NA - What are the food rules? / Cross Contamination

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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Been doing a lot of cooking this week and as I was pouring the bacon grease down the kitchen drain this morning, I got to thinking about the tongs I was using when grilling last night.

I realized I don't really know what cross contamination is. Is it using a utensil that touched raw chicken to touch raw steak or is it using a utensil that touched raw food to touch cooked food?
I worked at restaurants for years when I was a young lad and there was always this talk of cross contamination but nobody ever explained what the real rules were. I think people were just throwing the term around.
I was once reprimanded for storing marinara sauce in a fridge in the original can and someone said "Don't do that. That is where Botulism comes from". Really?

Currently because I don't know, I use separate cutting boards, tongs, and spatulas for each.
Lets say I want to grill chicken, steak, and fish. What series of actions would constitute cross contamination and what is the danger?
 
Using a utensil or surface that touched raw meat or poultry to subsequently touch cooked food is definitely a cross-contamination no-no. Any pathogens transferred to the cooked food won’t be killed by subsequent heating. I wouldn’t worry much about touching raw chicken and raw steak with the same utensil before cooking, as heat will destroy the pathogens-assuming you cook promptly. The danger in leaving raw meat and poultry out at room temp for too long is that the pathogens can make toxins that WON’T be destroyed by cooking. A rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t leave meat or poultry in the ‘danger zone’ (between 40F and 140F) for more than 4 hours

Also, pouring bacon grease down the drain is a recipe for a clogged drain. It’s gonna congeal somewhere when it hits a cold pipe
 
Many raw foods, or anything they touched - contacting other foods or things they touch.
There are some exceptions of course.

I know you're joking about the bacon grease, but the penalty for that around here is as close to death as you can get.
 
www.cdc.gov

About Four Steps to Food Safety

Follow key food safety steps to prevent foodborne illness.
www.cdc.gov www.cdc.gov

Separate: don’t cross-contaminate.​

  • Raw meat, chicken and other poultry, seafood, and eggs can spread germs to ready-to-eat food unless you keep them separate.
  • When grocery shopping, keep raw meat, poultry, seafood, and their juices away from other foods.
  • Keep raw or marinating meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from all other foods in the refrigerator.
    • Store raw meat, poultry, and seafood in sealed containers or wrap them securely so the juices don't leak onto other foods.
  • Use one cutting board or plate for raw meat, poultry, and seafood and a separate cutting board or plate for produce, bread, and other foods that won't be cooked.
  • Raw chicken is ready to cook and doesn't need to be washed first. Washing these foods can spread germs to other foods, the sink, and the counter and make you sick.
    • If you choose to wash chicken, do so as safely as possible (see steps)
 
Also, don't feed pets anything raw, ever.
It does not matter if it's an egg, blocks of frozen raw food purchased from a commercial source, bones, meat...just don't risk it.
 
So if I use tongs to put chicken on the grill they will have touched raw meat. I cannot flip the meat with these tongs as the meat cooks?
That is a little confusing.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
www.cdc.gov

About Four Steps to Food Safety

Follow key food safety steps to prevent foodborne illness.
www.cdc.gov www.cdc.gov

Separate: don’t cross-contaminate.​

  • Raw meat, chicken and other poultry, seafood, and eggs can spread germs to ready-to-eat food unless you keep them separate.
  • When grocery shopping, keep raw meat, poultry, seafood, and their juices away from other foods.
  • Keep raw or marinating meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from all other foods in the refrigerator.
    • Store raw meat, poultry, and seafood in sealed containers or wrap them securely so the juices don't leak onto other foods.
  • Use one cutting board or plate for raw meat, poultry, and seafood and a separate cutting board or plate for produce, bread, and other foods that won't be cooked.
  • Raw chicken is ready to cook and doesn't need to be washed first. Washing these foods can spread germs to other foods, the sink, and the counter and make you sick.
    • If you choose to wash chicken, do so as safely as possible (see steps)
Click to expand...
Whoa! Had no idea about the washing chicken thing. I generally put it in a ziplock with marinade or I put it in a plastic bowl with olive oil and seasoning and toss it a bit before putting on the grill.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Whoa! Had no idea about the washing chicken thing. I generally put it in a ziplock with marinade or I put it in a plastic bowl with olive oil and seasoning and toss it a bit before putting on the grill.
Click to expand...
You know, it's like flying. You can get away with a lot of chit over the years but that chit has risk. It will get someone, or maybe you/me sometime. Ref washing meat.
What you are doing with marinade is fine as long as you control where the liquid goes. You don't want even a drop of that to land in a salad or remain on hands that don't get washed.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I change, or wash mine when the surface has been seared.
Click to expand...
That is interesting. As a cook at Outback Steakhouse and Steak n Ale in my teens, you had a pair of tongs and they just went from thing to thing to thing and no cleaning in between.
At outback we wore gloves and put the raw chicken on the Sautee grill w/ our hands but everything else was just the tongs.

