Bacteria from Raw Chicken

aequinoctium

if someone was to not wash their hands after handling raw chicken and then touch surfaces etc. in the kitchen, how long would that bacteria last in terms of it's potential for food poisoning?

Kevster

Well, virtually 'every' raw chickens are infected with either Salmonella spp. or Campylobacter jejuni, and therefire the best approach is to just wash your hands and all equipment straight after it has come into contact with the chicken (or any other raw meat). The bacteria won't survive longer than a few hours on an exposed surface with no nutrients, and both bacteria I've mentioned are Gram negative, which means that they cannot form protective enclosures - called 'endospores' - when conditions become harsh. The numbers that are passed from surface to surface might be very low too... ...too low to cause food poisoning.

...however, this is all irrelevant because the person you know SHOULD be more careful. Food poisoning can kill in some cases.

aequinoctium

Kevster wrote: »

...however, this is all irrelevant because the person you know SHOULD be more careful. Food poisoning can kill in some cases.

thanks for the reply.

i've said it a few times to him but it doesn't seem to stick, and i'm almost freaking out at the prospect of his ignorance resulting in me, or my other housemate, getting sick. ridiculous.

Piste

That's interesting, I didn't realise almost all raw chicken had salmonella, I thought it was way less common than that. Good thing I'm careful!

nesf

aequinoctium wrote: »

thanks for the reply.

i've said it a few times to him but it doesn't seem to stick, and i'm almost freaking out at the prospect of his ignorance resulting in me, or my other housemate, getting sick. ridiculous.

Had a flatmate once who used to use the same knife to cut chicken and cut a slice of bread off a communal load (i.e. without washing it).

Kevster

Piste wrote: »

That's interesting, I didn't realise almost all raw chicken had salmonella, I thought it was way less common than that. Good thing I'm careful!

Yeh, it's surprising isn't it? I think that the figure is 80 or 90%+ chickens are infected with either of the two bacteriums that I've mentioned. What people don't realise either is that it's Campylobacter sp. that is the main causes of food poisoning in the Western world, and not Salmonella spp. or E. coli.

When your flatmate gets hit with food poisoning and can barely stand up to walk, then maybe he'll realise that he needs to be more careful. I was hit with food poisoning just last week for only the second time in around 15 years. It makes you so weak and your entire system just empties out through your miouth and ass... ...to put it mildly!

Kevster

nesf wrote: »

Had a flatmate once who used to use the same knife to cut chicken and cut a slice of bread off a communal load (i.e. without washing it).

Really? ...how did he NOT get ill!?

nesf

Kevster wrote: »

Really? ...how did he NOT get ill!?

He was practically an alcoholic. Maybe that had something to do with it?

*shrugs*

That and I used clean up after him a lot.

sunnyjim

Kevster wrote: »

Yeh, it's surprising isn't it? I think that the figure is 80 or 90%+ chickens are infected with either of the two bacteriums that I've mentioned. What people don't realise either is that it's Campylobacter sp. that is the main causes of food poisoning in the Western world, and not Salmonella spp. or E. coli.

I only started reading up on E.coli and the shiga-like toxins lately. Nasty, nasty thing to catch! What do the campylobacter sp. bring about?

Kevster

sunnyjim wrote: »

I only started reading up on E.coli and the shiga-like toxins lately. Nasty, nasty thing to catch! What do the campylobacter sp. bring about?

Campylobacter sp. just brings about the typical food poisoning symptoms, such as vomitting, muscle-pain/weakness, diarrhoea, etc. everyone knows about E. coli and Salmonella spp., but Campylobacter sp. is actualy the leading cause of food poisoning. 'All' chickens have some sort of bug in them, but cooking right prevents this. In fact, any food you eat will have some bug or other on it. Stick your finger in your mouth right now and you'll ingest a few millions bugs too. haha...god love them...they're everywhere.

...best not to tell anyone with OCD that... ...:o

PhysiologyRocks

Kevster wrote: »

haha...god love them...they're everywhere.

Bugs are great, they bring in that extra risk that makes life that bit more exciting.:)

tallaght01

Kevster wrote: »

Campylobacter sp. just brings about the typical food poisoning symptoms, such as vomitting, muscle-pain/weakness, diarrhoea, etc.

Though the fact that it's also often an enteritis with bloody diarrhoea tends to add an extra edge to the symptoms!

Kevster

I seem to have stumbled upon some microbiology lovers here... ...I just got my degree in that area, but I'm now in the area of chemistry and physics The bugs will always be there when I want to go back to them though, i'm sure.

sunnyjim

tallaght01 wrote: »

Though the fact that it's also often an enteritis with bloody diarrhoea tends to add an extra edge to the symptoms!

