Observational Study of the Impact of a Food Safety Intervention on Consumer Poultry Washing

Abstract

This study tested the effectiveness of an educational intervention on consumer poultry washing using video observation of meal preparation with participants who self-reported washing poultry. Treatment group participants received three emails containing messages the U.S. Department of Agriculture has used on social media (video and infographics) related to poultry preparation, including advising against washing it. Participants were observed cooking chicken thighs (inoculated with traceable nonpathogenic Escherichia coli strain DH-5 alpha) and preparing a salad to determine whether they washed the chicken and the extent of cross-contamination to the salad and areas of the kitchen. After meal preparation, participants responded to an interview about food handling behaviors, including questions about the intervention for treatment group participants. Three hundred people participated in the study (158 control, 142 treatment). The intervention effectively encouraged participants not to wash chicken before cooking; 93% of treatment group participants did not wash the chicken compared to 39% of control group participants (P<0.0001). High levels of the tracer detected in the sink and on the salad lettuce suggest that microbes transferred to the sink from the chicken, packaging, or contaminated hands are a larger cause for concern than splashing contaminated chicken fluids onto the counter. Among chicken washers, lettuce from the prepared salad was contaminated at 26% for the control group and 30% for the treatment group. For nonwashers, lettuce was contaminated at 31% for the control group and 15% for the treatment group. Hand-facilitated cross-contamination is suspected to be a factor in explaining this cross-contamination. This study demonstrates the need to change the frame of “don’t wash your poultry” messaging to instead focus on preventing contamination of sinks and continuing to emphasize the importance of handwashing and cleaning and sanitizing surfaces.

Cross-Contamination to Surfaces in Consumer Kitchens with MS2 as a Tracer Organism in Ground Turkey Patties

“…Contamination frequency was ,20% for most surfaces (Fig. 1A), comparable with findings of previous studies (4,12,29,33), but lower than that of other studies (10). Most research on the cross-contamination of kitchen surfaces due a Significance set at P , 0.0500. b Any observations for which multiple cutting boards or knives were used or video was not retrievable were not included in the analysis.…”

“…2A). To our knowledge, spice containers as a common recipient surface for microbial cross-contamination has been seldom reported, although up to 70% of spice containers were cross-contaminated in a couple of studies documenting this surface type (10,34), with a 5 to 6% contamination rate found in a similar study by our group involving whole pieces of raw chicken (33). In addition, the mean concentration of MS2 on spice containers, 6.2 log GEC (Fig.…”

Exploring how YouTube videos demonstrating preparation of dried wood ear mushrooms could pose food safety risks: a case study

“…This finding aligns with previous studies where recipe blogs and videos were reported to have a lack of food safety messages such as handwashing and cleaning and sanitation (Barrett and Feng, 2021; Morrison and Young, 2019). Moreover, Shumaker et al. (2022) conducted an observation study of consumers' meal preparation and they found that very few consumers performed proper handwashing and cleaning and sanitation practices.…”

“…Contaminated hands are one of the principal vehicles for cross-contamination in the kitchen (Evans and Redmond, 2018;Shumaker et al, 2022). The effectiveness of handwashing YouTube videos of dried wood ear mushrooms in reducing the risk of cross-contamination has been widely studied.…”

First report of Aliarcobacter cryaerophilus in ready-to-cook chicken meat samples from super shops in Bangladesh

“…in chicken meat was reported in India (58%) [ 15 ], Japan (60%) [ 16 ], Korea (45.8%) [ 17 ], and Malaysia (39.2%) [ 18 ]. The possible reason for this low prevalence might be the ready-to-cook chicken meat in supermarkets, and multiple washing steps reduce the contamination possibilities of these meats [ 19 ].…”