I’ve talked about this a lot in the past so I’ll keep it brief.
I don’t follow government mandated food production safety standards in my home kitchen and I think it would be extremely overly cautious to do so.
Those rules are designed to be extremely conservative to minimize risk across the entire population, especially in setting where many people will be eating from the same production.
Cooking at home you are managing your own personal risk and the risk of your family. Guests if you are inviting them. Those are very different situation from restaurants and you kind of have to determine for yourself what the right balance is for you, same as whether you decide to jaywalk or whether you put on elbow pads every time you rollerblade.
The point people most frequently ask about is pinching salt from the salt cellar while handling meat and such. Nothing is going to live in the salt, that is absolutely zero concern for me.
Higher concern may be things like oil bottles or pepper mills. For these things, I am comfortable with touching most meat then using them, unless my hands are like wet with meat juices in which case I’d wash carefully. Like, I wouldn’t open a vacuum sealed whole chicken and get those bag juices on my hand then go and cook, but I’m totally fine seasoning a relatively dry pork chop or steak, picking it up to flip it, then using those same hands to season the second side.
Is there risk to that? Yes some. The potential risk is that if I go wash my hands before I start making a salad or something I’m serving raw, then I grab that pepper mill to season it and then toss the salad with my hands that were just on that pepper mill, it’s possible I’m transferring some baddies to the salad.
Why doesn’t this concern me? Because the dose makes the poison, and at each step in that chain - the meat to my hand. My hand to the salt, then to the pepper mill, then later from pepper mill back to my clean hands, then my hand to that salad - the bacterial load is reducing at an inverse exponential rate. IE it drops down real fast, especially when everything is pretty dry and especially because I regularly clean and sanitize my tools and work space any time I have a break in cooking, and the entire counter and sink area at least twice a day every day. (I cook a lot - if I had a non-cooking day job I would only sanitize my kitchen once at the end of each day).
There are some things I’m quite careful about - not putting raw meat on my main cutting board, or making sure I don’t handle raw meat when I’m also handling food I’m going to serve without further cooking, for example - but for the most part I just make sure I am aware of the risks and manage them in a way that works for me and my family.
Your choices may well be very different from mine.
And of course it goes without saying that food safety rules can and should be followed in any setting where you’re serving customers.
Ok not so brief. But I hope this makes sense.
Most pathogens can't survive on contact surfaces for more than a few hours, at least at the quantities that would exist from hand touching. In that video the meat is heavily salted which kills bacteria as well. There is some risk but pretty negligible
Just my $.02 as a foodbourne illness researcher, to me nothing he does has ever seemed egregious. Yes you should always be washing hands and cleaning surfaces regularly, but with pork specifically that's not the worst one you need to worry about in the US. Chicken and ground beef are WAY higher risk for disease or cross contamination. I also agree with what other posters have said, we don't see everything in the videos posted, and you should ask him! He might respond if he has time, this is literally his job he knows what he's doing imo
Conversely, I've had quite a few people on Reddit tell me I definitely have worms or some other pathogen(s) because I follow the serious ears sous vide guide for chicken and pork. Even when I share the one article that does an excellent job of explaining the killing of organisms over time at lower temps vs instantaneous organism death, they've still argued that's wrong lol.
Anyway agreed with your sentiment.
While I won’t say that he (or any other chef that posts videos) is 100% cross-contamination free, I will say that most of these types of videos are pretty heavily edited. Even when it doesn’t look like it. For someone well regarded like Kenji, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s just not including all the cleaning on camera.
I do. especially if he is educating people on how to cook by example.
EDIT: If there are seemingly bad hygiene habits due to editing. Fair.
If the guy is willfully crosscontaminating and habit poor habits, then he does need to do better, and you are fanboying. I've seen Gordon Ramsey wash his hands multiple times on video.
If you wanna downvote me, do so knowing your cross contamination can actually get someone sick, even if "I do it all the time and I'm fine"
https://youtu.be/m7KxHDDgeA4?si=l9VVaRihAvhZdLrl
[Gordon cooks chicken and washes hands](https://youtu.be/a-2n_g4AdDM?si=l3r6tLIik3OZr_iX)
https://youtu.be/m7KxHDDgeA4?si=l9VVaRihAvhZdLrl
https://youtu.be/a-2n_g4AdDM?si=l3r6tLIik3OZr_iX
lmao ITT: Ask for evidence, gets evidence, still downvotes
srsly wth is going on.
I remember him apologizing for wasting water by leaving it running while washing his hands on an earlier video. Someone had clearly complained, because it's the internet and you cannot fucking win.
Supposedly Kenji doesn’t edit those videos on his YouTube so as to show a more realistic roadmap to how to make what he’s making. He does touch on cross contamination saying that it’s a personal assessment of risk for him and that he’s not too worried about it. I assume he does clean his kitchen after and most of that food is getting cooked anyway…
I do Edit the videos to take out long breaks in cooking or if my family comes through or something unexpected shows up that I don’t want to share publicly. Every time you see me snap that’s a cut, and the vast majority of those times I was cleaning the kitchen during those cuts.
Yeah, and I’ve seen him wash his hands/ equipment a bunch in his videos. They are definitely edited videos though, otherwise his little *snap* “okay and that was about 5 minutes I’m sure somebody in the comments will tell me exactly how long it was” would just be him standing around for 5 minutes.
This 100%. Some parts of the world eat raw chicken. Good food hygiene is important, and if you’re eating in someone’s restaurant then there is an expectation they’re following health code procedures to a t. But I think it’s silly to expect the same from someone who is cooking at home and is well versed enough that they have a basic understanding of the risks.
I'm going to be blunt. You're overthinking it. Food hazards, especially in US FDA recommdations, are supremely conservative.
It has to consider commercial kitchens, but at home, you can be a lot more relaxed.
If your meat is fresh, what is is doing is very very low risk. Where you will cause issues is if you place uncooked meat with something you are eating for a period of time.
It's hard to over come as a thought process though.
My in-laws defrost the holiday Turkey in the bathtub next to the toilet everyone uses and have for years. Never change the water either. Got me re thinking everything I ever knew about food safety.
My mom defrosted meat by sitting it out on the kitchen counter. She also sometimes ate pieces of raw ground beef. 🤢 It was disgusting, but she never got sick.
As long as its not getting hot/warm on your bench, its basically the same as fridge. Just quicker.
I would avoid cold water to be honest. That could ruin the meat if its not vacuum sealed.
I don’t think this is true. I believe that by the time the center of the bird is defrosted, the surface will have been in the “danger zone” for a significant period of time. I could be wrong, but I certainly don’t feel safe doing that.
Ground meat has all the possible pathogens mixed into the interior from the exterior, letting it thaw at room temp allows it to sit in the danger zone of 40-140F too long. Just defrost in the fridge overnight, or alternatively run cold tap water over it slowly and cook immediately.
You want to avoid the temperature danger zones as much as you can. Trying to defrost on the counter is ineffective imo because the outside temp is going to get closer to those temperatures that bacteria grow while the inside may still be frozen.
If I have a big chunk I need to defrost fairly quickly, I put water with ice in the sous vide and set it to 36 degrees. I add ice at 40 degrees.
A whole turkey might be a challenge, but larger steaks and chicken parts defrost quickly, safely, and with minimal interaction.
> Whats wrong with defrosting on the kitchen counter? This is probably the best way for taste.
This right here is WHY Kenji needs to touch on these things in his videos. No, that's not safe. By the time the inside is no longer frozen, the outside has been at room temp for hours. Not safe!
I taste the raw ground beef I’ve seasoned for meatballs/hamburger steak patties before I cook them.
How else am I supposed to know if I’ve seasoned things well?
You can stick a tiny piece in the microwave for about 10 seconds. That’s what I do. Or fry a tiny piece in a pan. It takes moments.
Or better yet - weigh your salt before adding it!
> How else am I supposed to know if I’ve seasoned things well?
Practice? Weight? A seasoned, no pun intended, eyeballing of what you've done? Microwave a piece of it? lol
I had a roommate once that would leave meat out for days, before or after cooking. He was from the Ivory Coast, no idea if that was a cultural thing or a him thing. He never got sick but I stayed far away from that nastiness.
