Do you have to wash chicken before you cook it?

Question

if you cook it at the proper temperature, wouldn't that kill any harmful bacteria?

Answer 1

Yes it does kill the bacteria but there is "other" stuff on the birds that are not to pleasing. It has to do with the processing of the bird. Wash it and be safe and healthy

Answer 2

You know the package says to wash the chicken before hand. I've been making chicken a lot of years and never have even once washed it off before cooking it. We tend as a society to worry more that necessary about bacteria. People used to have tiger meat parties. It was raw hamburger with seasonings and onions and stuff in it. They ate it on crackers. Since everyone freaks out all the time about bacteria and disease Dr.'s started prescribing more antibiotics and people didn't take them according to the Dr.'s orders. You know how it says to take for 10 days on some antibiotics? Well when you don't take them for the full 10 days it doesn't completely wipe out the bacteria...they form mutant strains...ie ecoli...so now we have to worry more about bacteria because we are misusing the antibiotics and antibacterials. What this means is don't eat raw chicken of course..but as far as worrying so much about all the bacteria and using ineffective antibacterials and crap..just cook it and enjoy it and try not to think about it.

Answer 3

You don't have to wash the chicken (because as you said, the heat will kill the bacteria) but you do have to make sure the utensils you use, the counter you've cut the chicken on, and the pots are cleaned very well (they say you should put a couple tablespoons of bleach in the wash water you use to wipe everything down).

Answer 4

Sure the heat would kill the surface bacteria but why chance it. The bacteria will live on the surface area of the chicken (which is why you are much more likely to get food poisoning from ground meat) and washing it off will make sure that you are getting rid of it.

Answer 5

Oh no. Always wash meat, espcially chicken before hand! Just look at some of the things on the meat when you pull it out of the package! Trim it up, and check as much as you can feel for bones (if you think the chicken is boneless) and wash well!

Answer 6

I work in a production kitchen, when I have to prepare chicken for dinner I cook 250lbs of chicken. I dont have neither the space nor the time to wash and dry off each bird or cut piece of chicken. The result is that nobody has gotten sick from me not washing off the chickens. We also serve about 400lbs of grilled chicken breasts everyday without washing them, and nobody gets sick. On our Tortilla station we serve about 40 lbs of shredded thigh meat a day, without washing it, and nobody gets sick. there is a trend here.

Answer 7

Every food neurotic in the world will tell you to wash chicken because they "think" that running a dead carcass under water will safeguard them from disease.

The SCIENTIFIC FACT is that running water from your sink does not kill bacteria. HEAT kills bacteria.

Wash your chicken all you want but salmonella is dead at 165 degrees, not 120 degrees tops, from the water under your sink.

Answer 8

You should wash out the cavity of the chicken if cooking a whole chicken, but also you should wash parts of a chicken if your going to bread it as well, this allows the breading mixture to adhere better.

Answer 9

Yes, it would kill the bacteria, but even if it's safe, would you like to know that you're eating fecal matter?

Wash it, along with any utensils or cutting boards that you used.

Answer 10

Yeah, you'll want to wash the chicken. Check out www.FoodNetwork.com for more info on cooking chicken and pretty much anything else!