Recently, the dangers of Salmonella, in particular from eating chicken, have been discussed so often on TV most people would have thought that infection from Salmonella to have reduced to almost zero. Unhappily this is not what has happened. For regular chicken eaters, the risks of getting sick or worse are far higher than they should be, and thousands of people are infected every year.
Better understanding of Salmonella will help chefs eliminate the dangers and avoid infection.
What Exactly is Salmonella?
Salmonella is a form of food poisoning which is the result of a bacterium that lives in humans, poultry and other animals used for meat.
If you are infected with salmonella, they may suffer from feverishness, looseness of the bowels, being physically sick (ie regurgitating) and extreme stomach cramp. This may begin within a few hours after eating and can last up to 3 days. Normally, sufferers recover naturally, but in some cases, it can take a nasty turn, requiring hospitalisation and in a few sad cases, it can even prove to be fatal.
Beating Salmonella
The advice given to those who are cooking with chicken is :
* Clean your hands AND the chicken before before you start.
Salmonella can exist on your hands and also on the hands of anybody else how has touched the chicken. Washing thoroughly reduces the risks.
* Keep uncooked chicken away from anything on the kitchen counter.
If getting ready to prepare a chicken meal, cross contamination is a major risk. To reduce the danger, do not use the same cutting utensils for uncooked chicken as is used for cutting vegetables. Also, use one cutting board for the chicken and another fo the vegetables.
If you follow these precautions, cooking with chicken is perfectly safe and has benefits fro your general health,
Assuming you are now feeling a little more upbeat about purchasing and cooking chicken, here are a few other things to consider to make your chicken meals more healthy and tasty.
These days there are many benefits to purchasing 'free-range' chickens or even 100% organic chickens. Even the high street grocery stores are starting to sell 'organic' or 'free-range' chicken, so gettiing hold of it is easier than ever. This is a welcome development because many of us are unhappy that the larger chicken farms are just trying to make more money and not looking out for the health and wellbeing of their chickens, or the end consumers. The name, 'free-range' is usually better known by those seeking to have a healthier eating lifestyle - it needs the chickens to have access to the open air and be allowed to wander around and eat naturally instead of being confined in a small pen, or stuffed into a barn with thousands of others. Free range chickens live a happier and stress free life, and this results in a taster meat, and a cleaner conscience for the consumer.
Organic chickens, which can also be 'free range', have the extra restriction that they are not subjected to antibiotics, hormones, herbicides or pesticides. Many people believe that both Free-range and organice chickens taste better and are juicier.
Did you know that organic chicken breasts only have 10 fat calories, 110 thigh calories and a whole chicken only has 130 calories?
If you are trying to lose weight, that has to be worth knowing, right?
If you are trying to build muscle and are concerned about protein, free-range chicken breasts have 22 grams, thighs have 19 grams and the whole chicken has 21 grams - all of that from a meat that is really tasty!
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