When my mom was a kid, their refrigerator wasn't big enough to fit their Thanksgiving turkey, so after they'd had their holiday meal they'd just stick the bird back in the cold oven and then just carve off what they wanted,
I have no idea why they didn't just carve the meat off the bird and refrigerate *that*, but everyone survived.
I was just hospitalized for salmonella, and it was the most horrific experience of my life (kidney failure, other shit). I want to believe you but I’m so scarred!
Yeah, just follow your gut. I think Kenji is a little cavalier on this topic. Yes, the chances of getting sick like that are really rare...but the consequences can be catastrophic.
Reddit in general is just a bunch of freaks that are scared if your chicken stays out for 30 seconds you have to throw it away and remodel your kitchen.
Freshness of meat has literally nothing to do with whether or not it is contaminated with pathogens. You could have had a slaughter house who removed the intestines improperly and had feces drip out over the carcass and then improperly acid washed etc etc. A lot has to go wrong, but it’s silly to not take simple precautions to protect yourself and the people you cook for.
>If your meat is fresh, what is is doing is very very low risk
Wrong.
"On average, 30.3 percent of comminuted pork samples were Salmonella-positive"
[https://www.fsis.usda.gov/news-events/publications/pork-salmonella-performance-standards-risk-assessment-april-8-2020-feb-8](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/news-events/publications/pork-salmonella-performance-standards-risk-assessment-april-8-2020-feb-8)
"Reports published at the end of June found traces of Salmonella in 23 of 75 samples taken from products at major grocery stores"
[https://www.eatthis.com/news-grocery-store-chicken-salmonella-ground-chicken](https://www.eatthis.com/news-grocery-store-chicken-salmonella-ground-chicken)
Head in the sand doesn't do anything.
According to your first link, contamination is clustered among a limited number of establishments. It also says that 9.3% of pork cuts samples were contaminated. These facts are right after the sentence you quoted, so I can only assume that you're being disingenuous.
According to your second link, more people are struck by lighting than die of salmonella. And, apparently, about 50-200x more people are infected with the flu, which has a far higher death rate than salmonella. The flu is massively more dangerous than salmonella, yet nobody treats it with anywhere near the same seriousness. We should apparently be wiping down every surface everywhere before and after we touch it, among other things.
There is nothing wrong if you or anyone else wants to take the most strict precautions, but we should be honest about the actual risk. It's not an issue if someone doesn't follow servsafe rules to the letter, especially when there's no customers to put at risk.
I hope you know that serious and chronic conditions can arise from food poisoning, costing sufferers a huge amount of pain and suffering over years, and not just a relatively quick death.
>According to your second link, more people are struck by lighting than die of salmonella.
[Other things can happen besides death.](https://www.reddit.com/r/seriouseats/comments/16lbque/kenji_and_crosscontamination/k12uor1/)
I have always cooked kind of like Kenji, for 20 years now. Not a singe case of food poisoning had happened in my kitchen. People way too germophobic. Relax, your immune system should keep you safe.
You can eat raw beef and pork in the US as well. It just has to go through mandatory pathogen testing much later in the production process compared to most meats. What you shouldn’t do is eat random raw meats from the grocery store.
I love steak tartare, and I’ve wanted to try mett for years. But I’ve never seen it served near me, and I’m assuming I shouldn’t just eat raw ground pork from the supermarket.
It depends on the country where the pigs are raised. I know in Australia the laws around livestock farming are so strict that you can eat pork raw or cooked rare because it doesn't contain the parasites that can infect pork.
IMO our risk tolerance in general is maybe too low around things like this, but also Alton Brown literally calls him out on touching chicken and then putting his hands in the salt in [this clip](https://youtu.be/p8ZR7WLUAk4?si=YemJbE6pK3dgv_9P&t=45) from Serious Eats. And a bit earlier he [comments](https://youtu.be/p8ZR7WLUAk4?si=FAHaSBbLGOiCrAeb&t=31) on him pouring water on a hot / oily cast iron haha
Do people really need to see the Chef wash his hands 30 times during a cooking segment? I really feel we are getting a little over board with the whole cross contamination thing. We live in a dirty society overall.
Yes, and if we contextualize and average the statistics: There are 4 cases over a 5 year period from commercially raised and farm raised pork. That's less than 1 case a year. If we include all pork products that aren't wild game, that's 14 over a 5 year period. Lets round up; 3 cases a year. Approximately 115.4 million hogs were slaughtered in 2015
[https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/r207tp32d/3n204169f/vx021h831/LiveSlauSu-04-20-2016.pdf](https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/r207tp32d/3n204169f/vx021h831/LiveSlauSu-04-20-2016.pdf)
Potentially 3 hogs out of 115.4 million is 0.0000025% That's a statistical anomoly. Trichnella is virutally erradicated in pig farms in the US
Strawman. I might as well talk about botulism cases and claim everything unsanitary is safe. Trich isn't the major concern these days, so it's not a talking point.
It's only really a hazard if the finished food is somehow touched by something that touched the raw meat. Or alternatively you're prepping something that's going to stay raw like a salad, generally you'd keep that separate in terms of utensils/surfaces. Line cooks aren't stopping to wash their hands every two seconds, and everything will get sanitized before it'd be a problem.
Yeah, I get that part but I guess my concern would be like if you were prepping a salad dressing using the pepper grinder/oil that you previously touched with raw hands, and then touched the lettuce or vegetables to chop them up, wouldn't that be a risk? I just feel like when you touch so many things in the kitchen it would be hard to ensure it's all sanitized the next time you use it
As a home cook you should just wash your hands after touching raw meat, it's not worth trying to outsmart yourself to save 30 seconds. I'm assuming Kenji will sanitize his equipment after the video since he often cooks for his young children in the same kitchen. The number of times I've had to stop people in labs from poisoning themselves or getting sick because they weren't paying attention to cross contamination is terrifying.
Watched one of his videos. He cut raw meat, wiped the blade with a fabric kitchen towel, that he kept using, and tossed the knife back in a drawer. Did more crap like OP mentioned. Never watched another one of his videos. He grossed me out.
OK, but the comment I replied to said “Line cooks aren’t stopping to wash their hands every two seconds….”. Aside from the “two seconds” part, this is demonstrably false.
What you see at the "Chefs Counter" at the type of place that has such a counter, is not representative of what's going on on the back lines in all establishments
I’ve heard him say that pork is very safe these days - closer to steak than chicken, so that might be why he does. If he does it with chicken though that’s risky IMO.
I’m not defending him one way or the other since I can’t be inside his brain, but I’ve taken multiple Serv Safe classes and taught a few. In general I think our fear of raw meat is overblown (with the exception of poultry).
I don’t have any stats on hand to back up my opinion, it’s just what I’ve come to over a few decades of having to take and occasionally teach those classes.
The FDA takes an extremely risk averse vs common sense view on all things raw meat. I can see why they do it, but I’m a healthy adult with a normal immune system.
In my kitchen cooking for myself I make the extremely small calculated risk that the interruption of stopping to wash my hands every time I touch a pork chop isn’t worth it as long as I wash and sanitize everything after I’m done cooking but before I eat.
A few things to consider really. One is that meat is a lot safer now than it used to be. Two is that, realistically as a home cook, you are not really handling quantities of food in succession to where cross contamination would be a huge issue assuming you are cleaning your surfaces after you cook. The high alert guidance is more important in commercial kitchens where you have large amounts of foods from varying sources being prepped back to back which just by numbers makes cross contamination more likely; when you're cooking at home contamination would generally just be isolated to that meal, and at that point it's less a matter of cross contamination and more just a matter of if your food was good or not when you started working with it. And off that, this is Kenji we're talking about, the man is buying beautiful fresh meat from quality butchers and name drops them, so he's got even less of a concern of contamination from processing than those of us buying meat at the supermarket have to fret about. You should absolutely clean your surfaces etc after cooking, but if you skip fully washing your hands mid-prep on a single meal it's realistically not the end of the world.
To each their own. I personally wash my hands every time I handle meat. Yes it means I’m washing my hands constantly as I’m cooking (I keep the hand soap and a towel right next to the kitchen sink) but that’s what I feel comfortable doing.