That sentence would probably make a better advert for the Food Safety Authority than those 'blacked-out' interviews from people who were ashamed of giving their friends food poisoning!!

A Neurotic

A related question occurred to me while eating my dinner today:

Why is it safe to eat barely cooked steak? With any other meat, if there was pink in the middle, you'd run a mile. Just pondering

liberal

aequinoctium wrote: »

if someone was to not wash their hands after handling raw chicken and then touch surfaces etc. in the kitchen, how long would that bacteria last in terms of it's potential for food poisoning?

on the surfaces they wont last too long due to lack of nutrients, the problem is he/she might contaminant other foodstuffs

there are two types of bacterial food posioning (i should know the names but i forgot them)

there is the type that the bateria must be ingested alive and there's the type that the toxin produced by the bacteria must be ingested..in the latter case the bacteria can be long dead but the toxin is still there and dangerous

with chicken its samonella species are the man bad guys.....

ur question has made me realise that ive forgotten everything over the summer

they say that in the UK 100% of raw chicken is contaminated, but cooking kills them

kelle

I shudder while reading this thread, because my dear mother (sadly RIP) broke nearly every rule when it came to avoiding food poisoning, I wonder how my brothers and I lived! And I don't remember ever having food poisoning. Even in more recent years, she was cutting up raw bacon and asked could she have a piece of the Mars Bar I was eating - she attempted to cut the bar using the knife that was in her hand without washing it!

I'm so scrupulous, probably too much since I find it repulsive to touch raw meat I drench everything in bleach afterwards and scrub my hands twice. I could not even contemplate living with your flatmate, OP!

Kevster

A Neurotic wrote: »

A related question occurred to me while eating my dinner today:

Why is it safe to eat barely cooked steak? With any other meat, if there was pink in the middle, you'd run a mile. Just pondering

Good question... ...I imagine that they're treated by some other method (other than cooking) beforehand though. There's just no way I can imagine eating a literally half-cooked steak with blood. Other preservation/anti0bacterial methods that they could use are treating with Sulfur compounds, irradiating, or salting? They must do something!

PhysiologyRocks

Kevster wrote: »

Good question... ...I imagine that they're treated by some other method (other than cooking) beforehand though. There's just no way I can imagine eating a literally half-cooked steak with blood. Other preservation/anti0bacterial methods that they could use are treating with Sulfur compounds, irradiating, or salting? They must do something!

I'm not sure, but I heard that the worry with beef is parasites, and they only survive on the outside after slaughter. Therefore only the outside needs to be cooked.

Could be a complete myth, though!

locum-motion

A Neurotic wrote: »

A related question occurred to me while eating my dinner today:

Why is it safe to eat barely cooked steak? With any other meat, if there was pink in the middle, you'd run a mile. Just pondering

According to my sister (a chef):
Beef is only contaminated on the surface, bacteria cannot penetrate into the meat, unlike say pork and chicken. Therefore, pork and chicken must be cooked all the way through, to kill the nasties therein, whereas with beef you only have to kill the nasties on the outside.
When you mince beef, the bugs from the outside get mixed up all through it, so therefore a beefburger should be cooked all the way through, unless you really trust your meat supplier.

I once got food poisoning after eating curry and rice from a cafeteria-type hot display (in a shopping centre cafe). When I was getting it, I noticed that the rice had obviously been there for a while, and the stuff on top was kinda dried out by the lights, whereas at the bottom there was a little water that the rice was sitting in. Nevertheless, I reckoned that there wasn't too much else appetising there either so I went ahead with it. I thought I'd be safe coz the food had been kept hot. Anyway, within 20 minutes of finishing, I was violently ill at both ends, shivering, weak etc. Regular readers will know I'm a pharmacist, so couldn't just go home sick (the pharmacy would have had to close for the rest of the day if I wasn't there). I had to wait about 3 hours for a pharmacist to finish his shift in another branch and drive up to relieve me. Totally horrible experience, but about 36hrs later I was right as rain, thankfully. Afterwards, chef/sister told me that rice is notorious for Campylobacter if it's not kept hot enough. Filed that one away in the head under "things I wish I'd known sooner".

