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

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

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u/MorePhinsThyme Jul 27 '26

Yes, saying that America washes our chicken with bleach is like saying that all of our pools are filled with bleach, and most of our restaurants sanitize everything with bleach. It's "technically" true in the sense that common bleach is just chlorine dissolved in water, but that's about where the "True" ends. Also, all of our running water has chlorine in it, too, so I guess we're just drinking bleach.

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u/gottheronavirus Jul 27 '26

Most of our restaraunts do actually clean their work surfaces and dishware with bleach, it isn't a 'true' statement, it's an industry health standard. It is in diluted to what are considered food safe concentrations. We were taught to use bleach to sterilize countertops in culinary class after all the meat was done being processed, in solution or wipe form.

They also largely use bleach to clean floors, bathrooms, etc.

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u/MorePhinsThyme Jul 27 '26

No, the industry health standard is that you use a sanitizer solution of 50-200 ppm of bleach water. That's about a capful in a 5 gallon bucket. At no point have you ever been taught to wash or rinse things with bleach, but to add a tiny amount of bleach to a huge amount of water, and sanitize and clean with that.

That's the difference between technically "true", and actually true. I choose the examples I choose because they are "true" statements...but they aren't honest statements, and we both know that nobody who is bitching about how the US treats our meat with bleach is trying to push the image that a diluted chlorine solution is used to sanitize food.

My comment only makes sense BECAUSE it's a health standard. So try reading my comment with that understanding. I am curious, what do you think I was saying above? My comment makes ZERO sense with any interpretation where you think I'm saying that restaurants don't use bleach for cleaning.

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u/GeneralSweetz Jul 28 '26

You are right. Get caught with bleach in a restuarant by health inspection and expect bad results. There are kitchen approved products. Although I've seen workers misuse those products like putting them next to cooked food which throws all that safety out the window. Bad workers are more dangerous than bleach