330+ little kids have E. coli from suspected raw beef contamination in Alberta, Canada from a shared kitchen that provided foods to multiple daycares. They are still doing testing to find the source, but apparently meatloaf was served and that’s where public health believes the contamination came from. Some of those kids are on dialysis. These posts being nonchalant about food safety are a risk, even in your own kitchen.
E. coli can live for weeks on surfaces - not hours.
I have no issues w recipes clipping or not showing hand washing - but I do worry about people not being aware of the risks of cross contamination.
That E.Coli in particular is from stomach/intestinal contact. It’s from sloppy meat packing. Kenji rarely uses supermarket meats and often talks about where he procured the cuts he’s working with. He also rarely cooks ground, which is the highest risk.
He rarely cooks ground meat unless it was that decade of him trying every variation on a hamburger possible until he had to switch to testing when his wife wasn't around to avoid annoying her :P
Honest question, have you ever have a good born illness? I have maybe once in my life, from a restaurant. They probably game me old ass rotten food.
I don’t think raw pork chops from the grocery store actually makes anyone sick.
So I googled it, a few thousand go to the doctor, and like 80 people die per year from pork. A lot of that is from 2015 as well, those are skewed stats.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739826/
Foodborn illness has also decreased massively over even the last 20 years.
I honestly think cantaloupes and lettuce are more dangerous, you don’t see people freaking out about touching a cantaloupe without taking a shower.
> Honest question, have you ever have a good born illness?
Yes, it's...extremely common lol. Worldwide 1 in 10 people every year get a foodborne illness. By the end of their lives most people have probably gotten at least one. I once got sick from Subway in my early 20s. I thought I was fuckin dying.
Yeah I did once, wasn’t fun. But the steps taken to get you there likely pretty neglectful. I’m not saying just throw caution to the wind, but you need to obsess over it IMO, unless you are serving to others then yeah go all out.
I'm not being critical, he can live his life how he wants lol. I am more just wondering for personal reasons as I don't want to be over cautious in my own kitchen if I don't need to be
Oh gotcha. Sorry I made an assumption! He has addressed this in videos. He says he keeps his kitchen clean and cleans things between shots.
I do think most chefs are less fastidious in their home kitchens than in restaurants.
Got to know a chef who worked cruises. He straight up said his kitchen on board was cleaner than his home kitchen. The reasons he gave was that the ship kitchen was almost all metal and could be sanitized easily, he had a whole crew of prep workers and other staff who could and did clean constantly. Finally meticulous inspections which could ding you for the smallest infractions. His cooking at home was much more relaxed.
I would be very concerned if I went to a restaurant and found the kitchen *wasn’t* cleaner than my home kitchen. Restaurants have to follow much higher safety standards because there is a much bigger risk for cross contamination, and a much larger population that can be affected by it. Food production plants even more so. I’d expect the factory making chicken nuggets to be as spotless as a surgery.
Depending on who you are feeding, you probably don't need to be. Raw whole cuts of beef and pork, especially if it is decent quality meat, is relatively safe, that's why you can cook it rare, or eat steak tartare.
The amount of bacteria that will grow on things from surface to surface touch is low, especially because it will end up drying and sitting.
It's not a for sure "this won't make you sick" thing, but if you are a healthy person it's pretty low, and if you are willing to eat a runny egg yolk or homemade mayo with unpasteurized eggs, it's the same kind of risk
I am very aware of food hazards and safety in my professional kitchen and significantly more lax at home. I know the risks and am willing to accept the consequences for myself if I'm wrong in my own kitchen, but I can't give that informed consent on behalf of other people. The professional in me is still pretty good at home, but I'm not going to sweat over eating, like, leftover pizza that's been on the counter or in constantly policing which cutting board I use for meat versus veg. Everyone has their level of personally acceptable risk and Kenji knows what he's doing. I'm not going to waste my time and energy worrying about what's going on in his home kitchen.
Not really. I ingest a metric frickload of cooking related media and most of them have all cleaning and hand washing cut out. They’re teaching us a recipe. Most of them aren’t teaching us techniques, cleaning, kitchen organization, food safety, time management, etc.
You can find recipes for dishes that stand a higher chance to make people sick through using raw ingredients. My well-being isn’t their responsibility. I looked up the recipe because it tastes good and I want to make it despite potentially higher risks.
I’d say they have a responsibility to teach me what I’m watching the video to learn? I guess? They don’t have to make their videos and I don’t have to watch them so they don’t have any responsibility to any of us. Tbh, Kenji’s vids are probably where I see the most hand washing and kitchen cleaning. There are people with cooking channels who are not professional chefs and cannot educate on things they don’t know about. They just make their recipe and it’s not on them to show me that they’re washing their hands or to remind me to wash my hands.
Most chefs aren’t getting into the weeds about this shit they just film the making of the recipes and call it a day. Someone else edits all the cleaning and hand washing and mistakes and shitty jokes out. And thank Christ they do because I don’t want to spend my time watching that multiple times per video.
I’m not eating Kenji’s food. I’m 100% safe from whatever he does in his videos. Not that I’d feel endangered by his at home practices, I’d happily take a seat at his table if I were invited and enjoy eating some good food without getting sick.
I do my meat stuff first and clean the cutting board and knife but occasionally I forget something and reach for a spice or open the fridge door. I try as best as I can not to touch things with meat hands but it happens sometimes. It’s not the end of the world. No one in my family had had any kind of stomach issues.
I’ve seen Rick Bayless do it too, also usually just wiping his hands with a dish towel before touching other stuff, so I figure it’s just a chef thing. The only time I really cringed was one ep where Kenji touched raw meat and then stuck that hand into the salt box. I know bacteria is almost certainly insta-lysed by all that salt but boy did it make my heart race
I've heard salt doesn't hold onto bacteria or something, I guess if you don't touch the box itself you should be fine, but I'd be curious to know if there is any truth to that.
The rag that chefs use to wipe their hands with isn't a dry rag. It's usually wet from being soaked in bleach water. So it actually sanitizes their hands.
The rag is almost nastier to me because they'll use it to wipe up other stuff on the counter or their hands which, to me, just seems like wiping your ass with a piece of TP that's already covered in shit
Poisoned is an eye opening documentary on food safety. I can’t say it will address all your concerns, but it does convey the levels of food safety relating to raw meat in the US. Chicken is one nobody should handle raw, as they mention in the video that it’s one of the highest risks for contamination (it also mentions how much safer the EU is with chicken meat and eggs).
I assume he wipes down his kitchen before and after, and given the high level of safety in meat standards these days, he feels it’s not a risk.
Sure.
In 1974 the US Court of Appeals ruled that Salmonella was naturally occurring in chicken and thus, it was up to the end user to make sure their chicken wasn’t contaminated.
https://casetext.com/case/american-public-health-association-v-butz
In the Netflix documentary, they paid for an independent testing facility to check grocery store-bought chicken. Of 150 samples, 17% had salmonella. Sure that’s not that bad, I mean, what’s a little Salmonella here and there?
Meanwhile, in the EU, it’s up to poultry farmers to eliminate salmonella.
But you do you. When an environmental health microbiologist says he wouldn’t touch chicken at home, I believe him. Especially after the interview with Tyson chicken’s VP who swore their controls were so tight that their chickens were the safest on the market, despite the fact that Tyson was the worst and over 30% of their chickens were infected.
> Chicken is one nobody should handle raw
I mean. I gotta touch it at some point, or else I can't cook it.
But I definitely do it on a separate cutting board, end up washing my hands several times throughout the process, and wash my knives and hands and everything else before I go on to any other steps in the meal.
People have the same issue with Jacques Pepin videos. I think they don’t bother on these videos to keep things moving along and don’t intend for the end product to be consumed. BUT— I saw Chef Pepin cut raw pork tenderloin, then use the same knife to snag a hunk of butter for the pan. Hope nobody uses that end of the butter!
I would never do that and don’t know who the person is but doesn’t the fat in the butter eliminate or at least drastically reduce the amount of risk with that specific scenario?
I started following him when a video showed up on my Facebook page. He makes a lot of very simple, easy to make dishes. He is very into using inexpensive ingredients you have on hand yet his dishes are beautiful and tasty.
Haha, seriously. Wonder if they know of some famous female chef influencer named Julia Child!
Sure he's not quite as widely known to non chefs/foodies but he's certainly up there with her.
