Home cooks often don’t realize how easy it is to spread bacteria through unsafe cooking habits. What may seem like a harmless shortcut might actually cause anything from an upset stomach to a visit to the doctor.
Unsafe handling of raw meat, for example, is a prevalent issue in home kitchens. As raw meat or fish is a popular choice for protein on many American dining tables, there’s a considerable risk of spreading Salmonella.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Salmonella causes more foodborne illnesses in the United States than any other bacteria. On average, it estimates 1.35 million cases of infection in the country every year.
These statistics, although not derived solely from home cooks’ mistakes (a lot of the time it’s food handlers), make it intimidating to work with raw meat such as beef, poultry, or seafood.
Think about how many variables there are when handling it: different surfaces, utensils, sponges, and cutting boards that may have come into contact with it. Keeping track of it may be confusing.
Recently, one woman on TikTok sparked a discussion about one specific part of the chicken-cooking process: utensil use.
What’s The Home Cook’s Dilemma With Handling Raw Chicken?
Creator Amy Katherine (@missamykatherine) filmed herself pan-frying chicken in the middle of a conundrum. Her video garnered over 11,800 views.
“This is about to be the world’s dumbest debate,” she begins, “but I just used these tongs to move raw chicken from a bag into the pan.” She holds up a pair of tongs, still with small pieces of raw chicken in them.
Katherine demonstrates how she did it, showing the empty bag on the counter, close to the stove. “It’s now time to cook and flip said chicken,” she continues.
Then she arrives at her dilemma. “But these [tongs] touched raw chicken, so now I’m inclined to put them in the sink, like so”—she places the tongs next to some other dishes in the sink—“and go get a fresh pair of non-raw chicken tongs.”
She grabs a fresh pair from her utensils drawer, saying she’ll use those to flip the chicken as it’s cooking.
Katherine says there was probably a better way to do this. “I could have just dumped the chicken from the bag into the pan without using the tongs,” she says. “But then there would have been too much marinade.”
Is The Practice Recommended By Food Safety Experts?
The CDC’s recommendations on how to handle raw chicken include washing your hands for at least 20 seconds immediately after handling raw chicken. Additionally, they recommend avoiding washing the raw meat, as this spreads bacteria around your sink.
As for utensils, they recommend using a separate cutting board for raw chicken, and washing any surface, utensil, and dish with hot, soapy water after preparing chicken and before cooking anything else.
The basic principle is to keep anything raw separate from anything cooked, which can make the use of utensils during the cooking process confusing. In Katherine’s case, however, if she had continued using the same tongs, it’s possible the heat would’ve killed the bacteria on their surface.
Several chefs and home cooks claimed the same in a Reddit thread on r/cookingforbeginners.
Taking extra precautions isn’t wrong, but it would’ve been equally safe to wash the tongs quickly with hot water and soap, away from other dishes in the sink, and continue using them.
Commenters Share Their Methods
In the comments section, many viewers said they use the same utensils throughout.
“I use the same tongs from raw to fully cooked… then to serve,” wrote one commenter. “I’m still here.”
“Absolutely not!!!!,” exclaimed another. “30yrs of cooking I’m still here. Our parents would be dead by now.”
Others’ techniques were similar to Catherine’s. “You use the raw chicken tongs to flip the chicken,” someone suggested. “Once cooked on the other side you switch to a clean one. Because you’d also shake the chicken up in the pan to kill off any bacteria from the raw chicken flip.”
@missamykatherine You can see the exact moment my brain started buffering about how stupid this is #mombrain #cooking #fyp
BroBible has reached out to Katherine via email to request comment and to the CDC to ask how home cooks should best handle the situation.