Do you wash your meat before you cook it?

33 comments

1. No. As far as I can tell you aren’t supposed to wash it.

2. No

3. I’ve been led to believe it’s a thing in Black cooking culture, something to do with lower quality poultry in the past

4. It depends on the hygiene practices of your grocery store/butcher

5. 90 Day Fiancé.

   I’ve heard of it, but it seems pointless if you understand what cooking does to meat.

6. Rinse if you’re butchering. Not that critical if you’re just working with a slab of meat, but if you had to take the hide off or gut the animal. But not with soap or anything, and you want to make sure to pat it dry before storing or preparing. With something like a chicken in another country, it’s likely freshly killed and gutted, so you definitely want to clean out the cavity and make sure all of the guts are out.

7. As far as I’m aware, it’s only done for hygiene reasons – potentially dirty or questionable meat should be washed lightly if you *are* going to use it, in order to ensure some level of safety. But the US is pretty good with health standards nowadays, so we usually don’t.

   Also, washing meat that you yourself butchered would be another reason, but most people don’t fall under that category.

8. I might do it without thinking about it (I wash all of my vegetables) but I wasn’t explicitly taught to do it with meat

9. My parents are from the Caribbean, my best friend’s parents are Filipino and my other best friend is African American. I have never see anyone of my friends, their parents, my parents or anyone in my family wash meat before cooking it. Fruit and vegetables, yes. Rice, yes. Meat? Hell no.

10. No and it isn’t recommended.

    Washing meat just splashed bacteria all over the place.

    Fresh meat should have no issues if you cook it properly.

    Game meat really needs to be cooked properly. You can’t control it’s raising or check it for things like parasites or bacterial infection. If you butcher it you do want to wash out the cavity and make sure you butcher it without getting the contents of the stomach and guts all over the meat.

11. I always wash it (with water) then pat it dry. I don’t like the thought that bacteria has been growing and forming a film on the surface.

12. I’ve heard of one or two people my entire life who were adamant about washing meat. Other than that, no.

13. Only fish when I clean them in the river. Never at home for any other meat.

14. You’re not supposed to: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/should-you-wash-raw-chicken/

    > The biggest concern with washing raw chicken is the increased risk of spreading foodborne illnesses. Raw chicken and its juices can carry harmful bacteria like Campylobacter or Salmonella, both of which can cause food-borne illness.
    >
    > When you rinse your chicken under running water, there’s a risk of splashing water that carries that juice – and, therefore, that bacteria – around your sink, your cutlery, nearby food, produce and anything else you have in the vicinity.

15. I don’t, but if I was butchering meat myself I probably would. Even if just to make sure I got all of the dirt and fur off of the meat. The stuff that comes from the grocery store is clean enough that I don’t need to and there are health risks associated with washing.

    However, as I understand it what some people would call “washing” meat I would call a weak brine or marinade. I marinade my meat all the time. I recently watched [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Nd_vh3yk8) which did a pretty good job at breaking down the backgrounds for why some people insist on washing their meat and some people insist on not washing their meat.

16. Nope. It splashes meat bacteria everywhere.

17. It’s not recommended. I do rinse off chicken and pork dry and season before cooking though.

18. No!
    All you are doing is spreading the pathogens.

19. No. I like a bit of risk.

20. r/90DayFiance

21. Nope

22. I wash (rinse off meat). I’m just careful to contain splashing and wash my hands and sink after. I just like to know there’s no insect parts, dust, or rodent hair on it.

23. Don’t wash chicken unless you like spreading salmonella around your kitchen.

24. Here’s a youtube on the subject! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Nd_vh3yk8

25. No – you don’t need to do that. It just spreads bacteria all over the kitchen.

26. I don’t. I’ve seen washing sliced meat in preparation for stir frying, but it’s more of a prep for marinating than an actual cleaning process. You kind of massage it in a bowl of water to get it ready to absorb your marinade.

27. No. Washing chicken is how you get salmonella all over your kitchen and onto plates, utensils, etc…

28. If you need to, to wash off hair or grass or dirt. Commercial poultry is an exception because the production methods create wet conditions conducive to bacterial load. Which is why they recommend cooking to 165F but meat can go lower. There is nothing inherently bad about cooking bird lower it’s just something that’s safer to do if you know the chain of production.

29. No. You’re not supposed to.

30. Yes, I didn’t know that wasn’t common until recently. My mom’s always done that

31. My mom did, but she didn’t blast the faucet on full blast like some of these assholes do that demonstrate how it spreads salmonella everywhere. She used a gentle stream and just washed the slime off and then patted it dry.

32. No and I’ve gotten onto my wife and one of friends for doing this at home. It causes bacteria to spread. Salmonella for example doesn’t die from just soap and water. In fact cleaning it makes it worse as you are spreading it.

33. The comments here are making me cry wtf

    for OP, it depends on the meat. I usually wash my chicken, a lot of Caribbean descent people do in the US, same with Asian populations (not entirely 100% on this but I do know that some meats are washed in Chinese culinary.)

    The idea of washing meat is not what you think, we usually use some acid like lemon juice, or white vinegar (apple cider alters the flavor profile.) with some cool water in a bowl for the meat to sit in, let the acid tenderize that meat.

    Then we do wash it lol, with running tap, we do clean the sink afterwards too (imo not necessary since vinegar cleans it anyway) but that’s how I and some people wash our meat (chicken). For red meat, I don’t usually wash it, since I often use ground meat. For chunks, like goat, then yes I 100% wash the meat, often, until the myoglobin doesn’t show in the water.

    In my experience, I find that most white Americans don’t really do this sort of thing but that’s just my experience lol