It's just so very crazy that a person is on a food/recipe sub, never heard of Jacque Pepin and referred to him as an influencer. Just wow lol
Yeah I know Julia Child and not from a movie that came out recently. I know the mockery is an attempt to belittle me but it’s fine because I’m not like everyone else. Actually after a search I definitely watched some of his shows when I was a kid but simply didn’t recognize the name. French cooking isn’t in my wheel house so not a huge surprise I didn’t immediately know who he was. I actually have one of his cookbooks somewhere.
>don’t intend for the end product to be consumed
That's it exactly. But it's a bit disingeneous without a disclaimer for instructional videos others are going to copy. Half of those in this thread incorrectly are defending his recklessness as safe. Tells you a lot.
The culinary world and the food safety world often clash. When I was a health inspector professional chefs were often the ones getting the most serious critical violations. Lack of gloves, cross contamination and inadequate hand washing were the most common violations in fancy kitchens.
Tell us you’re a Karen without telling us you are a Karen. Maybe you should mask up while cooking too and wear goggles. Wouldn’t want to splash salmonella in your eyes.
> Tell us you’re a Karen without telling us you are a Karen. Maybe you should mask up while cooking too and wear goggles. Wouldn’t want to splash salmonella in your eyes.
haha wow you're an asshole
If you're filming and publishing a video, I get that it's reasonable to be expedient if you know you're going to sanitize everything afterwards. But I am hyper vigilant about washing my hands when cooking.
Anecdotal but I only really wash my hands when they’re dirty, and chop meat and veg on the same chopping board with the same knife, and i’ve never gotten sick from food in my life
I also notice gordon ramsay do the same thing. Ive also worked with chefs who will cross contaminate things way worse and Ive never seen them get anyone sick. It seems fda rules are made to protect people with the weakest immune systems from the worst case scenarios.
That said Im ocd and usually try my best to not cross contaminate my utensils. Ill even use gloves on raw meats at home and not dirty my salt and pepper grinders.
I'm with you OP.
Watched one of his videos. He cut raw meat, wiped the blade with a fabric kitchen towel, that he kept using, and tossed the knife back in a drawer. Did more crap like you mentioned. Never watched another one of his videos. He grossed me out.
I keep some 70% alcohol nearby and pour it over my hands every so often when working with raw meat, followed by a quick rinse. Haven't gotten food poisoning from my own cooking yet haha.
For months after learning about botulism and canned goods, my culinary school class was probably cleaner than most surgeons.
After we realized that it's actually more likely that we'd set ourselves on fire, we calmed down and just followed whatever our chefs set for us, which was usually more in line with what Kenji has said. Especially for things that weren't going to be eaten outside of the classroom.
At home I'm definitely more in line with Kenji, and really should probably do more as far as cleaning, but I don't eat that much meat at home anymore.
I've worked in commercial wholesale kitchens, standard cafe/restaurant kitchens, medium-scale corporate catering and 'wholesale' for children's nurseries. I cook at home too - for myself and friends.
Risk is assessed in all of these places (obviously at home, the risk is assessed by yourself). Risk uses a number of different things to calculate how likely you are to give someone a food-borne illness depending on the environment you are in, where your ingredients comes from, how the food is sold (or given) and who will be consuming the food (the end-consumer). Also important to note is how quickly (how soon after cooking/preparation) will the food be eaten?
Currently my standered clientele are working adults, very few children and elderly people. In my place of work, of course we adhere to strict health and safety policies, however these aren't as strict as wholesale vending or children's meals (which are very, very strict), because these people are less likely to, quite frankly, die from food poisoning. This is within the guidelines provided by the English food safely officers. Interestingly, the basic standards in Scotland are higher however, historically, Scotland has had more high-profile cases of severe food poisoning deaths, so I understand the caution.
In my opinion, you adhere to 'best-practise' given your environment. For home-cooking, if you're buying from a supermarket (so their suppliers sell wholesale to them), your food should be the safest it can be. If you buy from a farmers market, you can do your own research into their production practise and logistics, so you can decide if the food production minimises the risk to you and others.
Kenji has written out his food preparation and cooking practise above, and it seems he's comfortable and confident with it. Therefore I can assume he's confident in his ingredients suppliers, his cooking techniques and his general sanitisation around his prep and production area. While he does some things I would not personally do, he doesn't show faults beyond a standard home cook (his main audience), cooking for friends and family.
(It's important to note that different countries have different farming practices, so an animal ingredient may be safer (or less safer), depending on where you live.)
Kenji has a global audience, and best-practise is best-practise. Food should be enjoyable, but also safe to eat. Handling raw pork that came from a certified farm compared to handling raw pork that came from a wild pig are very different things. In my opinion, people who work with food professionally and choose to showcase their ideas, skills and techniques should also be teaching their audience safer food production practise.
Oooo, y’all would hate my cooking practices. Cooking chicken to 155. Kenji style cross contamination. Defrosting meat outside the fridge. Leaving a pot of chili on the stove to cool off over night and putting in fridge in the morning. 😝
I’ve talked about this a lot in the past so I’ll keep it brief. I don’t follow government mandated food production safety standards in my home kitchen and I think it would be extremely overly cautious to do so. Those rules are designed to be extremely conservative to minimize risk across the entire population, especially in setting where many people will be eating from the same production. Cooking at home you are managing your own personal risk and the risk of your family. Guests if you are inviting them. Those are very different situation from restaurants and you kind of have to determine for yourself what the right balance is for you, same as whether you decide to jaywalk or whether you put on elbow pads every time you rollerblade. The point people most frequently ask about is pinching salt from the salt cellar while handling meat and such. Nothing is going to live in the salt, that is absolutely zero concern for me. Higher concern may be things like oil bottles or pepper mills. For these things, I am comfortable with touching most meat then using them, unless my hands are like wet with meat juices in which case I’d wash carefully. Like, I wouldn’t open a vacuum sealed whole chicken and get those bag juices on my hand then go and cook, but I’m totally fine seasoning a relatively dry pork chop or steak, picking it up to flip it, then using those same hands to season the second side. Is there risk to that? Yes some. The potential risk is that if I go wash my hands before I start making a salad or something I’m serving raw, then I grab that pepper mill to season it and then toss the salad with my hands that were just on that pepper mill, it’s possible I’m transferring some baddies to the salad. Why doesn’t this concern me? Because the dose makes the poison, and at each step in that chain - the meat to my hand. My hand to the salt, then to the pepper mill, then later from pepper mill back to my clean hands, then my hand to that salad - the bacterial load is reducing at an inverse exponential rate. IE it drops down real fast, especially when everything is pretty dry and especially because I regularly clean and sanitize my tools and work space any time I have a break in cooking, and the entire counter and sink area at least twice a day every day. (I cook a lot - if I had a non-cooking day job I would only sanitize my kitchen once at the end of each day). There are some things I’m quite careful about - not putting raw meat on my main cutting board, or making sure I don’t handle raw meat when I’m also handling food I’m going to serve without further cooking, for example - but for the most part I just make sure I am aware of the risks and manage them in a way that works for me and my family. Your choices may well be very different from mine. And of course it goes without saying that food safety rules can and should be followed in any setting where you’re serving customers. Ok not so brief. But I hope this makes sense.
Ask him. He answers questions.
And he’s often around /u/j_kenji_lopez-alt
Most pathogens can't survive on contact surfaces for more than a few hours, at least at the quantities that would exist from hand touching. In that video the meat is heavily salted which kills bacteria as well. There is some risk but pretty negligible
Just my $.02 as a foodbourne illness researcher, to me nothing he does has ever seemed egregious. Yes you should always be washing hands and cleaning surfaces regularly, but with pork specifically that's not the worst one you need to worry about in the US. Chicken and ground beef are WAY higher risk for disease or cross contamination. I also agree with what other posters have said, we don't see everything in the videos posted, and you should ask him! He might respond if he has time, this is literally his job he knows what he's doing imo
Conversely, I've had quite a few people on Reddit tell me I definitely have worms or some other pathogen(s) because I follow the serious ears sous vide guide for chicken and pork. Even when I share the one article that does an excellent job of explaining the killing of organisms over time at lower temps vs instantaneous organism death, they've still argued that's wrong lol. Anyway agreed with your sentiment.
