Cooking Chicken - a Few Simple Safety Guidelines

Over the past few years it seems the risks of Salmonella, in particular from consuming chicken, have been mentioned so much on TV that you would expect incidences of infection to have reduced significantly. Unhappily this is not what has happened. For regular chicken eaters, the dangers of getting ill or worse are still present, and thousands of people are infected every year.

Knowing exactly what Salmonella is will help lovers of chicken eliminate the dangers and avoid infection.

Salmonella Explained
Salmonella is a form of food poisoning which is the result of a nasty bacterium that exists in people, birds and other animals used for meat.
If you are unfortunate enough to become infected with salmonella, they can expect fever, diarrhoea, being physically sick (ie vomiting) and intense stomach cramp. These symptoms can start within half a day after consuming the infected poultry and can last along as 3 days. In general, people make a full recovery after a few days rest, but sometimes, it can become worse, resulting in a hospital visit and in a few cases, can lead to death.
Help! How Can I Avoid This?

The advice given to cooks is :

* Wash your hands AND the chicken before before you start.
Salmonella can be present on your hands and also on the hands of anybody else how has touched the chicken. Washing thoroughly reduces the risks.

* Keep uncooked chicken away from anything on the kitchen counter.
If getting ready to prepare a chicken meal, cross contamination is a major danger. To reduce the risk, do not use the same cutting utensils for uncooked chicken as is used for cutting vegetables. Also, use one cutting board for the chicken and another fo the vegetables.

If you follow these precautions, cooking with chicken is perfectly safe and has benefits fro your general health,

Assuming you are now feeling a little more upbeat about purchasing and cooking chicken, here are a few other things to consider to make your chicken meals more healthy and tasty.

These days there are many benefits to purchasing 'free-range' chickens or even 100% organic chickens. Even the high street grocery stores are starting to sell 'organic' or 'free-range' chicken, so gettiing hold of it is easier than ever. This is a welcome development because many of us have become aware of the fact that the larger chicken producers are simply trying to make more money and not looking out for the health and wellbeing of their chickens, or the end consumers. The name, 'free-range' is usually more familiar to people seeking to have a healthier eating lifestyle - it requires the chickens to have access to the open air and be allowed to wander around and eat naturally instead of being restricted to a small pen, or crammed into a barn with thousands of others. Free range chickens live a happier and less stressful life, and this results in a taster meat, and a cleaner conscience for the consumer.

Organic chickens, which can also be 'free range', have the further restriction that they are not subjected to antibiotics, hormones, herbicides or pesticides. Many people think that both Free-range and organice chickens taste better and are juicier.

Did you know that organic chicken breasts have only 10 fat calories, 110 thigh calories and a whole chicken only has 130 calories?
If you are dieting, that has to be a major plus point, right?

If you are trying to build muscle and are trying to increase protein levels, free-range chicken breasts have 22 grams, thighs have 19 grams and the whole chicken has 21 grams - all of that from a meat that is also delicious!

Roger works as a an author and copywriter who provides dietary information and recipes for Recipes 4U, one of the largest free recipe collections on the web. Recipes 4U has more than 40K recipes with specialist recipe categories for Asian Recipes, Stew Recipes and Bean Recipes. If you are looking for tasty recipes to cook at home, you can find exactly the right recipe for you at Recipes 4U.