Ester Kahumbi, BBC, health
Do you wash raw chicken before cooking?
This question is causing heated debates on social media.
Official food safety recommendations, which apply in much of the Western world, are clear - you should not wash raw chicken, as this spreads harmful bacteria.
Yet, for many chefs around the world, it is a long-standing cultural tradition that is closely linked to cleanliness and food care.
Some, like Jamaican TV chef and author April Jackson, are deliberately stirring up debate online.
"I intentionally include footage of me washing chicken in some of my videos because I know it's a hot topic," she says.
"People say I shouldn't wash it in a bowl or sink, and some say it's disgusting, that it's dirty."
But others believe it is unhygienic to eat unwashed chicken meat.
Content creator Fadwa Hilili, who made a TikTok video about her Moroccan mother's 10-step chicken washing process, says she enjoys reading people's comments under her social media posts.
"They write things like, 'This is why you don't eat at other people's houses' or 'This is why you don't eat at work when everyone brings something they've prepared,'" she says.
This distrust of unwashed chicken exists in many households in Asia, the Caribbean, South America, Africa, and some Mediterranean cultures.
And what does science say?
BBC World Service visited a food testing laboratory to check it out.
Why is washing chicken so risky?
Raw chicken has campylobacter and salmonella, which cause food poisoning.
"When you wash chicken in the kitchen, you create microdroplets that can cause illness," says Dr. Kimon-Andreas Karatsas, associate professor of food microbiology at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom (UK).
These droplets spread a large number of invisible bacteria to the sink, work surfaces, and nearby foods.
To demonstrate this, Karacas conducted an experiment in which he applied a chemical substance to raw chicken that allows bacteria to be seen under UV light.
Then he washed the chicken under running water for less than 10 seconds, and the water that fell on the meat splashed all over the sink.
To the naked eye, these were ordinary water droplets that were easy to wipe away, but UV light revealed cross-contamination.
Droplets containing bacteria ended up all over the work surface, on the professor's coat, our camera, and, crucially, on the lettuce and carrots that are eaten raw.
This means that even if you cook chicken properly, you can still get sick if you place other foods on contaminated surfaces.
"That's the most common way salmonella and campylobacter infections are transmitted - when something you're going to eat raw is cross-contaminated with microorganisms from something you're going to cook," explains Karacas.
Watch the video: To feed or not to feed the chicken
Why is campylobacter so dangerous?
Campylobacter is one of the four leading causes of diarrhea worldwide, and the most common bacterial cause of gastroenteritis that causes diarrhea and vomiting, mainly in young children, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
It is more dangerous than salmonella, partly because levels of salmonella in poultry have been reduced thanks to vaccination programs, while there is no vaccine for campylobacter.
Both bacteria naturally live in the intestinal tract of chickens.
During slaughter and processing, intestinal contents can contaminate the surface of the meat.
"You should always act as if the chicken contains campylobacter and salmonella," says Karats.
"Most of the chickens and chicks in the world are free-range."
"They are not grown in strictly controlled conditions and have more salmonella and more campylobacter."
The dose of campylobacter that causes infection is extremely small - just one droplet can contain about 10 trillion campylobacter, which is more than a thousand times the total number of people on the planet.
"If just one drop of campylobacter or chicken juice gets on something, that can be enough to make you very sick," says Karacas.
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What are the symptoms of infection?
In the UK alone, more than 250.000 people are infected each year, according to the country's Food Safety Agency.
Symptoms usually appear two to five days after infection, and the most common are diarrhea (often bloody), abdominal pain, fever, headache, nausea, and vomiting.
People over 60 and children are more susceptible to more severe forms of the disease, and some people may develop serious and long-lasting symptoms that require treatment with antibiotics.
In some people, the infection can cause irritable bowel syndrome and arthritis, and in rare cases, a type of paralysis known as Guillain-Barré syndrome.
But people don't often associate stomach upset with preparing chicken.
Experts say that many infections are never officially diagnosed, and statistics only include cases of patients who sought medical help and provided a sample for analysis.
"We are actually only seeing the tip of the iceberg, and the actual number of cases could be ten times higher," says Karatsas.
Why do people still wash chicken?
Study published in 2024 in a scientific journal food control (Food Control) showed that 96 percent of respondents in eight Southeast Asian countries wash chicken.
Between 39 percent and 70 percent of consumers in the United States (US), Europe and Australia also do so, according to research conducted over the last decade.
In most of the Western world, chicken is processed in highly regulated industrial conditions and sold clean.
However, in many areas, chickens are often slaughtered by people on their farms, sometimes in markets, where access to clean running water and hygienic surfaces is often limited.
In such cases, washing the chicken is necessary.
However, for some people it is not just a matter of hygiene, but also of identity, mourning and connection to home.
When Chef Jackson moved to the UK and saw warnings on packaging that raw chicken should not be washed, she was so surprised that she sent the photo to her family in Jamaica.
He says he understands the scientific explanations, but adds: "When we wash chicken, you can see that the water becomes cloudy."
"It gets very cloudy, and culturally we don't want to eat that kind of thing."
Many people claim that how chicken is washed is important.
Both chefs the BBC spoke to wash the chicken in a bowl, often adding vinegar or lime, then thoroughly clean and disinfect the sink and work surfaces.
"My mother washes the sink thoroughly with hot water and soap, then sprays it with antibacterial spray," says Hilili.
Those who strongly advocate washing chicken consider the general recommendation not to wash chicken to be another inconsistency in food safety guidelines.
"When you wash a cutting board that has had chicken on it, the risk is the same," says Jackson.
"In French cuisine, for example, chicken is put in a pac before cooking, which means it's kept in salt water," she adds.
"And I've never heard anyone advise against doing that."
"And the procedure is essentially the same."
While Karacas agrees that washing in a bowl may be safer, he warns that it is also risky, and that washing with lemon or vinegar does not significantly reduce the number of bacteria.
"The only way to destroy bacteria is through heat treatment, and most chicken meat on sale has already been washed by the producer."
"There's really no need to wash it again," he concludes.
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