Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

DEP E73(2)
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Francine Shaw: At some point, we've all had foodborne illness.

Matt Regusci: Yes. Now, whether it came from your kitchen or it came from someplace else, I don't know, but we've all had foodborne illness. And the key to this too is a lot of times, like salmonella doesn't happen, it's not like norovirus, it doesn't happen really quick.

You had chicken three to five days later, you start getting sick. You ate at a Mexican food restaurant and you blame it on the Mexican food restaurant.

Francine Shaw: Well, that's common myth. People think the last thing they ate is what's making them sick. Right. And that's because when they throw up, that's what they see in the toilet.

It's that's not likely. Not that it can't be, but that's not likely what made you set. It's probably something you ate at least 24 hours ago.

intro: Everybody's got to eat and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the supply chain to the point of sale, join industry veterans, Francine Elshaw and Matt Ragushi for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule.

Don't. Eat poop. Don't eat poop.

Matt Regusci: Hello. Hello, Francine. All right. So what are we talking about today?

Francine Shaw: So let's talk about washing your meat,

Matt Regusci: washing your meat. Yeah, Francine. Let's talk about washing your meat. Okay,

Francine Shaw: so I'm amazed. It's a number of people in the United States, even after like all of the marketing campaigns that have been out there, all the educational campaigns that still insist upon washing various types of meat products.

In this particular case, we're going to talk about poultry because that seems to be the number one product that people want to wash.

Matt Regusci: Do I wash my meat?

Francine Shaw: I was not going to say that. I know better than to say that to you.

Matt Regusci: No Francine, I do not wash my meat.

Francine Shaw: That'd be like saying it twice. Not at all. Not going to happen.

Matt Regusci: I understand it though. Okay. So you and I are absolutely right. In fact, we've had multiple conversations about this just on the podcast about just the perception of people and their chicken right in their sink and all that stuff. I understand why, and because you and I both do a lot of the cooking. in our houses and my wife does not want to touch the meat at all, right?

Does not want to touch the chicken, does not want to touch like a hamburger or anything like that. Like it grosses her out. And when you open up chicken, it's like there's slime in the package. It's like this chicken slime. So I get it, right? Because you look at that and you go, I don't want to touch it, let alone.

Eat the chicken slime, so I should just wash it off. Understand that perception. And if you're growing up, like you and I have grown up in the country, like we would. Butcher our own chickens, right? Well, part of the butchering and the feathering of the chickens, you would wash the chicken. So we wouldn't do it in our sink.

We would do it in special equipment outside, but we would wash the chicken. So if you're growing up like that, and you've learned to wash chicken from your mom, who learned to wash chicken from your grandma, who learned to wash chicken from great grandma, et cetera, et cetera, down the line, you understand where the perception could have come.

Now you're opening it up out of the package. And then there's just that chicken nasty slime. And then you're like, yeah, of course I want to wash it off. Unfortunately, you are doing more harm than good when you do that.

Francine Shaw: Yeah. So I actually did not move to the country until I was older. Now my dad lived in the country, but I didn't go visit him much.

We lived in town. The first time I ate meat that wasn't wrapped in cellophane. I was just like, that just freaked me out. And it was just, I was in my early twenties. That just freaked me out because I'd always bought meat wrapped in cellophane. So the first time we butchered our own steer, the thought that thing had been in my backyard and now I was going to eat it was just mind boggling to me.

I struggled. I couldn't eat it for a while. Now it's been years since I've bought any beef at the grocery store. We just don't buy beef poultry. We still do buy it to grocery store. However, But yeah, you're right. Chicken is sticky and it's just, I don't know. It's probably one of the more gross things. So yes, I do understand.

Plus I understand that there's a lot of families where it was the thing. Like mom always did it. You do what mom did. So that is. What you're going to do. There's a lot of things that my mom did that early on in adult life. I did until I realized that. Oh, my God, you're not supposed to do this. I'm surprised.

