<p>Must say I’ve never heard of washing meat either. I rinse fruits and veggies, although not the pre-washed stuff. I’m not sure what you’re trying to wash off, but pesticides and such require soap. I’d be more nervous about not rinsing all the soap off than eating whatever came on the food. (And no food poisoning in this house either.) (And definitely agree about many Americans being germ-phobic. This poor generation that’s been raised with anti-bac everything isn’t going to have any immune system at all.)</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of washing meat and I stopped washing chicken a few years ago.</p>
<p>[Should</a> I Wash Chicken Before Cooking? - Ask Susan - Good Housekeeping](<a href=“http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food/cooking/wash-chicken-0907]Should”>Should I Wash Chicken Before Cooking? - Ask Susan)</p>
<p>Even the USDA says you don’t have to wash chicken.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/chicken_food_safety_focus/index.asp[/url]”>http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/chicken_food_safety_focus/index.asp</a></p>
<p>My father-in-law was a butcher and his only warning to people was, “Don’t eat hotdogs.”</p>
<p>We don’t was meat, but yes to the fruits and veggies.</p>
<p>I think my H goes a bit overboard - he washes bananas before he peels them.</p>
<p>That reminds me you are suppose to wash melon’s rinds before you cut them because the knife is touching the rind and then the melon. I didn’t know that when I first started cooking.</p>
<p>I wash fruits and veggies. I also wash fish and chicken. After I wash the chicken I clean sink, counters, faucet and hands with soap and water and alcohol. We keep a bottle of rubbing alcohol by the sink for this purpose, we also use it to clean light switches, door nobs, phones, handrails, etc when someone is in the house who is sick. I know it sounds crazy but I have not been sick in many many years.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth I wash baby carrots by rinsing them in the bag they come in, drain the water and then store them in the bag. So maybe your hostess did the same.</p>
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Well, lettuce also sometimes has little squirmy bugs in it. At least it used to, back when I was a kid.</p>
<p>I never wash veggies that say they are pre-washed. (Perhaps it is a good idea. But I don’t do so. It weems to defeat the purpose of paying for the convenience). We eat a lot of prep’d carrots and salad. </p>
<p>I think there was a time that I washed chicken, but not recently. Mostly we grill it. We do rinse of the holiday turkeys.</p>
<p>calmom: Lettuce might be the exception. 
We rinse lettuce and discard the outer few leaves and that is something I firmly believe in for precisely the reason you mentioned. If there’s a worm hiding in an apple, though, rinsing it off won’t help me. D:</p>
<p>Dumb question alert: what exactly does one do when washing meat or fish? Hot or cold water? Soap? Scrub? How do you know when it’s clean (and from what)?</p>
<p>For fish, cold, no scrubbing, bloody entrails (assuming whole, gutted fish)</p>
<p>I’ve not ever washed meat although I do rinse chicken and some seafood/fish. I do rinse fruits and vegetables that don’t get peeled. I don’t scrub (except potatoes) and of course no soap. I’m sure I’m not as ‘careful’ as many are but I also don’t use a bunch of anti-baterial stuff either when I clean. Do have hand sanitzer by the sinks where people wash their hands.</p>
<p>I wash my egg’s shell with a touch of liquid dish soap and cold running water, let drip dry on paper towel before I crack it and separate the yolk from the white using the half shell pouring to half shell method.</p>
<p>DW has a greenhouse which is her life from spring to fall . After I discovered one of our kitties liking the freshly plowed soil there for you know what, I’m very reluctant to eat produce from there - washed or otherwise.</p>
<p>I rinse fish; sometimes there are loose scales. I rinse chicken, especially the insides of whole poultry after removing the extra stuff stuck in there. Then I use a bleach cleaner in and around the sink to kill the germs. I wipe red meat dry with paper towels to remove the moisture before searing, grilling or broiling. It may be voodoo, but it makes sense to me if I am using a dry heat process.</p>
<p>I always rinse my fresh veggies. But washing them with soap and water? Nope, have never done that.</p>
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<p>I haven’t really been sick either, and I DON’T do those things. Maybe it’s the fact that we eat all those fresh veggies and lean meats that’s keeping us healthy. :D</p>
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<p>Same here.</p>
<p>I rinse most fruits and vegetables that aren’t pre-packaged. The bagged salad - sometimes I do but not always. I do always check to see if the bag says they have been pre-washed. Never occurred to me to rinse off the bagged baby carrots that have already been peeled and washed. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone do that and I often see people bring those bags in to work for snacks.</p>
<p>I have a friend who won’t eat food that anyone brings to a party unless she knows whether the person bringing the food has a cat or not. Her theory is cats walk on counters and therefore, create a ‘dirty’ food environment and food from those kitchens can’t be trusted. To each his own. :)</p>
<p>I’m good about washing poultry, not so much beef…unless it looks too moist. (bloody) Then I wash and blot dry with a paper towel. </p>
<p>Wash fresh veggies, unless they are bagged/prewashed. Always wash fruit, except bananas.</p>
<p>Our guts are amazing, and have all sorts of mechanisms to handle what we throw in there. The exception to that thinking, imho, is red meat…e coli scares me. And yes, I know you can get e coli from produce, etc…but I can’t seem to forget the Jack in the Box scare of years ago.</p>
<p>Who knows, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten sick anyway if I didn’t do the alcohol thing, but it seemed that somebody was always sick around here before we started doing all of this. My youngest son who is a performer seemed to get sick/cold often before a big performance was coming up so we got real serious about germs at that time and it has seemed to work for us.</p>
<p>My dad was a biology professor and they washed EVERYTHING, so that’s probably where I got that habit, although I don’t wash bananas or onions. I do wash and dry off the tops of cans before I open them, do you all do that?</p>