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

Date:
April 4, 2022
Source:
North Carolina State University
Summary:
In a study aimed at assessing the impact of washing poultry on
kitchen contamination, researchers found that more than a quarter
of study participants contaminated salad with raw poultry --
including many study participants who did not wash the poultry. The
study highlights the importance of hand-washing and cleaning and
sanitizing the kitchen in order to reduce the risk of foodborne
illness when cooking at home.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
In a study aimed at assessing the impact of washing poultry on kitchen contamination, researchers found that more than a quarter of study
participants contaminated salad with raw poultry -- including many
study participants who did not wash the poultry. The study highlights
the importance of hand-washing and cleaning and sanitizing the kitchen
in order to reduce the risk of foodborne illness when cooking at home.


========================================================================== Washing raw poultry is not recommended, due to concerns about
inadvertently contaminating other foods and surfaces -- and increasing
the risk of foodborne illness.

"We wanted to know what effect an educational intervention would have on getting people to stop washing poultry before cooking, and what effect any resulting change in behavior might have on reducing contamination in the kitchen," says Ellen Shumaker, corresponding author of the study and an extension associate at North Carolina State University. "We also wanted
to get a better idea of how, if at all, washing poultry actually led to increased contamination in the kitchen." For the study, researchers
recruited 300 home cooks who said they washed poultry before cooking
it. The researchers sent food safety information to 142 of the study participants via email, outlining risk-reduction efforts - - including
the recommendation to not wash raw poultry during food preparation.

The remaining 158 study participants did not receive the education intervention.

All 300 study participants were then invited to test kitchens equipped
with video cameras that filmed meal preparation. Participants were asked
to cook chicken thighs and prepare a salad. After preparing the chicken
thighs, but before putting the chicken in the oven, participants were
called out of the kitchen to conduct a short interview. Participants were
then sent back into the kitchen to cook the chicken thighs, prepare the
salad, and clean the kitchen as they would at home.

What the study participants didn't know was that the chicken thighs were inoculated with a harmless strain of bacteria, which the researchers
would be able to detect. This allowed researchers to swab surfaces in
the kitchen to see whether any cross-contamination occurred during the
food preparation and cooking process.



==========================================================================
When study participants left the kitchen to conduct the interview,
researchers swabbed the kitchen to identify any potential
contamination. This process was repeated after each participant had
completed cooking the meal and cleaned the kitchen. The prepared salad
was also tested for possible contamination.

Ninety-three percent of the participants who received the intervention
did not wash the chicken, as compared to 39% of the participants who
did not receive the intervention.

However, the researchers were surprised to see that people who didwash
the chicken and people who didn'twash the chicken had similar levels of contamination from the raw chicken in their prepared salads.

So what gives? "We think the salad contamination stems from people
doing a poor job of washing their hands after handling the raw chicken,
and/or doing a poor job of sanitizing the sink and surrounding surfaces
before rinsing or handling the salad," Shumaker says.

"Regardless of whether people washed their chicken, the kitchen sinks
became contaminated by the raw chicken, while there was relatively
little contamination of nearby counters," Shumaker says. "This was a
little surprising, since the conventional wisdom had been that the risk associated with washing chicken was because water would splash off of the chicken and contaminate surrounding surfaces. Instead, the sink itself
was becoming contaminated, even when the chicken wasn't being washed.

"Washing the chicken is still not a good idea, but this study demonstrates
the need to focus on preventing contamination of sinks and emphasizing
the importance of hand-washing and cleaning and sanitizing surfaces."
The work was done with support from FSIS.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
North_Carolina_State_University. Original written by Matt Shipman. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ellen Thomas Shumaker, Margaret Kirchner, Sheryl C. Cates,
Lisa Shelley,
Rebecca Goulter, Lydia Goodson, Christopher Bernstein, Aaron
Lavallee, Lee-Ann Jaykus, Benjamin Chapman. Observational Study
of the Impact of a Food Safety Intervention on Consumer Poultry
Washing. Journal of Food Protection, 2022; 85 (4): 615 DOI:
10.4315/JFP-21-397 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220404105643.htm

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