We, this is why we had flew a lot it's an air quote and I quickly, as soon as I learned that those things could be an issue. Stop doing them. I don't recall her washing poultry though. The turkey at Thanksgiving. I remember her washing that. So anyway. There was a study done in 2011. This has the College of Nursing and Health Professionals, 2011, 90 percent of people wash their raw poultry.

Matt Regusci: Whoa, wait, hold on a second. I want to make sure I understand what you're saying, because this is an amazing statistic that I did not realize. In 2011, 90 percent of the population of the United States washed their raw chicken.

Francine Shaw: You're going to be astounded throughout this whole thing. Yes. In 2011, 90 percent washed their raw poultry.

This was a washing poultry after 2013 education campaign. That's what this was. So in 2011, 90 percent of people wash their raw poultry. In 2013, they ran a don't wash your chicken campaign. After the campaign, 68. 7 percent of people still wash their raw poultry.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. Hold on though. Let's put this in context.

2011, this study was done over 90 percent of the population washed their chicken. A couple years later, they ran this campaign and then it dropped down to 60 percent or almost 40%. 68.

Francine Shaw: 7.

Matt Regusci: So a little more than 30 percent didn't. So that actually increased by 20%. Or 22%. You and I understand how complicated and hard it is for change management.

Over the course of a couple of years, you get a 22 percent change in something like a behavior like washing chicken. I'm actually impressed with that. I'm still shocked at the numbers, but I'm impressed at the progress of change.

Francine Shaw: In 2016, it was 67 to 68 percent were washing their poultry. And in 2019, it jumped back up 67 to 72 percent were washing their raw.

Paltry craziness, huh? That's interesting. I wonder why it went back up. Well, because people stopped talking about it would be my guess. We're not obviously in our industry. We talk about it all the time, but they ran a campaign. So it was front of mind, right? So people were talking about it, thinking about it.

People were saying, Hey, did you know you're not supposed to wash your chicken? I can remember when I was teaching classes, we'd be talking about this all the time. And it would be like an active conversation in the class about why you shouldn't. Well, my mom did. My grandma did. And so I'm sure many of those people went home and at least in the immediate future did not wash their poultry.

But again, a behavior, how long till they forget? Oh, I'm not supposed to wash it. And it just is a behavior. So unless you continually reinforce it, you're going to forget that you're not supposed to be washing it. You go back to washing it, which we're going to talk about this. So there were 2193 responses.

Matt Regusci: Wow, that's a big study.

Francine Shaw: 73. 5 percent washed raw poultry. 26. 5 percent did not wash raw poultry. This particular page does not have a year. Aware of the message of not washing poultry. There were 31. 2 percent that were aware of the message. 68. 8 were unaware of the don't wash your chicken message. How often do you wash or rinse your poultry?

This was asked of consumers who had heard the message but still washed their poultry. 1. 9 never wash or rinse their poultry.

Matt Regusci: I'm sorry, how much is that? What'd you say? 1. 7 percent? 1. 9. 1. 9 never wash their poultry.

Francine Shaw: How often do you wash or rinse your poultry? This was asked of consumers who had heard the message but still washed poultry.

Never 1. 9 percent. Rarely 12. 5. Sometimes 24. 5. Often 22. 8 and always 38. 4. So 38. 4 even after the message. We're still washing their poultry.

Matt Regusci: I didn't realize how much of an anomaly we are. Oh, like we are such a minority of the minority to be like a never washing chicken.

Francine Shaw: Solutions that they use to wash their raw poultry.

What did they use to wash their raw poultry? Salt, salt, 32. 9 percent lemon juice, 28. 5%. Vinegar, 23.2%. Lime juice, 20.8%. Keep you sunglasses on your head. Alcohol, 14.7%. None of these, 41.3%, so I guess maybe they're just using water.

Matt Regusci: Did you grow up with processing meats of any kind, like making salami or prosciutto or.

in those types of hanging meat?

Francine Shaw: No, but as an adult, I am familiar with it, but not as a child. That's family that I didn't know.

Matt Regusci: I haven't done it in a very long time, like a couple of decades. I did it with my grandparents because my grandfather made all different types of sausage prosciutto salami, founded a food company many moons ago, like when I was born.

