Getting Ready to Put Some Chicken on the Grill?

With summer here, most of us will be having lots of barbeques with our friends and family in Florida and around the country. We'll be cooking burgers, hot dogs and chicken every chance we can Well today it's the chicken that I want to talk to you about.

In a relatively recent study done by Consumer Reports back in 2007, they tested 525 fresh, whole broilers at supermarkets and other stores in 23 states for the bacteria Campylobacter and Salmonella. Several of the leading brands were included in the test. What they found was startling.

Campylobacter was found in 81% of the chickens, Salmonella in 15% and 13% of the chickens tested had both bacteria.

What is Campylobacter? It is a bacterium that can also be found, with not quite the frequency as in chicken, in healthy cattle, birds, raw milk, and contaminated water. Most cases of campylobacteriosis are associated with eating raw or undercooked poultry meat or from cross-contamination of other foods by these items. Infants may get the infection by contact with poultry packages in shopping carts. It is also possible to get infected from the feces of an infected pet cat or dog. It is the leading cause of bacterial diarrhea in the United States, more than Salmonella and Shigella combined.

It doesn't take a lot of this organism to get you ill. In some studies it showed that as little as 500 organisms can cause disease in some individuals. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention says that you can get infected from one drop of juice from raw chicken meat.

Campylobacter jejuni, the species most often implicated in infection causes diarrhea, which may be watery or sticky and can contain blood and white blood cells. Other symptoms often present are fever, abdominal pain, nausea, headache and muscle pain. The illness usually occurs 2-5 days after ingestion of the contaminated food or water. Illness generally lasts 7-10 days, but relapses are not uncommon (about 25% of cases).

There can be complications associated with campylobacteriosis; they include arthritis and neurological disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome. It is estimated that the latter is seen in one out of every 1000 cases of Campylobacter.

Most cases of Campylobacter are self-limiting and do not require treatment. However severe cases can be treated with antibiotics to shorten the length of the disease.

So how do you protect you and your family from this diarrheal disease? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that the following steps can be taken:

o In the supermarket, choose well-wrapped chicken, and put it in a plastic bag to keep juices from leaking.
o Store chicken at 40° F or below. If you won't use it for a couple of days, freeze it.
o Thaw frozen chicken in a refrigerator (in its packaging and on a plate), or on a plate in a microwave oven. Cook chicken thawed in a microwave oven right away.
o Prevent cross contamination. Separate raw chicken from other foods. Immediately after preparing it, wash your hands with soap and water, and clean anything you or raw chicken touched.
o To kill harmful bacteria, cook chicken to at least 165° F.
o Don't return cooked meat to the plate that held it raw.
o Refrigerate or freeze leftovers within two hours of cooking.
o Avoid drinking unpasteurized milk and contaminated surface water.
o Wash hands with soap and water after contact with pet feces.

Undercooked chicken should never be eaten; the risk of food borne illness is ever present in this common summertime grilling food. Don't put a damper on your summer barbeques, cook all meats thoroughly.