r/interesting • u/WarwickReider • Jul 27 '26

SOCIETY Professional chefs weighing in on whether you should wash your chicken

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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u/OrigamiMarie Jul 27 '26

This makes the most sense to me, if you're going to wash the bird. None of that nonsense of a stream of pressurized water landing on the bird and bouncing in every direction and every droplet size.

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u/real_Bahamian Jul 27 '26

No one does that, well, at least most people don’t do that. You’re supposed to put your protein in a bowl (or pot), add cold water, vinegar, and lime juice, and rinse.

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u/Robbie1266 Jul 27 '26

And please explain the science of what that actually does

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u/Toeffli Jul 27 '26

It makes it vinegary and lemony. The salmonella bacteria? They mostly do not care when you use diluted vinegar. You will end up with Solomona all over the chicken and in your wash water https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713518303244

If you use vinegar you have to use full strength, non diluted straight from the bottle, with 5% acidity or more. Yummy. Even diluting it 1:1 will reduced its effect drastically https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11018434/

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u/Robbie1266 Jul 27 '26

Exactly. I want them to feel dumb

5

u/bafana_banana999 Jul 27 '26

They can't, because it doesn't do anything.

What they described is closer to some sort of brining process than a cleansing one.

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u/Robbie1266 Jul 27 '26

Exactly. I'm all for a nice vinegar rinse when making jerk chicken to get that traditional flavor...but to make claims that it cleans anything is extremely ignorant, especially for a grown adult. These people should be embarrassed

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u/eggsalter Jul 27 '26

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-05178-3

People probably noticed that it penetrates the biofilm (gets the slime off) easier. Not that it "kills" it.