To clarify one thing, if I butterfly chicken (raw) on a cutting board for example, I can trim fat off a strip on that same cutting board so long as both are raw and headed to the grill?
Edit: or a more realistic example, I can carry raw chicken and steak out to the grill on the same plate?
 
I eat my steak medium rare which means the raw meat is touching the cooked meat somewhere inside ;)
 
I use the same chopsticks on raw sashimi as I do fried dumplings. And then I put everything in my mouth! Because I’m such a rebel.
 
I think the statue of limitations has passed...the chef I worked for years ago taught me to dip the tongs into the deep fryer after using them for raw meat to kill any bugs. That was real handy.

At home I sometimes put the meat on with my hands that I then wash (obviously), sometimes use fresh tongs (most often), and sometimes leave the "soiled" end over the fire for a while.

I worry a lot more about chicken than I do red meat, not sure if that's justified. When I'm cutting up a prime rib, I'll eat a little bit raw, and it hasn't killed me yet. Don't do that with the Thanksgiving turkey.
 
The thing is there are more “rules” in many commercial kitchens that are not for health reasons, but societal reasons (example pork or shell fish in certain religious diet restrictions) so there are many companies that have policies that take that into consideration. Generally raw/cooked separation line is what you need to worry about. Cooking tongs are a grey area, I personally rinse them after putting raw meat in to cook (both grill or skillet) then keep using them to finish cooking. The parts that touched the raw meat gets hotter than the cooking temperature minimum guidelines in use before it’s done. Cutting boards and knives I use first to cut the “not to be cooked ingredients” then set them aside in a bowl and cut the meats after.
 
Jim K said:
At home I sometimes put the meat on with my hands that I then wash (obviously), sometimes use fresh tongs (most often), and sometimes leave the "soiled" end over the fire for a while.
Click to expand...
Me too.
Jim K said:
When I'm cutting up a prime rib, I'll eat a little bit raw, and it hasn't killed me yet.
Click to expand...
Now I have a sudden hankering for carpaccio with a side of steak tartare.
 
asicer said:
steak tartare.
Click to expand...
Mmm. Steak tartare on saltine crackers, haven’t had that in years. Closest was “tiger meat” at a pub and grub in South Dakota, but they had so many minced onions, garlic, and rainbow of herbs in it that it ruined the flavor.
 
Someone said it above, but to state simply - Raw touching cooked is cross contamination.

If you use tongs to put raw meat on the fire, you should use a different pair to take them off. Flipping is your choice, I use the raw pair under the presumption that the cooked side will continue to cook. I will sometimes use a fork to put them on and flip (spearing the raw side again) and tongs to take them off.

Another way to cross contaminate is storing raw meat above anything else. If juices drip onto vegetables you'll eat raw, you might see it or you might not.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I eat my steak medium rare which means the raw meat is touching the cooked meat somewhere inside ;)
Click to expand...
Bacteria is present mostly on the surface of the meat, when talking about a steak. That's why it's ok to cook a steak medium rare. When the meat is ground for a burger, the surface seal is broken, allowing bacteria to grow throughout the meat. That's why a rare burger isn't such a good idea.
 
Hmmm….