So over four decades ago, founded this salami prosciutto company. We would wash The dried meat, we would wash it with like wine, like white wine in there. And so I'm wondering if some people are doing that with their chicken. They're like washing it with salt, like brining it and then rinsing it off or lime and then rinsing off.

I totally get the premise of it.

Francine Shaw: Because we were watching talk videos. When we were doing this research and there were people that were like, there was one guy on there. Do you think that KFC is doing this before they make the chicken and he's washing it? I can assure you. And there was this other 1, where I just got the guy through his wife's like, honey, will you wash the chicken?

And he's like, sure, and I can't repeat half of what was set, but it throws all the chicken into the same. And he's looking around and grabs the dish soap and.

Matt Regusci: Oh, I remember you saying

Francine Shaw: she comes out. She's like, why, why is the chicken all soapy? And he's like, you asked me to wash the chicken. Now, clearly this is staged.

It has to be. There's a camera there recording this, but I have seen situations where they are washing the chicken with the soap. Like, why would you do that? I don't know. I don't know a lot of things, but so barriers to not washing raw chicken. Are they saying that I'm going to do it anyway? I clean my sink and counter surfaces really well.

58. 5%. Now, my question to that is this, regardless of how well you clean them, your sink has that little aerator thing on it. Diffuses the water as it comes out of the ticket faucet. How often do people, most people take that off and clean it. Rarely, if ever only freaks like us do that. The people that know even think about it, the average person isn't taking that off and cleaning it so much so that if they take a water sample from your home to do a water test, they take it from the bathroom sink instead of the kitchen sink because kitchen sink is typically the dirtiest sink in the house.

That's a fun fact. 4 percent well, our response to that is going to be the of I'm careful to not splash. 47. 2%. It's like the guys that jump off the high dive in the Olympics and make very little splash.

Matt Regusci: Well, that kitchen that wash of the chicken, what got to be an 8.

Francine Shaw: 9. I need to clean something off the poultry 28.

8. It improves the taste. 15. 7.

Matt Regusci: Does it? If you're salting or liming or whatever and that's your washing thing, then yeah, it's going to alter the taste. But you could just throw it in a plastic bag or throw it in a bowl and create a brine in there, which will alter the taste slightly. How often are you making chicken, Francine?

How often do you make chicken at the house?

Francine Shaw: We probably eat chicken at least once a week.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. We eat chicken here two to four times a week and I brine chicken every single time I cook it. But it goes from the package, pull it out. Put it into either the plastic bag or the bowl that I'm going to brine this in, throw it in there with the brine, which can be sometimes beer.

I don't do it so much now that I don't drink, but usually it's like chicken broth and my seasoning that I, I have my own seasoning that I create and olive oil. And I put a little bit of soy sauce. A little bit of Worcestershire sauce and a little bit of like a lime or something like that in there. I let it sit overnight and then we cook it the next day.

Francine Shaw: On the kitchen counter

Matt Regusci: overnight? Yes, overnight on the kitchen counter. No, I put saran wrap over it and stick it in the refrigerator or if it's in a gallon Ziploc bag. I still put it in a bowl in the gallon Ziploc bag if I use a gallon Ziploc bag just in case the gallon Ziploc bag leaks and I have chicken stuff all over the refrigerator and then throw it in the refrigerator all day.

But yeah, it goes directly from that package. In fact, I'm opening up the chicken package over my trash and I'm sticking it from there into either the plastic bag or the bowl that's on the counter right in front of my trash can. So the chicken stuff goes directly from there and then wash my hands. And I have one of those sinks where it's like motion turns on.

So once I stick my hands under the water actually turns on instantly. So it's cool that way. But. Yeah, try to minimize the amount of chicken, anything, anywhere in the household.

Netflix poison documentary of all the little points at which the chicken contamination happened in that kitchen. That was a really good visual display of How you could contaminate multiple parts of your kitchen quickly.

Francine Shaw: So we buy, even though there's only two of us usually eating it, we buy bulk chicken, but then separate it and freeze it.

