I admit it, I'm tend to be a slight germaphobe.  I cringe in a restaurant when I see someone cleaning a table for the next customer when they put their fingers inside a glass exposing themselves to any disease the previous customer may have had.  This is especially troublesome if the same person then delivers a meal to another customer.  I can't help but wonder how well they washed their hands.  When I eat at a fast food restaurant I have to put questions of the cleanliness of the products used to package my meal out of my mind.  And those people that go to a public restroom and leave without washing their hands, then go shake hands with others they greet.  I just want to go lock myself in my house and disinfect everything.

Now, the [CDC is recommending we stop washing chicken before it is cooked](https://www.foxnews.com/health/cdc-stop-washing-your-raw-chicken).  I've been inside a chicken processing plant, there is no way I am going to follow this advice.  The CDC points out that bacteria on the outside of the chicken is transferred through the water remaining on the chicken contaminating cutting boards, knifes and anything else exposed to it.  This is all true, but they don't point out that some of the bacteria is washed off the chicken resulting in less bacteria to be transferred around the kitchen.  The CDC points out properly cooking the chicken will kill any bacteria on the chicken.

Assuming the chicken didn't have bacteria in it's system before the processing plant, bacteria is typically found on the outside of the meat and not the inside.  Cutting meat into pieces, as you would for chicken fingers or chicken noodle soup, increases the amount of "outside" on the meat.  The knife picks up bacteria from the outside of the meat and spreads it across the cut sections of the meat.  I'm surprised the CDC doesn't recommend not cutting up meat sections until after it is cooked.  Ground meats are particularly suspect since there is no real "outside" to the meat, the grinder spreads any bacteria on the meat throughout the ground meat product.

My method of prepping chicken involves rinsing it well, placing it on a plate with a paper towel and then patting the chicken dry with another paper towel.  This minimizes the water available to spread bacteria to the cutting board, not to mention making a smaller mess on and around the cutting board.  Once the meat is cooking, the plate goes to the dishwasher and the paper towels go to the trash.

But this method is far from being completely sanitary.  The kitchens in our houses, by the nature of what we do in them, is the [most bacteria laden room in our house](https://www.healthline.com/health/germy-places#how-they-spread). Even worse than the bathroom.  Every time a dish is cooked, moisture is released into the kitchen aiding the bacteria life cycle.  Microscopic bits of food left on counter tops or cutting boards provide nourishment for the bacteria.  The kitchen is a virtual heaven for bacteria.  Think about the [dish towel](http://time.com/4918624/wash-towels-bacteria/) hanging somewhere in the kitchen or laying on the countertop.  How long has it been there damp and potentially full of those microscopic food particles?  It's going to be full of bacteria.

The paper towels I use to pat my chicken dry with [even come from the factory with there own bacteria](https://www.webmd.com/women/news/20111228/study-finds-bacteria-in-unused-paper-towels#1).  The process of making paper involves a lot of moisture and the wood pulp used to make the paper provides food for the bacteria.  So even my drying chicken with a new paper towel is adding bacteria to my food.  One has to wonder how any of us survive this onslaught of bacteria.

To keep that little germaphobe in my head from panicking and making the rest of me crazy (my wife would say crazier), I have to remind myself that not all bacteria is a bad and my body has become a little immune to all the bad bacteria around me.  Good bacteria inside our bodies breaks food down so we can digest the energy we need to survive.  Over the years of exposure to small amounts of the bad bacteria around me, my body knows how to fight small amounts of it off.  Have you ever noticed that when we travel a long distance from home we often get sick either during the trip or afterward?  When traveling, we encounter slightly different strains of bacteria than our bodies are accustomed to fighting off so we end up ill. The trick is making sure we only get small amounts of bad bacteria inside our bodies.

I have to stop writing now although I could let the germaphobe in me loose and be here all day on the subject.  It's time for me to go disinfect something and get ready for my GA meeting (Germaphobics Anonymous).  When it's time for me to talk I'll start off with "Hello, my name is Mike and I am a germaphobe....".