I’m maybe kinda sorta just a teeny tiny bit in violation of EVERYTHING above… and then some. Not good. Prolly not gonna sleep tonight.

Surely I’ll be hungry enough by noon to eat the sour cream veggie dip I left in my desk drawer at work a couple days ago. Hate to see it go to waste.

Is it ok to eat moldy stuff? Askin for a friend…
 
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SixPapaCharlie said:
So if I use tongs to put chicken on the grill they will have touched raw meat. I cannot flip the meat with these tongs as the meat cooks?
That is a little confusing.
Click to expand...
It actually takes quite of bit of bacteria to make you sick. The small amount you get on the tongs is not a big deal. And is going to die instantly when you subsequently pick up the hot chicken.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
To clarify one thing, if I butterfly chicken (raw) on a cutting board for example, I can trim fat off a strip on that same cutting board so long as both are raw and headed to the grill?
Click to expand...

I would take all chicken, trimmings or drippings or meat as being equally high risk - so I don't believe you are risking anything additionally by chicken contact with its own trimmings.
Just be sure to pop the trimmings in the trash, return the board for cleaning (never ever use it to transport cooked chicken or steak or anything else). Use a clean plate to transport finished bbq'd product to consumer's plates.

SixPapaCharlie said:
Edit: or a more realistic example, I can carry raw chicken and steak out to the grill on the same plate?
Click to expand...
I would not do this, if the steak is undercooked (as is commonly and safely done, well touching the juices from the chicken cross contaminates it.

Just to clarify, I claim only to be sgoti about this and have certainly not learned all there is to it. Open to corrections.

Steak (and roasts, in fact almost any cut) as mentioned, is low risk (not zero, but low).
Hamburger is higher
Poultry is highest
as far as likely sources of bacterial (or pre-formed toxin) contaminated meat sources (is what I repeatedly read).
 
My daughter is allergic to shellfish. Not long ago, she went to a restaurant that served shellfish, but she ordered something else (of course).

Whatever they cooked her meal in must have also cooked shrimp without being cleaned because she had an allergic reaction. Learned to in the future question a restaurant about it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
AV8R_87 said:
That's why a rare burger isn't such a good idea.
Click to expand...
Unless you’ve minced it yourself with known clean implements (see steak tartare comments above).
Classic_steak_tartare.jpg

Let'sgoflying! said:
Poultry is highest
Click to expand...
Unless it’s duck. The dry aged medium rare duck breast I had at a restaurant was awesome.
 
GaryM said:
Yes, but the non-domesticated cousins were this:
View attachment 136544

The current generation is more like this:
View attachment 136543
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So your saying you’ve proved the old question of heredity or environment question…I jest, but I will bet $1 that under the right circumstances, placed in the right environment, that cute little ballerina dog would turn into a stone cold predatory killer and survive on a raw food diet of rodents it killed. (And actually probably be healthier)
 
Van Johnston said:
Haven’t our pets’ non-domesticated cousins been eating raw meat in the wild for millennia?
Click to expand...
Raw ground meat is the problem, not whole meat. Ground meat may contain bacteria from the grinding process. Cooking will kill the bacteria.

My mom's dog starting walking funny last summer. I took her to the vet after I found out my mom had been feeding her raw ground beef every day. The dog has brain damage from the bacteria and has a lot of problems with balance and walking. The poor dog will never get better.

I had to take all meat away from my mom because she would not stop feeding the dog ground beef.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I was once reprimanded for storing marinara sauce in a fridge in the original can and someone said "Don't do that. That is where Botulism comes from". Really?
Click to expand...
IDK, but apparently the State of California is the most dangerous place on earth. Because everything there is known to cause cancer.
 
asicer said:
Unless it’s duck. The dry aged medium rare duck breast I had at a restaurant was awesome.
Click to expand...

But I coat my duck while dry aging with a generous amount of salt - that helps draw the moisture out as well as creating an environment most bacteria don't care for (and I keep it on the bottom shelf of the fridge)

On the top of plates, on the trip to the grill my raw meat rides on foil on the plate. Meat goes on the grill and foil goes in recycle bin
 
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