Poisoned Celery and Diseased Chicken

Question: In the news recently was a story about celery that is poisoned with listeria. Should I eliminate celery from my diet?

Question: Is it true that diseased chickens can be sold in the market?

Mimi: We are all constantly bombarded with germs, bugs, and bacteria. I probably have the seeds of every disease in the world lurking in my body. The best defense is to strengthen your immune system. Then if you get something bad, your body will cast it off (with vomiting and diarrhea) or your white blood cells, the soldiers of your body, will “eat up the bad guys.” Wash your hands frequently. Get healthy and stay healthy.

Listeria is found in the soil and many other places. We all probably have it in our guts. It is anaerobic (can’t live in the presence of oxygen) and isn’t killed by normal refrigeration. When it is consumed, it can be more dangerous that salmonella, that gets so much press.

All celery is loaded with dirt when you buy it. When you bring it home, cut off a quarter inch from the loose ends and throw the scraps away or into the compost pile. Slice off the bottom and throw away or put into the compost pile. Any ribs that loosen can be put into the sink. Then cut off a bit more and a bit more from the root end until all the ribs are loose. All the cut off scraps need to be disposed of and not put into the soup pot.

Scrub all the ribs well with a vegetable brush until no dirt is evident. Now, if you are concerned about germs, soak the celery in a sink full of water with 1 cap of chlorine (like Clorox) in the water. The chlorine will kill the bugs. Rinse after the soak.

If you are concerned with pesticides and fertilizers on your fruits and vegetables, soak them in clear water to wash off dirt. Then soak in a sink full of water with a glug of plain white vinegar added. The vegetable sprays sold in the super market are primarily vinegar in water in a spritz bottle.
Ah yes, chickens. Chickens are stupid, dirty animals. I had chickens running around my yard when I lived in Norco 40 years ago. I had to search for the eggs because the hens were so dumb that they would just lay eggs anyplace they wanted. We used to hypnotize the chickens. White leghorns were downright insane, mean, and crazy but they were good layer. Little red hens (Rhode Island Reds) had sweet dispositions but didn’t lay well.

If you are not raising your own chickens but buying them in the super market, beware. They are raised in filthy conditions. Yes, the farms are inspected and so are the chickens, but they are still dirty. The safest chicken to buy is a whole chicken and cut it up yourself. It doesn’t matter how poorly you butcher the job (pun intended) you will save money and nobody cares what it looks like anyway. A good cookbook will have illustrations on how to cut up a chicken. Use a sharp knife. Gerrard’s will sharpen your knives for you.

Here comes the gross part. When you buy cut up chickens you don’t know what you are getting. When a chicken is getting cut up, if a part of the chicken is diseased, that part, and ONLY that part is tossed into a different bin. Then the animal is cut up. All wings are put in the wing bin; all breasts go into the breast bin; all legs into the leg bin. To make one “cut up chicken” the right number of pieces are pulled from the bins and put together into the package. So you could get a wing from one and a neck from a different. You might even get two left legs. Mixed up pieces and parts don’t bother me, but the knowledge that half my chicken may have been diseased and that part was substituted with a part from another animal bothers me. It is legal, and probably posses no health danger.

But if you are worried, you can do what I do. A Greek restaurateur taught me to open all the chicken packages and dump all the pieces into a sink full of cold water with Clorox added and let it soak. Then rinse.
Wear rubber gloves to pull the drain and to handle the chicken. Let the chicken dry, and then cook thoroughly.

Clean your cutting board, knife, countertop and anything else that got chicken on with Clorox.

Toss the fat, skin, left over bones, wing tips, and neck (if you don’t eat it) into the soup pot in the freezer. That will be a future column.