What's Lurking in Your Freezer?
It seems as though almost weekly we have another food quality scare--and this time it comes from the friendliest of foods. The thing that everyone says, "Oh yeah, this tastes just like it..." You guessed it: it's chicken.
The Department of Agriculture reported this week that there have been 32 cases in 12 states of food-borne illness resulting from microwaving frozen chicken. These poor folks then came down with salmonella. Their crime? Using the microwave instead of the oven.
But these chicken kievs and cordon bleus are not unique among frozen poultry to have gone bad, says the NYT (the source of this story). Evidently, chicken pot pies and other chicken treats have caused illness in the last few years.
But seriously, the problem is not the preparation--it's the poultry. These birds are raised in unsanitary conditions, slaughtered in less than ideal settings, and then are not properly handled from butcher to the dinning room table. Rather than blame it on the "microwave defense", it's time to reevaluate food safety in this country--and it sounds like we should start with the chicken.
Summer Johnson, PhD
contribute a comment
Your contributions to the conversation are very much appreciated. We do have a few simple guidelines, though. Be civil. Stay on topic. We reserve the right to remove comments that violate the aforementioned guidelines. One more thing: comments are moderated, so it may take a little while for your comment to be posted. Thanks.
comments
I don't know. I think about Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park saying "Life finds a way". People have always cooked poultry, and not getting sick is why. The poultry in those dishes didn't have microwave instructions because it wasn't fully cooked. You can cook poultry in the microwave (I've done it) but it's more often used for heating a precooked dish.
I think better than trying to chase down every last salmonella bacterium - because if there's only one, and it finds a spot where it can, it will start a colony - people need to read the directions on their prepared foods, and cook things. We don't insist that our vegetables are free of every single C. botulinum spore before we can them, do we? I suppose we could blast our kitchen gardens with chlorine gas, but it's better to use the pressure cooker.
- by Laura(southernxyl) on Oct 8, 2008 at 8:10 AM | link