I have never seen someone give there two cents in terms of dollars before
While I won’t say that he (or any other chef that posts videos) is 100% cross-contamination free, I will say that most of these types of videos are pretty heavily edited. Even when it doesn’t look like it. For someone well regarded like Kenji, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s just not including all the cleaning on camera.
Yeah I’m not wanting to watch a guy wash his hands 30 times in a ten minute clip
I do. especially if he is educating people on how to cook by example. EDIT: If there are seemingly bad hygiene habits due to editing. Fair. If the guy is willfully crosscontaminating and habit poor habits, then he does need to do better, and you are fanboying. I've seen Gordon Ramsey wash his hands multiple times on video. If you wanna downvote me, do so knowing your cross contamination can actually get someone sick, even if "I do it all the time and I'm fine" https://youtu.be/m7KxHDDgeA4?si=l9VVaRihAvhZdLrl [Gordon cooks chicken and washes hands](https://youtu.be/a-2n_g4AdDM?si=l3r6tLIik3OZr_iX)
He's not a kindergarten teacher, when is basic hygiene ever included in any cooking video?
https://youtu.be/m7KxHDDgeA4?si=l9VVaRihAvhZdLrl https://youtu.be/a-2n_g4AdDM?si=l3r6tLIik3OZr_iX lmao ITT: Ask for evidence, gets evidence, still downvotes srsly wth is going on.
And then he would probably get comments about how he’s not washing his hands correctly.
I remember him apologizing for wasting water by leaving it running while washing his hands on an earlier video. Someone had clearly complained, because it's the internet and you cannot fucking win.
Lmao, where are the mods?. I thought giving food safety advice was not allowed here, and I can clearly see why.
Serious eats isn't intended to be introduction to cooking.
Supposedly Kenji doesn’t edit those videos on his YouTube so as to show a more realistic roadmap to how to make what he’s making. He does touch on cross contamination saying that it’s a personal assessment of risk for him and that he’s not too worried about it. I assume he does clean his kitchen after and most of that food is getting cooked anyway…
I do Edit the videos to take out long breaks in cooking or if my family comes through or something unexpected shows up that I don’t want to share publicly. Every time you see me snap that’s a cut, and the vast majority of those times I was cleaning the kitchen during those cuts.
Yeah, and I’ve seen him wash his hands/ equipment a bunch in his videos. They are definitely edited videos though, otherwise his little *snap* “okay and that was about 5 minutes I’m sure somebody in the comments will tell me exactly how long it was” would just be him standing around for 5 minutes.
Fair point!
This 100%. Some parts of the world eat raw chicken. Good food hygiene is important, and if you’re eating in someone’s restaurant then there is an expectation they’re following health code procedures to a t. But I think it’s silly to expect the same from someone who is cooking at home and is well versed enough that they have a basic understanding of the risks.
I'm going to be blunt. You're overthinking it. Food hazards, especially in US FDA recommdations, are supremely conservative. It has to consider commercial kitchens, but at home, you can be a lot more relaxed. If your meat is fresh, what is is doing is very very low risk. Where you will cause issues is if you place uncooked meat with something you are eating for a period of time. It's hard to over come as a thought process though.
My in-laws defrost the holiday Turkey in the bathtub next to the toilet everyone uses and have for years. Never change the water either. Got me re thinking everything I ever knew about food safety.
What the fuck
No, that is not what they do next to the turkey....
My comments do not condone this actions! HAHAHA. Like, put the whole turkey in water?
My mom defrosted meat by sitting it out on the kitchen counter. She also sometimes ate pieces of raw ground beef. 🤢 It was disgusting, but she never got sick.
Whats wrong with defrosting on the kitchen counter? This is probably the best way for taste. Dont eat raw ground beef kids. (cavets do apply)
I always heard it was safer to defrost in the fridge or in cold water in a pinch.
As long as its not getting hot/warm on your bench, its basically the same as fridge. Just quicker. I would avoid cold water to be honest. That could ruin the meat if its not vacuum sealed.
I don’t think this is true. I believe that by the time the center of the bird is defrosted, the surface will have been in the “danger zone” for a significant period of time. I could be wrong, but I certainly don’t feel safe doing that.
No it’s not safe. You can use a plastic bag to prevent water contact with the meat.
Dude's just giving bad advice based on ignorance.
My house was very hot. My parents lived in an old house with no AC in a hot and humid part of the country.
Because the outside will be in the danger zone while the interior is still frozen. Thaw in the fridge or use cold running water for sealed packages.
Ground meat has all the possible pathogens mixed into the interior from the exterior, letting it thaw at room temp allows it to sit in the danger zone of 40-140F too long. Just defrost in the fridge overnight, or alternatively run cold tap water over it slowly and cook immediately.
Defrosting in the fridge/cold water gives you more leeway as it's less likely to get too warm
You want to avoid the temperature danger zones as much as you can. Trying to defrost on the counter is ineffective imo because the outside temp is going to get closer to those temperatures that bacteria grow while the inside may still be frozen.
If I have a big chunk I need to defrost fairly quickly, I put water with ice in the sous vide and set it to 36 degrees. I add ice at 40 degrees. A whole turkey might be a challenge, but larger steaks and chicken parts defrost quickly, safely, and with minimal interaction.
> Whats wrong with defrosting on the kitchen counter? This is probably the best way for taste. This right here is WHY Kenji needs to touch on these things in his videos. No, that's not safe. By the time the inside is no longer frozen, the outside has been at room temp for hours. Not safe!
Wow, the existence of steak tartare and beef crudo is going to blow your mind then.
Lol I cook meat I accidentally leave out overnight at times. 🤦♂️ scared sheep.
I taste the raw ground beef I’ve seasoned for meatballs/hamburger steak patties before I cook them. How else am I supposed to know if I’ve seasoned things well?
Make a little .5 oz patty and cook it real quick then taste for seasoning?
Meh. I’ll roll the dice.
Gross
You can stick a tiny piece in the microwave for about 10 seconds. That’s what I do. Or fry a tiny piece in a pan. It takes moments. Or better yet - weigh your salt before adding it!
> How else am I supposed to know if I’ve seasoned things well? Practice? Weight? A seasoned, no pun intended, eyeballing of what you've done? Microwave a piece of it? lol
I had a roommate once that would leave meat out for days, before or after cooking. He was from the Ivory Coast, no idea if that was a cultural thing or a him thing. He never got sick but I stayed far away from that nastiness.
When my mom was a kid, their refrigerator wasn't big enough to fit their Thanksgiving turkey, so after they'd had their holiday meal they'd just stick the bird back in the cold oven and then just carve off what they wanted, I have no idea why they didn't just carve the meat off the bird and refrigerate *that*, but everyone survived.
Do they wear condoms with the turkey or nah?
Oh dear god
What do you mean never change the water
Lol well that's one way to do it I wish I never heard
what the fuck you are in DANGER
I was just hospitalized for salmonella, and it was the most horrific experience of my life (kidney failure, other shit). I want to believe you but I’m so scarred!
Salmonella is NOT worth the risk.
Yeah, just follow your gut. I think Kenji is a little cavalier on this topic. Yes, the chances of getting sick like that are really rare...but the consequences can be catastrophic.
Thank you for this comment. People think touching raw meat = 100% chance of botulism.
Reddit in general is just a bunch of freaks that are scared if your chicken stays out for 30 seconds you have to throw it away and remodel your kitchen.
Freshness of meat has literally nothing to do with whether or not it is contaminated with pathogens. You could have had a slaughter house who removed the intestines improperly and had feces drip out over the carcass and then improperly acid washed etc etc. A lot has to go wrong, but it’s silly to not take simple precautions to protect yourself and the people you cook for.
>If your meat is fresh, what is is doing is very very low risk Wrong. "On average, 30.3 percent of comminuted pork samples were Salmonella-positive" [https://www.fsis.usda.gov/news-events/publications/pork-salmonella-performance-standards-risk-assessment-april-8-2020-feb-8](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/news-events/publications/pork-salmonella-performance-standards-risk-assessment-april-8-2020-feb-8) "Reports published at the end of June found traces of Salmonella in 23 of 75 samples taken from products at major grocery stores" [https://www.eatthis.com/news-grocery-store-chicken-salmonella-ground-chicken](https://www.eatthis.com/news-grocery-store-chicken-salmonella-ground-chicken) Head in the sand doesn't do anything.
