 said:

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The more sanitized we get as a society, the more we will find ourselves having problems with bacteria and viruses that ordinarily our immune system would be designed to handle.

Not saying to throw your tomatoes into the septic tank before eating them, but worrying and spending so much time washing and thinking it is doing some miracle for you is not as productive as people want it to be either.

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That's not exactly how it works. If you look at native american tribes that were exposed to Europeans, you could argue that the native americans had a robust immune system, living off the land, no soap, and just water. But they still died from bacterial and viral infections that europeans brought with them. The reason isn't that they didn't have an immune system, it's that they lacked any exposure to any variant of certain viruses/bacteria.

The reason why more people don't die from the flu every year is because they were either exposed to the flu at some point in a prior season, or have been vaccinated. And even if it's a new flu strain, it still shares some ancestry with other older flu strains. So your body isn't working entirely from a position of darkness to figure out how to fight it off.

That being said, there are certain viruses and bacteria you don't want any exposure to, because the outcome is fatal nearly 100% of the time, regardless of how good you think your immune system may be. There are other exposures that again, regardless of how good your immune system is, will still make you sick every time you're exposed. You might not die, but you will get quite sick.

The real danger, in my opinion, to an overly sanitized environment, is the development of increasing amounts of autoimmune disorders, atopy, allergies, etc. It's called the hygiene hypothesis. Not quite proven yet, but there's a reasonable amount of data to support it in my opinion.

Soooo.....the natives weren't exposed to the diseases the europeans brought over and died. Kind of like how if we are over santized, we aren't exposed to a lot of things and it overall affects our ability to fight off when we are exposed.

Fact - over santizing things and thus not allowing us to be exposed to them is bad when we finally are exposed, because our immune system hasn't had exposure and isn't, in some cases, capable of handling said exposure. There is a reason why it is a good thing for toddlers and kids to play outside in the grass and dirt versus being confined to a super santized bubble growing up, which is pretty much the point I was making in a very general sense.

Autoimmune is a differnet animal and not what this particular discussion was a bout.

Now, I'm sure you'll go into some long winded biological dissertation as to why my general point that you agreed with is somehow not valid, but whatever.