So we only freeze a few pieces at a time and it's usually in Ziploc bags. So usually I'll pull it out of the Ziploc bag, put it in wherever I'm going to put it.

Matt Regusci: Nice. So you buy whole chicken in bulk.

Francine Shaw: No, I'll either buy a pack of thighs or a pack of legs or in pieces like that.

Matt Regusci: That makes sense.

Francine Shaw: Unless I'm going to make soup or something, and then I would buy like a whole chicken, but.

Matt Regusci: That's what we do too. We buy it all in bulk, but buy it on bulk when it's on sale and then freeze it. But we don't separate it in three. That would only be like one tenth of my family.

Francine Shaw: Right.

Matt Regusci: Eighth of my family.

Francine Shaw: So washing and cooking influences. I learned it from my parents, my mom and dad, and I usually just watch them and I follow along with them.

I learned how to cook from YouTube. My mother is a phenomenal cook, but it's all fattening food.

Matt Regusci: Oh, like they're learning to wash their chicken on YouTube?

Francine Shaw: I guess. I learned how to cook from YouTube. We need to have a

Matt Regusci: YouTube influencer course, like what to do, what not to do type of thing. And why. And why.

Francine Shaw: I go. And I just do a clean for me to feel good about it. I do wash it and I do clean off that extra stuff just to feel better about eating it. Those are the kinds that I just don't think to do it. Cause you know, I'm 66 years old. She doesn't think to not skip the rinse part. That's when

Matt Regusci: you should be because your system is more prone to getting pathogens.

Francine Shaw: But the thing is I've been doing it my whole life. 37 years. I've never had a food board on it.

Matt Regusci: People love that. Never had a food board on this.

Francine Shaw: Well, because the bottom line is we all have at some point, we've all had foodborne illness.

Matt Regusci: Yes. Now, whether it came from your kitchen or came from someplace else, I don't know, but we've all had foodborne illness.

And what it is too, is a lot of times, like salmonella doesn't happen, it's not like norovirus, it doesn't happen really quick. So, You had chicken three to five days later, you start getting sick. You ate at a Mexican food restaurant and you blame it on the Mexican food restaurant.

Francine Shaw: That's common myth.

People think the last thing they ate is what's making them sick. And that's because when they throw up, that's what they see in the toilet. It's that's not likely. Not that it can't be, but that's not likely what made you sick. It's probably something you ate at least 24 hours ago.

Matt Regusci: Right. Yeah. Well, those were some very interesting statistics.

Francine Shaw: And I think it's fascinating.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. Have you ever been like, okay, I got pulled into one of my wife's friends. And when I say wife's, one of my wife's friends, like I'm, her husband is like my best friend. We've been friends since college. Yeah, we've known them forever. She pulls me into some Facebook debate, Tracy and I, into some Facebook debates on washing chicken, and I was like, No, thank you.

I'm not changing any minds on this Facebook debate. This is not going to no matter what I do.

Francine Shaw: So I have innocently on occasion made a comment, just seen something really out there and then while you might not change that person's mind, there are other people looking at this that might think that what they're saying is legitimate and it isn't.

So added a comment, nothing mean or just a very carefully added that comment, like taken from like a CDC website or something. Not done it for a while because the last time I did that, I just truly got lambasted. You know what, eat the chicken, eat the egg. It's like

Matt Regusci: in your book, that lady who got mad at you with the, about the lukewarm bacon.

Francine Shaw: Oh, my gosh. Yes. The bacon. It was like 77 degrees that had been in that cooler since for hours. And they were mad because I was shutting down the meat vendor. That's all he sold was meat and it was out of that cooler. My God, as soon as you opened the door, you smelled the stench and it nearly started a riot.

Thank God there was a refrigerated core that I could barely see over between us. We had to call the police and everything to get an escort out of there. Those people were livid that we shut down that meat vendor.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, it's fascinating. And yeah, so I, I told my wife's friend, I was like, no, you have fun.