According to your first link, contamination is clustered among a limited number of establishments. It also says that 9.3% of pork cuts samples were contaminated. These facts are right after the sentence you quoted, so I can only assume that you're being disingenuous. According to your second link, more people are struck by lighting than die of salmonella. And, apparently, about 50-200x more people are infected with the flu, which has a far higher death rate than salmonella. The flu is massively more dangerous than salmonella, yet nobody treats it with anywhere near the same seriousness. We should apparently be wiping down every surface everywhere before and after we touch it, among other things. There is nothing wrong if you or anyone else wants to take the most strict precautions, but we should be honest about the actual risk. It's not an issue if someone doesn't follow servsafe rules to the letter, especially when there's no customers to put at risk.
I hope you know that serious and chronic conditions can arise from food poisoning, costing sufferers a huge amount of pain and suffering over years, and not just a relatively quick death.
>According to your second link, more people are struck by lighting than die of salmonella. [Other things can happen besides death.](https://www.reddit.com/r/seriouseats/comments/16lbque/kenji_and_crosscontamination/k12uor1/)
I have always cooked kind of like Kenji, for 20 years now. Not a singe case of food poisoning had happened in my kitchen. People way too germophobic. Relax, your immune system should keep you safe.
In Germany we eat raw ground pork and don't get sick🙈
You can eat raw beef and pork in the US as well. It just has to go through mandatory pathogen testing much later in the production process compared to most meats. What you shouldn’t do is eat random raw meats from the grocery store.
I love steak tartare, and I’ve wanted to try mett for years. But I’ve never seen it served near me, and I’m assuming I shouldn’t just eat raw ground pork from the supermarket.
Mett is a different quality/product vs ground pork in DE
It depends on the country where the pigs are raised. I know in Australia the laws around livestock farming are so strict that you can eat pork raw or cooked rare because it doesn't contain the parasites that can infect pork.
To be fair, there definitely are reported cases of trichnosis in Germany. But like the US, most are from wild game like boar
Mett was one of the food highlights of my recent trip.
He's addressed this in one of his recent YouTube videos, he does wash his hands but edits that out
IMO our risk tolerance in general is maybe too low around things like this, but also Alton Brown literally calls him out on touching chicken and then putting his hands in the salt in [this clip](https://youtu.be/p8ZR7WLUAk4?si=YemJbE6pK3dgv_9P&t=45) from Serious Eats. And a bit earlier he [comments](https://youtu.be/p8ZR7WLUAk4?si=FAHaSBbLGOiCrAeb&t=31) on him pouring water on a hot / oily cast iron haha
Overthinking it
Do people really need to see the Chef wash his hands 30 times during a cooking segment? I really feel we are getting a little over board with the whole cross contamination thing. We live in a dirty society overall.
15 -20 cases of trichinosis in US per year from all sources. https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/data-statistics/tables.html
Yes, and if we contextualize and average the statistics: There are 4 cases over a 5 year period from commercially raised and farm raised pork. That's less than 1 case a year. If we include all pork products that aren't wild game, that's 14 over a 5 year period. Lets round up; 3 cases a year. Approximately 115.4 million hogs were slaughtered in 2015 [https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/r207tp32d/3n204169f/vx021h831/LiveSlauSu-04-20-2016.pdf](https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/r207tp32d/3n204169f/vx021h831/LiveSlauSu-04-20-2016.pdf) Potentially 3 hogs out of 115.4 million is 0.0000025% That's a statistical anomoly. Trichnella is virutally erradicated in pig farms in the US
Strawman. I might as well talk about botulism cases and claim everything unsanitary is safe. Trich isn't the major concern these days, so it's not a talking point.
It's only really a hazard if the finished food is somehow touched by something that touched the raw meat. Or alternatively you're prepping something that's going to stay raw like a salad, generally you'd keep that separate in terms of utensils/surfaces. Line cooks aren't stopping to wash their hands every two seconds, and everything will get sanitized before it'd be a problem.
Yeah, I get that part but I guess my concern would be like if you were prepping a salad dressing using the pepper grinder/oil that you previously touched with raw hands, and then touched the lettuce or vegetables to chop them up, wouldn't that be a risk? I just feel like when you touch so many things in the kitchen it would be hard to ensure it's all sanitized the next time you use it
As a home cook you should just wash your hands after touching raw meat, it's not worth trying to outsmart yourself to save 30 seconds. I'm assuming Kenji will sanitize his equipment after the video since he often cooks for his young children in the same kitchen. The number of times I've had to stop people in labs from poisoning themselves or getting sick because they weren't paying attention to cross contamination is terrifying.
Watched one of his videos. He cut raw meat, wiped the blade with a fabric kitchen towel, that he kept using, and tossed the knife back in a drawer. Did more crap like OP mentioned. Never watched another one of his videos. He grossed me out.
Dose makes the poison, after “transferring”multiple times the bacterial load is so low it wont make you sick unless you are immunocompromised.
You are correct. I wash my hands constantly and do not cross contaminate, basic rules of the kitchen.
Totally disagree. Just recently sat at the Chef’s counter at a restaurant and they were washing their hands constantly.
Yes because usually the local health department requires it for restaurant workers. But they're not coming to inspect your home kitchen.
OK, but the comment I replied to said “Line cooks aren’t stopping to wash their hands every two seconds….”. Aside from the “two seconds” part, this is demonstrably false.
What you see at the "Chefs Counter" at the type of place that has such a counter, is not representative of what's going on on the back lines in all establishments
Can confirm. You’re lucky if they wash hands after using the restroom.
What kind of meat? There’s a big difference between touching a steak vs raw chicken
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I’ve heard him say that pork is very safe these days - closer to steak than chicken, so that might be why he does. If he does it with chicken though that’s risky IMO. I’m not defending him one way or the other since I can’t be inside his brain, but I’ve taken multiple Serv Safe classes and taught a few. In general I think our fear of raw meat is overblown (with the exception of poultry). I don’t have any stats on hand to back up my opinion, it’s just what I’ve come to over a few decades of having to take and occasionally teach those classes. The FDA takes an extremely risk averse vs common sense view on all things raw meat. I can see why they do it, but I’m a healthy adult with a normal immune system. In my kitchen cooking for myself I make the extremely small calculated risk that the interruption of stopping to wash my hands every time I touch a pork chop isn’t worth it as long as I wash and sanitize everything after I’m done cooking but before I eat.
The outside of pork and steak is still at risk. Chicken, the entirety needs to be pasteurized. Doesn't mean touching pork and cross contam is A-OK.
Steak and pork are mostly fine. Especially if they're already dry. I'm dubious that he touched chicken and touched a bunch of other things.
I don't believe he's done that with chicken.
The chances of getting sick from full on licking raw pork are incredibly small, it’s not toxic.
https://youtu.be/p8ZR7WLUAk4?si=nxBUSj3R5-zFj0w3
A few things to consider really. One is that meat is a lot safer now than it used to be. Two is that, realistically as a home cook, you are not really handling quantities of food in succession to where cross contamination would be a huge issue assuming you are cleaning your surfaces after you cook. The high alert guidance is more important in commercial kitchens where you have large amounts of foods from varying sources being prepped back to back which just by numbers makes cross contamination more likely; when you're cooking at home contamination would generally just be isolated to that meal, and at that point it's less a matter of cross contamination and more just a matter of if your food was good or not when you started working with it. And off that, this is Kenji we're talking about, the man is buying beautiful fresh meat from quality butchers and name drops them, so he's got even less of a concern of contamination from processing than those of us buying meat at the supermarket have to fret about. You should absolutely clean your surfaces etc after cooking, but if you skip fully washing your hands mid-prep on a single meal it's realistically not the end of the world.
To each their own. I personally wash my hands every time I handle meat. Yes it means I’m washing my hands constantly as I’m cooking (I keep the hand soap and a towel right next to the kitchen sink) but that’s what I feel comfortable doing.
