<p>Recently I was at a bookgroup meeting and the hostess refilled the carrot dish by bringing the refrigerator bag of little carrots out and dumping more directly into the serving dish. No washing. ??? Do you wash veg before serving/cooking?</p>
<p>Similarly, we were at a cookout last summer. The host heated up the grill then went inside, grabbed the package of meat, unwrapped it right there at the grill and dumped the unwashed meat onto the grill. ??? Do you wash meat before cooking? Even Rachel Ray sometimes shows packaged meat going directly into the cooking vessel on TV. ???</p>
<p>Pretty much rinse everything although I’ve heard you don’t need to with meat. I just feel better if I do. I usually use a little dish soap in water for fruits and vegetables. I devein shrimp too! I am also a stickler for putting leftover food in the refrigerator quickly after a meal. I don’t like to see it sit out a room temperature too long. I have been teased about it.</p>
<p>I generally wash everything. It grosses me out to watch cooking shows where the host peels potatoes and then cooks without washing. Potatoes are muddy.</p>
<p>Ever since I met an engineer who designs the machines that wash lettuces and vegetables, and he told me to wash them again… I have re-washed, no matter what the package says.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of washing meat, although I do rinse whole chickens before I cook them.</p>
<p>LOL. It would be pretty challenging to wash ground beef. I do know people who won’t eat ground meat unless they grind it themselves. Back in the 70’s there was a book going around the college campuses that described conditions in meat packing facilities - fecal matter on the floors, meat often dropped and then picked back up for packaging … I forget the name of the book and did not read it but kids talked about it…I’ve been washing everything since. Also I do wash all fruits before eating or cutting - pesticide removal ops. Interesting link about NOT washing chicken so as to prevent rinsing bacteria ONTO the sink given that cooking will kill the bugs. I’d rather just soap down the sink regularly against that problem.</p>
<p>I wash all fruits and veggies, as well as poultry and fish; but not red meat. I see that USDA recommends AGAINST washing meat and poultry, reasoning that thorough cooking will kill any bacteria, while washing may spread bacteria to sinks and counter-tops, risking cross-contamination of other food, hands, etc. Hmmm. Maybe time to change my habits?</p>
<p>I rinse fish in cold water mostly because it smells better, losing some of that “fishy” odor. Hard to see why the USDA logic wouldn’t apply here, too, though.</p>
<p>I rinse all veggies before consuming or cooking, even the ones that claim “ready to eat”. I rinse chicken before cooking it, but not other meats. I hate cooking fresh chicken … it grosses me out, but DH no longer eats red meat so we eat a lot more chicken than we once did. I will never give up red meat … it’s my fave!</p>
<p>“Back in the 70’s there was a book going around the college campuses that described conditions in meat packing facilities - fecal matter on the floors, meat often dropped and then picked back up for packaging … I forget the name of the book and did not read it but kids talked about it…”
[The</a> Jungle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle]The”>The Jungle - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>I grind my own beef with the attachment on my Kitchen Aid and wash the hunk of meat before I grind it up.
I never buy meat already ground up.
Ewww, 1000 cows in a pound of burger.
Wash all poultry and meat.
Devein shrimp.
Wash all my vegetables, even before peeling.
Have two cutting boards one for meat, one for veggies.
Wash in hot water and soap and bleach them regularly.
I lost my appetite after reading the dumping carrot incident.</p>
<p>Batlo thank you. I lost my appetite too and was sitting there appalled while my book group friends chowed down crunch crunch crunch. I know them well enough so that I didn’t have to fully stifle myself; however I did temper my comments and just quietly expressed my surprise instead of crying out in anger and disgust like I wanted to!!! I also drank lots of wine, lol. Shrink, thanks for finding the book reference.</p>
<p>Got a grinder attachment for my kitchen aid for Christmas!</p>
<p>And sometimes I wash, sometimes I don’t, and I think I have not missed more than 10 days from school (including medical school) or work due to illness in 40 years .</p>
<p>I am pretty careful about humans with viruses though!</p>
<p>Maybe even better to just not eat meat? I’m not vegetarian (anymore) but if this is a concern, I think it would serve you better to avoid it altogether, than to assume you can “wash off” such bacteria by running it under cold water (or whatever one does to wash meat!). </p>
<p>And given the more serious health threat is pesticides, not germs, I would hope the big issue would be whether those carrots were organic or not. And for all you know she washed in advance (I usually do as much pre-prep before guests come over). </p>
<p>Not to mention, who got up to wash their hands before grabbing one of those washed or not carrots?</p>
<p>I truly try to follow most of the safety-in-the-kitchen rules, and in our family we never get sick, but I also think too many people get a bit too OCDish about everyday germs. It’s irrational.</p>
<p>I usually wash, though I’ve read the stuff about not washing chicken, so I won’t be washing chicken in the future. But with veggies I’m more concerned about actual dirt – root vegetables, mushrooms, spinach all seem to be particularly likely to have some of the earth in which they grew still on them. The baby carrots in the bag have been peeled & cut up, probably also washed in the process. I’m not under the illusion that rinsing anything under water in my sink is going to kill or wash away germs. I’ve already got 100 trillion microbes living on my body – see [Our</a> Germs, Ourselves - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0330/070-our-germs.html]Our”>Our Germs, Ourselves) – I’m not all that concerned about getting rid of the small fraction that might get carried down the drain with washing. The only way to get rid of the germs is through cooking – so by definition, if I eat raw veggies they will have bacteria on them.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean to ignore all food safety considerations --salmonella is still something I don’t want to get, but again, that’s killed by cooking, not by washing.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of washing meat. I wash fruits and veggies, although I am guilty of eating bagged lettuce out of the bag-- not sure how to wash that without it all spilling into the sink. I would never serve bagged lettuce to another person though, I buy unpackaged lettuce if anyone else is eating anyway and that does get washed.</p>
<p>I really don’t believe that running something under the sink is really going to do anything besides remove surface dirt, though, to be honest. I just do it because that is what my mother taught me to do.</p>
I wash, or rather, rinse, most things, although not red meat.</p>