Comments on: Those gross tv chefs

By: darchole

darchole — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:51:02 +0000

Since I’m a biologist and I work in research I really have to point something out:

If you’re using anything to disinfect you really need to let it set for some time to make sure it actually kills anything. (And yes, we’re guilty of this in research too.) Doesn’t matter if it’s bleach, anti-bacterial/microbial spray, alcohol, or boiling water it takes more than a few seconds to do it’s job. It depends on what it is for how long you have to leave it, but usually a couple of minutes kills just about anything. Of course just removing something from the environment works too, but if you want to kill something you have to take time under consideration.

For the cat owning people an example – toxoplasmosis (the disease) caused by toxoplasma gondii (the parasite) isn’t killed by bleach. You really need to heat it up (by cooking or using boiling water) to kill it. However people with healthy immune systems are fine, because they can kill the parasite (which is why washing is a decent method to decrease/eliminate infection for most people). For pregnant women, the fetus/baby is at risk, but since cats who are infected can only transmit it for a very short time, (in the US) pregnant women are at much, much, more risk from undercooked food including unwashed veggies than their cats.

Wikipedia actually has a decent description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis

By: writtenwyrdd

writtenwyrdd — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:48:59 +0000

That was supposed to say “with a new sellby date.” Doh!

By: writtenwyrdd

writtenwyrdd — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:48:16 +0000

Not to gross you out or anything, but I dated a butcher some years back. He worked at a high-end, yuppie market, and he quit because his conscience was bothering him. When the meat got to the sellby date, the manager had them rinse and repackage the meat with ! And you know, that explains why sometimes packaged meat smells awful the day you buy it…

Bleach may not be as silly an idea as some people think.

By: Bernita

Bernita — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:44:29 +0000

I am more careful about washing things (particularly the cutting board and knives)when preparing chicken and pork but not as anal as you are.
When my kids had a bug, I always put a slug of bleach in the dish water.

By: GladysMP

GladysMP — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:25:21 +0000

This has me chuckling. I will be watching TV cooks so carefully now that I will probably miss the recipe details. LOL

Happy Valentine’s Day to you!

By: hagelrat

hagelrat — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:59:41 +0000

I am never having you over for dinner!
I am fairly neurotic about washing my hands but that’s it. I have never noticed or worried about hygiene on TV cooking shows, and I reckon what we see on TV is a great improvement on what goes on in most kitchens.

By: BernardL

BernardL — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:28:59 +0000

If you’re going to be anal about anything in cooking, handling poultry and pork are the ones to be extra careful about.

By: Rubi Jayne

Rubi Jayne — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:53:33 +0000

I was hesitant about the gloves at first, too, but then I thought of it like this: doctors use them to protect themselves & they’re sold for home medical use. At first I would double glove, but once I started trusting them to not rip, break, whatever, I just used one glove (per hand). I don’t use them all the time; only when I expect things around me to be happening too fast for safe hand washing.

And I will (and do) freely admit that I am very anal about wiping down the kitchen before (and after, actually) I cook. People… touch things… then other things… and put stuff down on the counters… and then touch other things… and heaven only knows when they washed their hands last… and then I’m supposed to go in there and have to touch those same things then touch the food I’m preparing?? Not a chance.

Kids are weird when they’re that little. In a cute sort of way. Like little aliens.

One of those black lights would be a must if I traveled more. Those hotels are full of germs. Otherwise, I just want one to play with, double check if Girl really cleaned her bathroom or just wiped it down with a wet rag, things like that.

<3<3

By: Michele Lee

Michele Lee — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:08:34 +0000

My kids always help me cook by turning on the water for me to wash my hands and squirting soap on my hands. We color code plates for “raw” and cooked food when grilling (bright pink for raw, brown for cooked.) I use different cutting utensils to check when it gets close to done.

I don’t rinse my meat, save for whole turkeys and chickens for roasting, but I also only prepare meat in certain areas of the kitchen. We do always ear meat well done though.

By: Stace

Stace — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:46:21 +0000

Soap and water is plenty for countertops, though. I don’t bleach my countertops either, and the spray is generally only for apres-raw-chicken-or-pork. Every once in a while–like every few months–I’ll wash the countertops and spray them, just as part of general tidying, but I never bleach them.

I totally agree re the importance of regular germs for building strong immune systems. It’s why I don’t allow antibacterial soaps in my house (except one in the kitchen, which I rarely use). I don’t insist on washing my kids’ toys or bleaching the floors (hell, it’s a big deal if I vacuum them! and I don’t even own a bottle of bleach at the moment) or anything else, really, and I don’t freak out about other foods, either. Of course if you’re going to boil the carrots it’s okay to use the same knife. I do the same thing (my issue with Garton was she touched the knife’s handle, thus contaminating it, and then used it to chop salad vegetables, and then touched those with her bare hands which had just touched the knife handle again). I don’t even always remember to make the girls wash their hands before dinner, and who knows where their little hands have been!

It’s just raw chicken and pork, like I said in the post. Not other foods. Salmonella etc. aren’t normal, immune-building germs, they’re deadly bacteria, and I get kind of freaky about them. As you can see.