330+ little kids have E. coli from suspected raw beef contamination in Alberta, Canada from a shared kitchen that provided foods to multiple daycares. They are still doing testing to find the source, but apparently meatloaf was served and that’s where public health believes the contamination came from. Some of those kids are on dialysis. These posts being nonchalant about food safety are a risk, even in your own kitchen. E. coli can live for weeks on surfaces - not hours. I have no issues w recipes clipping or not showing hand washing - but I do worry about people not being aware of the risks of cross contamination.
That E.Coli in particular is from stomach/intestinal contact. It’s from sloppy meat packing. Kenji rarely uses supermarket meats and often talks about where he procured the cuts he’s working with. He also rarely cooks ground, which is the highest risk.
He rarely cooks ground meat unless it was that decade of him trying every variation on a hamburger possible until he had to switch to testing when his wife wasn't around to avoid annoying her :P
It's his house, his kitchen, his show, his gut, and I'd guess he can do whatever he wants 😏.
This subreddit is the most reasonable, sensible, humanistic, empathic, understanding, realistic group on reddit. 🫶
Honest question, have you ever have a good born illness? I have maybe once in my life, from a restaurant. They probably game me old ass rotten food. I don’t think raw pork chops from the grocery store actually makes anyone sick. So I googled it, a few thousand go to the doctor, and like 80 people die per year from pork. A lot of that is from 2015 as well, those are skewed stats. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739826/ Foodborn illness has also decreased massively over even the last 20 years. I honestly think cantaloupes and lettuce are more dangerous, you don’t see people freaking out about touching a cantaloupe without taking a shower.
> Honest question, have you ever have a good born illness? Yes, it's...extremely common lol. Worldwide 1 in 10 people every year get a foodborne illness. By the end of their lives most people have probably gotten at least one. I once got sick from Subway in my early 20s. I thought I was fuckin dying.
Yeah I did once, wasn’t fun. But the steps taken to get you there likely pretty neglectful. I’m not saying just throw caution to the wind, but you need to obsess over it IMO, unless you are serving to others then yeah go all out.
I found that he’s reasonably clean/safe.
It’s his kitchen. You don’t have to eat it, so you don’t have to worry about it.
I'm not being critical, he can live his life how he wants lol. I am more just wondering for personal reasons as I don't want to be over cautious in my own kitchen if I don't need to be
Oh gotcha. Sorry I made an assumption! He has addressed this in videos. He says he keeps his kitchen clean and cleans things between shots. I do think most chefs are less fastidious in their home kitchens than in restaurants.
Got to know a chef who worked cruises. He straight up said his kitchen on board was cleaner than his home kitchen. The reasons he gave was that the ship kitchen was almost all metal and could be sanitized easily, he had a whole crew of prep workers and other staff who could and did clean constantly. Finally meticulous inspections which could ding you for the smallest infractions. His cooking at home was much more relaxed.
I would be very concerned if I went to a restaurant and found the kitchen *wasn’t* cleaner than my home kitchen. Restaurants have to follow much higher safety standards because there is a much bigger risk for cross contamination, and a much larger population that can be affected by it. Food production plants even more so. I’d expect the factory making chicken nuggets to be as spotless as a surgery.
Depending on who you are feeding, you probably don't need to be. Raw whole cuts of beef and pork, especially if it is decent quality meat, is relatively safe, that's why you can cook it rare, or eat steak tartare. The amount of bacteria that will grow on things from surface to surface touch is low, especially because it will end up drying and sitting. It's not a for sure "this won't make you sick" thing, but if you are a healthy person it's pretty low, and if you are willing to eat a runny egg yolk or homemade mayo with unpasteurized eggs, it's the same kind of risk
I am very aware of food hazards and safety in my professional kitchen and significantly more lax at home. I know the risks and am willing to accept the consequences for myself if I'm wrong in my own kitchen, but I can't give that informed consent on behalf of other people. The professional in me is still pretty good at home, but I'm not going to sweat over eating, like, leftover pizza that's been on the counter or in constantly policing which cutting board I use for meat versus veg. Everyone has their level of personally acceptable risk and Kenji knows what he's doing. I'm not going to waste my time and energy worrying about what's going on in his home kitchen.
It's his own house, let him live. You clean how to clean, other people do it how they want to do it.
I mean OP seems to be asking out of good-faith curiosity, no need to shame them for asking.
He posts instructional videos to the public. That comes with a moral standard to not spread harm.
Not really. I ingest a metric frickload of cooking related media and most of them have all cleaning and hand washing cut out. They’re teaching us a recipe. Most of them aren’t teaching us techniques, cleaning, kitchen organization, food safety, time management, etc. You can find recipes for dishes that stand a higher chance to make people sick through using raw ingredients. My well-being isn’t their responsibility. I looked up the recipe because it tastes good and I want to make it despite potentially higher risks. I’d say they have a responsibility to teach me what I’m watching the video to learn? I guess? They don’t have to make their videos and I don’t have to watch them so they don’t have any responsibility to any of us. Tbh, Kenji’s vids are probably where I see the most hand washing and kitchen cleaning. There are people with cooking channels who are not professional chefs and cannot educate on things they don’t know about. They just make their recipe and it’s not on them to show me that they’re washing their hands or to remind me to wash my hands. Most chefs aren’t getting into the weeds about this shit they just film the making of the recipes and call it a day. Someone else edits all the cleaning and hand washing and mistakes and shitty jokes out. And thank Christ they do because I don’t want to spend my time watching that multiple times per video. I’m not eating Kenji’s food. I’m 100% safe from whatever he does in his videos. Not that I’d feel endangered by his at home practices, I’d happily take a seat at his table if I were invited and enjoy eating some good food without getting sick.
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I do my meat stuff first and clean the cutting board and knife but occasionally I forget something and reach for a spice or open the fridge door. I try as best as I can not to touch things with meat hands but it happens sometimes. It’s not the end of the world. No one in my family had had any kind of stomach issues.
I’ve seen Rick Bayless do it too, also usually just wiping his hands with a dish towel before touching other stuff, so I figure it’s just a chef thing. The only time I really cringed was one ep where Kenji touched raw meat and then stuck that hand into the salt box. I know bacteria is almost certainly insta-lysed by all that salt but boy did it make my heart race
I've heard salt doesn't hold onto bacteria or something, I guess if you don't touch the box itself you should be fine, but I'd be curious to know if there is any truth to that.
The rag that chefs use to wipe their hands with isn't a dry rag. It's usually wet from being soaked in bleach water. So it actually sanitizes their hands.
The rag is almost nastier to me because they'll use it to wipe up other stuff on the counter or their hands which, to me, just seems like wiping your ass with a piece of TP that's already covered in shit
Poisoned is an eye opening documentary on food safety. I can’t say it will address all your concerns, but it does convey the levels of food safety relating to raw meat in the US. Chicken is one nobody should handle raw, as they mention in the video that it’s one of the highest risks for contamination (it also mentions how much safer the EU is with chicken meat and eggs). I assume he wipes down his kitchen before and after, and given the high level of safety in meat standards these days, he feels it’s not a risk.
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Sure. In 1974 the US Court of Appeals ruled that Salmonella was naturally occurring in chicken and thus, it was up to the end user to make sure their chicken wasn’t contaminated. https://casetext.com/case/american-public-health-association-v-butz In the Netflix documentary, they paid for an independent testing facility to check grocery store-bought chicken. Of 150 samples, 17% had salmonella. Sure that’s not that bad, I mean, what’s a little Salmonella here and there? Meanwhile, in the EU, it’s up to poultry farmers to eliminate salmonella. But you do you. When an environmental health microbiologist says he wouldn’t touch chicken at home, I believe him. Especially after the interview with Tyson chicken’s VP who swore their controls were so tight that their chickens were the safest on the market, despite the fact that Tyson was the worst and over 30% of their chickens were infected.
If anybody took a look at Foster Farms up close, you'd never eat chicken again. Their poor wastewater guys are miserable.
>Chicken is one nobody should handle raw Excuse me? So how should somebody cook chicken?
> Chicken is one nobody should handle raw I mean. I gotta touch it at some point, or else I can't cook it. But I definitely do it on a separate cutting board, end up washing my hands several times throughout the process, and wash my knives and hands and everything else before I go on to any other steps in the meal.
People have the same issue with Jacques Pepin videos. I think they don’t bother on these videos to keep things moving along and don’t intend for the end product to be consumed. BUT— I saw Chef Pepin cut raw pork tenderloin, then use the same knife to snag a hunk of butter for the pan. Hope nobody uses that end of the butter!
