Sunday, July 06, 2008

Would you eat this?



Okay, so I'm not the "safest" person when it comes to food safety...I try my best, but apparently I have some of my Dad's bad habits when it comes to food preparation!

Anyways, tonight I marinated some chicken drumsticks for the BBQ. BEW cooked them and when he brought them back in, I told him they were not fully cooked yet but he insisted that they were. So this caused a bit of tension for us, but at the end, we came up with a good solution...he would eat his so called "cooked" chicken, and I would cook the ones I was eating for longer.

Take a look at this picture and tell me your thoughts...please note, this picture was taken AFTER BEW cooked it for an additional 5 minutes more once I said it wasn't cooked enough!




4 comments:

Mrs. Loquacious said...

Yes, and no, VCon. If you remember, sometimes Dad's white chicken would leak a bit of red "juice" when he cut it. In that case, it wasn't because it was raw, but just because of the way he cooked it or marinated it. If Dad cooked it, I would probably eat it.

That said, I likely wouldn't touch the meat in your pictures unless I BBQ'ed them for an additional 5 minutes. Bad habits or no, unless it is a fresh steak, we prefer not to see blood in our meat.

One way to prevent future potential food poisoning is to pierce your wings/drumsticks be4 you cook them (or halfway through cooking them) to allow the heat to sear into the core and cook the middle.

Any symptoms from BW or yourself today? ;)

tejanamama said...

ewwwwww :P glad you at least didn't eat them COMPLETELY raw!!! Looks like someone needs grilling lessons. Another reason dh never cooks out for us! City boys are bad grillers!!! Or at least mine is ;) LOL

Anonymous said...

In my defense, The Chicken looked exactly like that before I put it on a few more minutes. The piece shown was the worst case example of the pieces because there was a tiny bit of dried blood. No amount of cooking would of made it any less red. All the other pieces where fine in my mind.

The red juice isn't blood its just a mixture of remnant proteins in the meat mixed with water.

And I ate them without issue.

USDA says...

14. What color is safely cooked poultry?
Safely cooked poultry can vary in color from white to pink to tan. For safety when cooking poultry, use a food thermometer to check the internal temperature. Poultry should reach a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F throughout the product. For a whole chicken or turkey, check the internal temperature in the innermost part of the thigh and wing and the thickest part of the breast. All the meat-including any that remains pink—is safe to eat as soon as all parts reach at least 165 °F.

15. Why is some cooked poultry pink?
Chemical changes occur during cooking. Oven gases in a heated gas or electric oven react chemically with hemoglobin in the meat tissues to give it a pink tinge. Often meat of younger birds shows the most pink because their thinner skins permit oven gases to reach the flesh. Older animals have a fat layer under their skin, giving the flesh added protection from the gases. Older poultry may be pink in spots where fat is absent from the skin. Also, nitrates and nitrites, which are often used as preservatives or may occur naturally in the feed or water supply used, can cause a pink color.

Liquid in Package
Many people think the pink liquid in packaged fresh chicken is blood, but it is mostly water which was absorbed by the chicken during the chilling process. Blood is removed from poultry during slaughter and only a small amount remains in the muscle tissue. An improperly bled chicken would have cherry red skin and is condemned at the plant.

Justice~! said...

Couples debating about chicken on blogs == HILARIOUS!

Ben, I support you as a brother even if it means I would catch bird flu from eating one of these things! ;)