Crucial Tips for Preparing Chicken Safely

In recent times, the perils of Salmonella, particularly from consuming chicken, have been mentioned so often on TV most people would have thought that incidences of infection to have reduced significantly. Unhappily this is not what has happened. For people who eat chicken, the perils of getting ill or worse are still present, and thousands of people are infected every year.

Better understanding of Salmonella will help chefs eliminate the risks and avoid dangerous illensss.

Salmonella Explained
Salmonella is a type of food poisoning which is the result of a specific bacteria that lives in people, birds and other animals.
If you are unfortunate enough to become infected with salmonella, the symptoms include fever, diarrhoea, being physically sick (ie vomiting) and strong stomach cramps. Symptoms may begin within half a day after eating and can last along as three days. In general, sufferers make a full recovery after a few days rest, but sometimes, it can take a nasty turn, requiring a hospital visit and in a few cases, it can even prove to be fatal.

Beating Salmonella

The advice given to cooks is :

* Clean your hands AND the chicken before before cooking.
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.
When preparing a chicken meal, cross contamination is a major danger. To reduce the danger, 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 beginning to sell 'organic' or 'free-range' chicken, so gettiing hold of it is easier than ever. This is a good thing because many of us are unhappy that the larger chicken farms are just looking for a profit 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 needs 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 stuffed into a barn with thousands of others. Free range chickens live a happier and stress free 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 only have 10 fat calories, 110 thigh calories and a whole chicken only has 130 calories?
If you are dieting, that has to be worth knowing, right?

If you are an athlete or body builder 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 Wakefield works as a an author and copywriter who provides nutritionary information and cookery articles for Recipes 4U, one of the biggest free recipe collections on the internet. Recipes 4U has over 40,000 recipes with specific recipe categories for Ethnic Recipes, Dessert Recipes and Vegetarian Recipes. If you want some yummy recipes to cook guests and loved ones, you can find what you need at Recipes 4U.

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