I'll give you all the information you want, but not my monkey, not my circus. I have a hard enough time trying to convince facilities in the world. that their whole entire job is based around food safety. I have a hard enough time trying to convince them they need food safety. The people who are adamant about washing their chicken on Facebook is not my battle.

Francine Shaw: So my discussion was about eggs in that episode I was involved in. I was at HomeGoods. You're thinking what the hell does HomeGoods have to do with this? I was at HomeGoods this week. I haven't been in HomeGoods in years and I was so excited because our chickens are from fresh eggs. And oftentimes when we get them, they're not washed, obviously.

And so they're in a carton and they're not washed because they're either come from my son or my mother in law. And it doesn't make sense to wipe them off and put them back in that dirty container because the dangerous containment makes no sense. So I was there and I found these acrylic egg holders with lids.

And I was like, so excited. This made my day because they were only like five bucks. Anyway, fun fact, I was so excited about these acrylic egg containers that I can now wipe my eggs off, clean them and put them in this acrylic container that I'm ecstatic that I now have some place to put my clean eggs.

Matt Regusci: Nice. Okay, so what was the next thing you were going to talk about? Was it mayonnaise or something like that?

Francine Shaw: Homemade mayonnaise. It's summer. Not that homemade mayonnaise isn't risky anytime a year, but what are the risks with homemade mayonnaise?

Matt Regusci: First off, I've never made homemade mayonnaise. I don't even know how to make homemade mayonnaise, which is interesting because I cook a ton and make a lot of things from scratch, but I've never made a homemade mayonnaise.

You'll have to explain the process. I don't even know. I

Francine Shaw: know the answer to the question. Remember, I think like you can put a little bit of olive oil in it. There's egg, vinegar,

Matt Regusci: Dijon mustard, lemon juice, egg, and salt.

Francine Shaw: Yeah. And you just whip it up. You whip it real fast and it'll turn into mayonnaise. I don't know if everybody would put mustard in it, but.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. I love making like egg salad and tuna salad and all that stuff. And I do put mustard in that, but that's added to with the mayonnaise.

Francine Shaw: That's like macaroni salad. You would put mustard in that too, but that's not in your mayonnaise. You mix mayonnaise with, so yeah, so there's raw eggs, literally, and mayonnaise and raw eggs.

and make you sick.

Matt Regusci: Salmonella, like we were talking about with the chicken. And it's also that time of the year too, where everybody's doing potlucks and in particular, like before the 4th of July and all that stuff, or after the 4th of July and some other like Memorial Day or whatever.

Francine Shaw: And it is so hot outside.

Yeah, that stuff isn't gonna last long at all sitting on a table with raw eggs in it.

Matt Regusci: Right. And it's like in the potato salad, the macaroni salad. The egg salad, everything has mayo in it. Now,

Francine Shaw: commercial mayonnaise is much less risky than homemade mayonnaise because there's so many preservatives in it.

Matt Regusci: Do they use pasteurized eggs in the commercial?

They probably do.

Francine Shaw: I would imagine at this point they do. Or is mayonnaise treated when they can it?

Matt Regusci: Yeah. It's self life stable forever before you open it up, the mayo. Ciao. Yeah, it's interesting, but I, that's one of the big issues in potlucks and stuff. You're going to get sick from that. If it's homemade mayo, I'm going to have to make homemade mayo and then leave it out and then hand it to somebody I don't like.

Raw eggs. Okay, so.

Francine Shaw: Would you use pasteurized eggs?

Matt Regusci: Mean? For the mayonnaise? How would you pasteurize your eggs? Oh, Matt, stop it. That's a good question. Okay. So if I'm in

Francine Shaw: the grocery store, pasteurized,

Matt Regusci: how would you do it at home? How would you pasteurize eggs at home?

Francine Shaw: I don't know. Can you pasteurize my home?

And I know commercially they run them under like steady streams of warm water constantly tumbling. So they don't cook. For a long period of time, could you?

Matt Regusci: Yeah, that's a good question. Going and get pasteurized eggs at the grocery store and make homemade mayo. Yeah. I've never made it because it's raw egg.

