It was brought to my attention that Adam Ragusea and I disagree about chicken breasts. He says
that all parts of the chicken should always be cooked to 165F. I cook my chicken breasts
to about 145F (actually, I cook them more to like 130F and during rest they get to 145F).
Both Adam and I claim to be somewhat grounded in science, so what gives?
Just a FYI. This is a complicated topic. If you are going to watch this video at double
speed and digest only 20% of what I am going to say here, you should listen to Adam and
the government agencies and cook your chicken to 165F. But if you like to think critically
and want to understand this risk and how to manage it, then let’s talk.
The first question we need to address is why do we even care. Who would want to eat a medium-rare
chicken. According to most Americans, undercooked chicken is disgusting. People in Japan can
keep their chicken sashimi. We are not interested. I am not talking about raw chicken or even
medium-rare chicken. At 140F chicken breasts look completely opaque and done. This is the
temperature at which they are the most tender and juicy. I have served such chicken breasts
to the most picky and concervative Americans and was told that this was the best chicken
they’ve eaten in their life. Chicken legs are a completely different story. They have
a ton of connective tissue that needs to be heated to a very high temperature (somewhere
between 170F and 180F) in order for it to melt. Otherwise, chicken legs can taste stringy
and chewy.
Ok, so now at least we’ve established why we care. Or at least why I care, you might
not care. But I want the most tender and juicy chicken breasts. So why is this concept so
taboo?
Why can we eat beef, lamb, and pork medium rare, but the chicken has to be cooked to
165? Adam’s answer is “because that’s what the experts in food safety say”. In
Adam’s video, Dr. Diez-Gonzalez from the Center for Food Safety at the University of
Georgia told Adam that chicken can have pathogens like salmonella inside the muscle and beef,
pork, and lamb cannot. They can only have the pathogens on the surface and the surface
will reach a safe temperature as long as you cook the outside.
I decided to unpack that a little. Why can chicken have pathogens inside? Salmonella
originates in the digestive tract whether it’s a cow or a chicken. If the digestive
tract is punctured, which happens a lot, it gets onto the surface of the chicken. But
how does it get inside the muscle? Is the chicken so porous that bacteria can seep inside?
So just like Adam, I called an expert, Dr. McLandsborough, who is a Professor of Food
Microbiology at the University of Massachusetts. She explained to me that chickens are small,
so it’s extremely easy for its meat to be punctured during processing. If you’ve ever
bought chicken parts, like skinless boneless, chicken breasts, you’ve seen how mangled
they can be. Some poultry producers inject their birds with brines which requires puncturing
them (this is very typical for turkeys), so even though you might be cooking a whole turkey
or chicken, you are not necessarily working with a solid muscle. For beef, it’s very
easy for a consumer to distinguish a solid muscle like a steak vs a ground up muscle,
like a burger (or at least that’s the theory). For chicken it is not. Just because it’s
not ground, doesn’t mean it’s solid.
Another thing we need to consider is how often are chickens contaminated with salmonella
on the surface. I mean, I eat steak tartar, medium-rare burgers, and raw fish. All of
those expose me to the surface of raw meat. Is chicken surface much more risky than those
other proteins? Turns out it is. Half of the store bought chickens Dr. McLandsborough tests
in her lab have salmonella on the skin. So yeah, chicken sashimi is a huge risk. Of course
what I am doing is not even remotely close to sashimi. Most of the bacteria are on the
outside of the chicken, and I am heating the outside to a very high temperature.
What I really wanted to know was how often did whole chicken breasts have salmonella
inside. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any data on that no matter how hard I looked.
Dr. McLandsborough told me she didn’t test that and she didn’t know anyone who did.
She only tests the skin. So basically, it’s not that we know that the inside of the chicken
is often contaminated. It’s just an unknown.
So what did Dr. McLandsborough think of my 140ish degree chicken breasts? She said that
if I cooked it sous-vide long enough for the center to reach 140F and then held it at that
temperature for 28 minutes, she would consider it completely safe. But if I just cooked it
to 140, there is no way she can call it safe. She would not eat it and she wouldn’t recommend
other people eat it either. But she felt the same way about medium-rare duck breasts. Duck
can have salmonella too and poses the same exact risks as chicken. The only difference
is that lots of Americans eat chicken and very few Americans eat duck. Raw egg mayo,
sushi, undercooked burgers? All these foods that any food obsessed person doesn’t think
twice about eating are too risky for Dr. McLandsborough or any other food safety expert.
What internal temperature would she consider safe for chicken using conventional methods
(in other words, not sous-vide)? 158F. The reason USDA recommends 165F is that they worry
you’ll stick a thermometer into the wrong part of the chicken and won’t find the coldest
spot. This is such a common mistake that I have a video about it (see the link below).
No matter what temperature you want to cook your chicken to, it’s good to make sure
you know how to measure it accurately.
Given all this, there are still cases where I am totally comfortable cooking chicken breasts
to 140F without sous-vide. I only do this on whole chicken breasts that have their skin
and bones still on. It’s way less likely that they’ve been punctured than skinless
boneless breasts. I also buy air-chilled chicken. Most poultry in the US is water chilled which
can easily spread pathogens from one chicken to another. Air-chilled poultry is not salmonella
free by any means, but the amount of salmonella is lower than regular poultry. Bell & Evans,
the producer I use, is explicit about not injecting their chickens with brine or anything
else, which is important too. I am more concervative with skinless boneless breasts, so I cook
them sous-vide to make sure that I not only reach 140F, but hold there for at least 28
minutes.
That’s a lot to explain, and that’s why any info USDA puts out needs to be overly
cautious.
Just to put this in perspective, here is how many people get hospitalized from salmonella.
Here is how many people die. Here is how many people get hospitalized from car accidents
and here is how many people die.
We all take risks in life. Some people go downhill skiing. Some people go camping in
New England in the summer. Do you have any idea how likely you are to get lyme disease
that way? Some people play sports. I will spare you all the serious injuries my family
members have suffered due to recreational sports. There is nothing wrong with risk as
long as it’s an informed risk.
Is it irresponsible for me to tell people that it’s ok to eat a solid chicken breast
at 140F? Not any more than telling people it’s ok to eat steak medium-rare. Many Americans
buy their steaks at Costco and Costco blade-tenderizes their steaks, so that solid muscle is not
solid after all. Google for “blade-tenderized meat”. Sorry if I ruined costco steaks for
you. Yes, danger is lurking around every corner in your kitchen. I choose to believe that
a preparation is “safe” unless proven otherwise. You can choose to believe that
a preparation is “dangerous” unless proven otherwise. Neither one is right or wrong.
Here are some solutions for people whose food-born illness risk tolerance is lower than mine.
Stay away from chicken breasts unless you have a sous-vide machine. Chicken thighs are
delicious and are at their best between 170 and 180F. Cook chicken breasts sous-vide at
141F for 2 hours per inch of thickness.
Also, keep in mind that 140 degree chicken breasts is a very common practice among both
professional and home cooks. Chicken at 140F looks opaque and completely done. If you don’t
use a thermometer, you can just tell yourself that you cooked it through and pat yourself
on the back for producing such tender and juicy chicken. I am yet to meet anyone who
got sick from this. I am sure it’s possible, but I would worry more about cross-contamination
than I would about undercooking the chicken. Cross-contamination is indeed everywhere in
both home and commercial kitchens and that’s what usually gets people sick.
I hope this will help you make a more informed decision about those tricky chicken breasts.
Here are more thought provoking culinary videos for you to check out and if you are ever in
the Boston area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.