I’m just going to put this out there: Chicken sashimi needs to go. Lately, I’ve seen it drowning my social media and I’m seriously over it. There are so many great ways to eat chicken, but to me, raw isn’t one of them. Some may have deemed it safe, but for the average college student, hell the average American — probably not. If your mother didn’t constantly warn you of salmonella poisoning like mine did, here’s everything you need to know about eating this raw chicken.
The Dirty Deets
Chicken sashimi or chicken tartare is literally raw chicken, often made by boiling or searing chicken for roughly 10 seconds or less. It’s rarely (no pun intended) found in US restaurants, however, it’s not to hard to come by in Japan. Walk around Tokyo for a bit and you’re bound to find a plate of the delicacy, which is called torisashi in Japanese.
Personally, I’m going to pass on this dish, but last week celebrity chef Marc Murphy tweeted about his love for chicken sashimi. And like, good for him, but Twitter freaked the f*ck out.
My exact thoughts.
I’m with her!
Hey, no judgements from me, but… yeah.
Let’s talk more about this.
Seriously, Is It Safe?
The short answer: Probs not. Japan, where I mentioned chicken sashimi is most relevant, has even warned fellow foodies and made strides to make eating the poultry safer.
“Cooking” chicken for mere seconds is not enough time to kill harmful bacteria microbes like salmonella and campylobacter (often found on raw poultry), according to Michael Doyle, a professor of food microbiology at the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety, who spoke with Food and Wine.
You’ve heard of salmonella, but campylobacter is just as gross as it sounds. It’s the bacteria that is generally going to give you food poisoning after eating raw chicken, which will basically cause your stomach to blow up. I’m talking nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea and/or fever. Oh yeah, and if it spreads to your bloodstream, you could potentially attain some serious infections like Guillain-Barrè syndrome, which can cause paralysis.
How Do Restaurants Serve It Up Then?
If none of the information above convinces you that the short answer to, “Should I try it?” is no, stay with me.
Chicken sashimi is usually cut from the inner breast of the chicken, which at least is the part of the bird that has the lowest risk of carrying salmonella. That’s not to say that all restaurants use this cut, however. Some restaurants could potentially cut the dish from other parts of the chicken where the risk isn’t so low.
Yes, some people eat chicken sashimi and are perfectly fine! But if you’re going to try it, you need to know exactly where this chicken came from and how it was raised, according to Claire Shorenstein, M.S., R.D., and C.D.N. who also talked to Food and Wine. Restaurants that serve it up work very closely with small, local farms to make sure they’re getting only the best and the freshest of chickens.
I’m just going to assume that most people don’t know exactly which farm their chicken was born and raised on, or what kind of life it lived. So unless you want to play the chance of getting sicker than your worst Sunday hangover, that Tyson chicken you just picked up from the grocery store should be cooked all the way through before you eat it.