Warning to anyone cooking turkey for Thanksgiving over dangerous step

Cooking chicken, turkey, or any other poultry can be a fussy business.

If you’ve had fears of salmonella drilled into you since you first saw a raw chicken breast, you probably wash your hands religiously while cooking.

But it turns out some of us are overcomplicating things - to our detriment.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) explains how we have to be careful when it comes to prepping turkey, which is always a popular choice for Thanksgiving.

"Turkey and its juice can be contaminated with germs that can make you and your family sick," its website says.

"Raw turkey can have Salmonella, Clostridium perfringens, Campylobacter, and other germs. Whether you're cooking a whole bird or a part of it, such as the breast, you should take special care to prevent food poisoning."

But if you try to go the extra mile by rinsing your meat off in the sink before chopping and cooking it, you’re making a mistake.

(Evgen_Prozhyrko via Getty Images)

"Washing raw turkey can spread germs to other food," the CDC says.

"Federal agencies have recommended not washing turkey or chicken since 2005. But a 2020 survey found that 78% of participants reported washing or rinsing turkey before cooking. Old recipes and family cooking traditions may tell you to keep this practice going, but it can make you and your family sick. Poultry juice can spread in the kitchen and contaminate other foods, utensils, and countertops."

Not only is it more or less impossible to ‘clean’ a slab of meat in this way with regards to microbes, there’s a good chance you’re just spraying pathogens like salmonella across nearby surfaces, and even onto yourself.

A Thanksgiving turkey cooked and ready to eat. (credit: Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Any germs you’re trying to wash from the meat will be killed in the cooking process, so there’s really no need to do it unless there’s some dirt you’re trying to remove.

If that’s the case, wiping it with a wet paper towel is a better option.

The CDC added that, if you do decide to wash raw turkey, you should 'immediately clean and thoroughly sanitize the sink and surrounding area'.

However, it said: "A USDA study found that 1 in 7 people who cleaned their sink after washing chicken still had germs in the sink."