In the USA, meat is rinsed with a "chlorine solution", presumably a very dilute solution of sodium hypochlorite or something similar, but this is not allowed under UK regs.
However the "ready to eat" salad sold by UK supermarkets *is* washed in such a solution.
Anyone know the logic?
No.
But you could easily use a Milton solution of the same dilution as for rinsing babies' bottles - that should be safe.
I've sometimes rinsed a large Xmas turkey with strong saline.
Now - does this campylobacter scare affect other poultry too?
Rinsing chicken with bleach is used by criminals to make chicken which has become unfit for human consumption look like it's OK, so they can return it to the food supply chain for a large profit.
BTW, one of the worse things you can do is rinse a chicken at home. This sprays the campylobacter a long way from the sink, so it's likely to end up contaminating other food. There's no point trying to remove the campylobacter from the chicken at this point (even supposing that might be possible), because it's all killed in the oven anyway if properly cooked.
In message , newshound writes
The salad is going to be eaten without any cooking.
The meat is going to be cooked, and if cooked correctly the bacteria will be killed. I'd be dubious that rinsing meat with a bleach solution will kill all/most the bacteria anyway, as I would expect it to be within the tissues of the animal, not just on the surface.
You eat the salad uncooked. The chicked is cooked which kills most bacteria.
That depends on the origin of the bacteria.
Many nastys end up on the surface from the butchering process, having originated in the guts or on the hide.
This is why mince should always be cooked properly[1] because it mixes the surface bugs into the bulk.
OTOH salmonella is inside the animal's system as it can even infect eggs.
Not sure about campylobacter
[1] So how do the poncy burger outfits get away with it?
No, I mean why is sterilising meat considered OK in the USA but not in the UK? Colin's point is well taken, perhaps the argument is that if traces of hypochlorite are found, this would prove improper handling.
No, I mean why is sterilising meat considered OK in the USA but not in the UK? Colin's point is well taken, perhaps the argument is that if traces of hypochlorite are found, this would prove improper handling.
Historically all fresh meat was soaked in salt solution overnight before being washed and cooked.
Which bit of history?
Very occasionally I have had a meal in which I seemed to detect some bleach-like taste or smell. At the time I must have put it down to things like bleaching the utensils because I would never have thought of treating the food with it. (Can't even remember where and when - might only have been abroad.)
Perhaps they should use potassium permanganate? The traces tend to help prove the treatment has been done!
Mine!
I've never detected "chlorine" in supermarket salads which suggest that very low levels are considered sufficient.
I once went to a talk by a food safety specialist at Long Ashton who said that this was very effective on salads, but that he *never* ate organic vegetables because he knew from his own measurements what levels of bacteria they contained.
Conversely, the Americans inject their cattle with growth hormones, which is banned in the EU.
You're not expecting any logic to this, are you?
You have to ingest a lot of salmonella to become ill, because most of it is destroyed in your stomach, so the food produce generally has to be well infected to be infectious. Mild symptoms can be had from ingesting lots of salmonella breakdown toxins even if the salmonella doesn't get past your stomach, but it's worse if it does get into your intestines and starts producing the breakdown toxins there.
OTOH, you can be infected by probably as few as 10 campylobacter bacteria (and same with E.coli) - whole different ball game.
They don't always - there have been a number of incidents.
One of the reasons is that there is a requirement to use 'potable'(1) water for _all_ processes within food manufacture, and water with more than IIRC 50ppm is considered _not_ potable (i.e. it tastes like swimming pool water used to and so is not 'drinkable').
In the mid 80's Cl was used in wash water but was removed as the water was as above non-potable.
Avpx (who works in that area of meat-space)
(1) Potable in this context means not just of an acceptable microbiological quality but also has acceptable appearance, smell & taste etc.
Wow. Sounds like a majorly evil pathogen. I wonder how it's got so bad that even "nice" supermarket's chickens are full of this stuff?
I heard somewhere that Brighton Food Standards dept would not approve such meals, but for some reason, some of the London councils did.
You can't sterilise meat at home. A pressure cooker comes near.
I was using the word in the shorthand sense, these washes more or less sterilise the surface. And that's where some of these bugs live.
The ban is the result of a EU directive about 13 years ago so don't go looking for science or common sense in it.
A FSA study on Camylobacter (they produce one every few years) showed the highest level of contamination was in organic poultry with free range second.
The level of infection is also very seasonal, July, August and September being the worst months.
Campylobacter is heat sensitive and the cells are destroyed at temperatures above 48°C.
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