Francine Shaw: Anything else? Just go buy pasteurized eggs.

Matt Regusci: Oh my gosh. It doesn't matter. Okay. So none of my kids do wash their chicken, none at all. So at least I'm passing that down generationally. In fact, my daughter was in her house with a bunch of roommates and one of the roommates would to go. and she looked at him like, he was creating some massive sin, and so, he no longer washes chicken either.

The raw egg thing still, like I have sons that work out and they're trying to bulk up and I'm like, dude, do not stick that raw egg in your whatever it is and they'll still do it. So I'm like,

Francine Shaw: yes. So yes, my ex husband, they lifted weights competitively and every now and then they would drink. Like raw eggs and it's just so gross.

Now it's, you guys can't do that. Just don't do that. And it was like, I don't even know if time pasteurized eggs were a thing.

Matt Regusci: And so this is literally what my son said to me. I am in the prime of my health. I am eating this to bulk up for weightlifting and for wrestling. If I get salmonella, I'll be fine.

And I said, well, that may be accurate. Your immune system will probably fight off the salmonella. The loss of fluids and everything that you consumed. It's probably counterintuitive to what you're trying to do, .

Francine Shaw: Well, and there's albeit a small chance that maybe he won't be. Oh

Matt Regusci: hundred percent. Yes. Yes. That is because

Francine Shaw: maybe there's something in his body he's unaware of.

Maybe his immune system isn't as strong as he thinks it is.

Matt Regusci: So, back to my Facebook battle. I could do what I could do at a certain age. They're gonna make their own decisions and I've had it. My daughter luck. My daughter

Francine Shaw: likes raw oysters.

Matt Regusci: Oh, I do too.

Francine Shaw: Ah.

Matt Regusci: Oh, I love raw oysters. And again, I know I'm putting my life in my hands every time I eat that.

Same with sushi. I love sushi.

Francine Shaw: Okay. So some of it I will eat, but I don't know, I somehow, and I've eaten some ceviche that is good in Peru. It felt like they knew what they were doing. I,

Matt Regusci: I, I, uh, Very large assumption, and

Francine Shaw: I'm laughing because I was in a fine dining restaurant and it's look, they serve this here all the time.

The reason I'm laughing is not that they wouldn't know what they're doing. It's like how many people travel to foreign countries and get sick from the food. That's why I'm laughing. Nobody is not used to consuming that type of food. I did not get sick, but. Yeah,

Matt Regusci: well, I will experiment. I will go and see if I could find pasteurized eggs at the grocery store.

That's no, no, no. I did not know you could buy pasteurized eggs. Well, again, baking is not my thing. I'm more like the barbecuing, cooking dinner type of. Guy, breakfast, lunch, dinner. I love cooking. Baking is not my thing and really making my own condiments. I will make, I shouldn't say that because I will make my own chili oil.

I have a bunch of kids from China that really love spicy food and I have come to absolutely love chili oil and so I make my own chili oil and that type of stuff that's harder to get. But I don't know if I could tell you the difference between homemade mayo and regular mayo. I'm not that much of a mayo guy.

So yeah, I've never really practiced, never really done this. So I've never gone out to find pasteurized eggs because I've always just cooked them. But if there are pasteurized eggs and they, if they are, I got to research this more, if they are as good as just the raw egg. Then I may just buy that and have that in the, if for my boys too, they're going through some crazy thing of trying to bulk up, they'll just, I'll just hand them that.

Yeah.

Francine Shaw: So, yes. So I would attribute it more to the fact that we've primarily worked in different parts of the industry. I've never purchased pasteurized eggs, but I have seen them because I know they're there.

Matt Regusci: Ah, right. From the restaurant side of things and the grocery side of things, huh?

Francine Shaw: Yeah. Retail and right.

Well, and like different cut. Eglin's best, I believe.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine Shaw: Worked with them at one point.

Matt Regusci: Okay. I will experiment with this and come back to you, Francine. You do that. All right. On that note, don't wash your chicken. Wash your freaking hands. And don't eat poop. And don't eat

poop.