Kevster

Hi,

That's very interesting about the beef. It makes sense I guess because beef does appear tougher than pork and chicken. It probably wasn't Campylobacter on the rice thuogh, as it doesn't grow on Carbs like that. Bacillus cereus is actually notorious for food-poisoning from rice.

locum-motion

Kevster wrote: »

Hi,

That's very interesting about the beef. It makes sense I guess because beef does appear tougher than pork and chicken. It probably wasn't Campylobacter on the rice thuogh, as it doesn't grow on Carbs like that. Bacillus cereus is actually notorious for food-poisoning from rice.

Oh, OK, thanks.
So either I misremembered, or my sister did (neither one of us is a microbiologist).
Doesn't really matter to me though; I remember the effects well. Precisely which bug it was isn't too important to me.

Kevster

Speak of the devil... ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/8252500.stm

Dfens

locum-motion wrote: »

According to my sister (a chef):
Beef is only contaminated on the surface, bacteria cannot penetrate into the meat, unlike say pork and chicken. Therefore, pork and chicken must be cooked all the way through, to kill the nasties therein, whereas with beef you only have to kill the nasties on the outside.
When you mince beef, the bugs from the outside get mixed up all through it, so therefore a beefburger should be cooked all the way through, unless you really trust your meat supplier.

Yep, agree with your sister on that. Beef cuts will have come from a muscle area on the carcass and should only have surface contamination with bacterial pathogens which will be easily killed during the cooking process. Pork needs to be well cooked because of the risk of other nasties such as tapeworms.
This is opposed to chicken where most often the bird's innards (harbours the majority of bacterial pathogen species) will have been removed in some manner and it is this action which poses the risk for surface contamination of the whole chicken.

liberal

Dfens wrote: »

Yep, agree with your sister on that. Beef cuts will have come from a muscle area on the carcass and should only have surface contamination with bacterial pathogens which will be easily killed during the cooking process. Pork needs to be well cooked because of the risk of other nasties such as tapeworms.
This is opposed to chicken where most often the bird's innards (harbours the majority of bacterial pathogen species) will have been removed in some manner and it is this action which poses the risk for surface contamination of the whole chicken.

...except for minced meat, hence thats why they say cook burgers through

Dfens

liberal wrote: »

...except for minced meat, hence thats why they say cook burgers through

I would go as far to say that this should be a given for all kinds of minced meats, as there exists the potential risk of cross-contamination having occured from the equipment used to mince.

sunnyjim

Kevster wrote: »

Speak of the devil... ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/8252500.stm

What do you think caused that? Animals just rolling around in their own filth?

Miss Lockhart

sunnyjim wrote: »

What do you think caused that? Animals just rolling around in their own filth?

Well, E coli O157 (the most dangerous type) does not usually cause illness in cattle so if they are infected it is generally not known. It is thought that the prevalence of infected herds is very high but the actual numbers of infected animals at any one time is relatively low. So, basically, just handling the animals and putting hands in your mouth could potentially cause infection.

Incidentally, when I was doing microbiology we were always taught that the most common cause of food-borne illness was actually human Norovirus. This got into the food through contamination from people who did not wash their hands properly - as it is generally a human infection, not an animal one. Campylobacter was the most common bacterial cause of true "food poisoning" but was far behind Norovirus in terms of number of outbreaks.

tallaght01

Yea, I deal with outbreaks in mostly residential facilities and restaurants, and most of it is norovirus.

Galwaybuzz

Kevster wrote: »

Yeh, it's surprising isn't it? I think that the figure is 80 or 90%+ chickens are infected with either of the two bacteriums that I've mentioned. What people don't realise either is that it's Campylobacter sp. that is the main causes of food poisoning in the Western world, and not Salmonella spp. or E. coli.

When your flatmate gets hit with food poisoning and can barely stand up to walk, then maybe he'll realise that he needs to be more careful. I was hit with food poisoning just last week for only the second time in around 15 years. It makes you so weak and your entire system just empties out through your miouth and ass... ...to put it mildly!

Hi Guys

I see your talking about food handling, i got a nasty dose of food poisoning myself there recently, tell your friend to be more careful or he'll end up dying a slow death !!!

found this site called safefood.eu, there is a hygene test on the site..tell him to check it out!!! He might think twice about cutting his bread with a contaminated knife again

sunnyjim

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

Well, E coli O157 (the most dangerous type) does not usually cause illness in cattle so if they are infected it is generally not known. It is thought that the prevalence of infected herds is very high but the actual numbers of infected animals at any one time is relatively low. So, basically, just handling the animals and putting hands in your mouth could potentially cause infection.

Yeah, but back to my quote. As far as I understand, E. coli lives in the GI tract of an animal... So for it to get on to an animal, it would need to be rolling in its ****e? Maybe there could just be call for cleaning the coats of the animals on a regular basis?