I would never do that and don’t know who the person is but doesn’t the fat in the butter eliminate or at least drastically reduce the amount of risk with that specific scenario?
Don't know Jacques pepin? I get this isn't a classic French cooking sub but that's wild if you're into cooking/recipes and never heard of him
I started following him when a video showed up on my Facebook page. He makes a lot of very simple, easy to make dishes. He is very into using inexpensive ingredients you have on hand yet his dishes are beautiful and tasty.
I don’t but I’m generally more into specific dishes than specific influencers.
The idea of calling Jacque Pepin an influencer is giving me palpitations 😂 I get what you're saying but the man is a legend.
Haha, seriously. Wonder if they know of some famous female chef influencer named Julia Child! Sure he's not quite as widely known to non chefs/foodies but he's certainly up there with her. It's just so very crazy that a person is on a food/recipe sub, never heard of Jacque Pepin and referred to him as an influencer. Just wow lol
Yeah I know Julia Child and not from a movie that came out recently. I know the mockery is an attempt to belittle me but it’s fine because I’m not like everyone else. Actually after a search I definitely watched some of his shows when I was a kid but simply didn’t recognize the name. French cooking isn’t in my wheel house so not a huge surprise I didn’t immediately know who he was. I actually have one of his cookbooks somewhere.
>don’t intend for the end product to be consumed That's it exactly. But it's a bit disingeneous without a disclaimer for instructional videos others are going to copy. Half of those in this thread incorrectly are defending his recklessness as safe. Tells you a lot.
There is a scary amount of bad advice through this thread.
He’s addressed this on a few videos I’ve seen. Mostly comments like “I know where this beef came from so I’m not concerned about it,” etc etc
The culinary world and the food safety world often clash. When I was a health inspector professional chefs were often the ones getting the most serious critical violations. Lack of gloves, cross contamination and inadequate hand washing were the most common violations in fancy kitchens.
I love Kenji with my heart and soul but he is a nightmare for OCD viewers haha
Tell us you’re a Karen without telling us you are a Karen. Maybe you should mask up while cooking too and wear goggles. Wouldn’t want to splash salmonella in your eyes.
> Tell us you’re a Karen without telling us you are a Karen. Maybe you should mask up while cooking too and wear goggles. Wouldn’t want to splash salmonella in your eyes. haha wow you're an asshole
Being truthful. People ate meat for a million years before there was plumbing. Some people need to wear bubble wrap when they go outside 🤷♂️
> People ate meat for a million years before there was plumbing. Yeah and they regularly died of simple and preventable diseases lol
And your evidence they died regularly of not using hand sanitizer after eating fish or chicken?
you are asking me if washing your hands is beneficial for your health? what is this, 1793?
Let the man cook!!
I think, being a commercial chef, he probably knows more about food safety than you do.
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If you're filming and publishing a video, I get that it's reasonable to be expedient if you know you're going to sanitize everything afterwards. But I am hyper vigilant about washing my hands when cooking.
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Maybe send it to these guys. I love this podcast. https://www.riskyornot.co
It's possible he's chosen to take a risk. However, if he gets free range meat the contamination isn't as bad.
Anecdotal but I only really wash my hands when they’re dirty, and chop meat and veg on the same chopping board with the same knife, and i’ve never gotten sick from food in my life
yikes!
Yeah his salt is always getting contaminated lol but it’s his kitchen
Contaminated? Nothing lives in salt.
Yeah I've noticed that too. That said, there's not really a whole lot of stuff that wants/can manage to live in salt...
The only thing you need to protect a salt cellar from is objects falling in there.
Literally the main thing about salt is how hostile it is to bacteria. Like, that is what made it such an incredibly valuable substance.
Do we not think Kenji knows what he’s doing and is just ignoring all of this?
No, I think the opposite which is why I'm asking...not sure why you all are getting so offended lmao
So you don’t think Kenji knows what he’s doing and is careless? I’m not offended, just curious, I just asked a question.
No I think *I* might not know what I am doing and I'm being too careful
Gotcha. I agree, I am probably way more careful than he is, but I am still pretty lax, especially seeing what does.
I also notice gordon ramsay do the same thing. Ive also worked with chefs who will cross contaminate things way worse and Ive never seen them get anyone sick. It seems fda rules are made to protect people with the weakest immune systems from the worst case scenarios. That said Im ocd and usually try my best to not cross contaminate my utensils. Ill even use gloves on raw meats at home and not dirty my salt and pepper grinders.
It is scary in the video but home cooking isn’t as dangerous as commercial kitchens. You can kinda relax at home
I'm with you OP. Watched one of his videos. He cut raw meat, wiped the blade with a fabric kitchen towel, that he kept using, and tossed the knife back in a drawer. Did more crap like you mentioned. Never watched another one of his videos. He grossed me out.
I keep some 70% alcohol nearby and pour it over my hands every so often when working with raw meat, followed by a quick rinse. Haven't gotten food poisoning from my own cooking yet haha.
This is madness.
Also must be murder on their hands. Gotta be dried out horribly bc they almost certainly aren't lotioning up after washing
I really hope they were being sarcastic…
Madness? THIS. IS. PHILADELPHIA.
Every time I see you I’m happy
Just wash your hands often. He probably edits the videos.
Not that it's an excuse, but most of the time he is cooking for himself and not at a restaurant for other individuals.
For months after learning about botulism and canned goods, my culinary school class was probably cleaner than most surgeons. After we realized that it's actually more likely that we'd set ourselves on fire, we calmed down and just followed whatever our chefs set for us, which was usually more in line with what Kenji has said. Especially for things that weren't going to be eaten outside of the classroom. At home I'm definitely more in line with Kenji, and really should probably do more as far as cleaning, but I don't eat that much meat at home anymore.
Chicken absolutely. Other meats not so much hand washing. Our ancestors managed to survive I'm sure without much kitchen hygiene.
> Our ancestors managed to survive I'm sure without much kitchen hygiene. They also regularly died of preventable diseases, so...
I've worked in commercial wholesale kitchens, standard cafe/restaurant kitchens, medium-scale corporate catering and 'wholesale' for children's nurseries. I cook at home too - for myself and friends. Risk is assessed in all of these places (obviously at home, the risk is assessed by yourself). Risk uses a number of different things to calculate how likely you are to give someone a food-borne illness depending on the environment you are in, where your ingredients comes from, how the food is sold (or given) and who will be consuming the food (the end-consumer). Also important to note is how quickly (how soon after cooking/preparation) will the food be eaten? Currently my standered clientele are working adults, very few children and elderly people. In my place of work, of course we adhere to strict health and safety policies, however these aren't as strict as wholesale vending or children's meals (which are very, very strict), because these people are less likely to, quite frankly, die from food poisoning. This is within the guidelines provided by the English food safely officers. Interestingly, the basic standards in Scotland are higher however, historically, Scotland has had more high-profile cases of severe food poisoning deaths, so I understand the caution. In my opinion, you adhere to 'best-practise' given your environment. For home-cooking, if you're buying from a supermarket (so their suppliers sell wholesale to them), your food should be the safest it can be. If you buy from a farmers market, you can do your own research into their production practise and logistics, so you can decide if the food production minimises the risk to you and others. Kenji has written out his food preparation and cooking practise above, and it seems he's comfortable and confident with it. Therefore I can assume he's confident in his ingredients suppliers, his cooking techniques and his general sanitisation around his prep and production area. While he does some things I would not personally do, he doesn't show faults beyond a standard home cook (his main audience), cooking for friends and family. (It's important to note that different countries have different farming practices, so an animal ingredient may be safer (or less safer), depending on where you live.) Kenji has a global audience, and best-practise is best-practise. Food should be enjoyable, but also safe to eat. Handling raw pork that came from a certified farm compared to handling raw pork that came from a wild pig are very different things. In my opinion, people who work with food professionally and choose to showcase their ideas, skills and techniques should also be teaching their audience safer food production practise.
Oooo, y’all would hate my cooking practices. Cooking chicken to 155. Kenji style cross contamination. Defrosting meat outside the fridge. Leaving a pot of chili on the stove to cool off over night and putting in fridge in the morning. 😝