New York, NY – A 17 year-old Horace Mann School senior has taken the lead in writing up the results of a two year study which found that kosher chicken contains almost twice the number of E coli bacteria as non-kosher chicken.
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JTA (http://bit.ly/16KtVki) reports that Jack Millman of Manhattan said that he hatched the idea for his study during his sophomore year when he innocently questioned whether eating kosher was healthier during a family trip to Israel.
Millman’s uncle, a biology professor at Northern Arizona University, helped him set up the study which consisted of submitting raw chicken samples from the same 15 New York retail outlets over the course of two years.
Reasons for the excess E coli bacteria in kosher chicken remains a point of contention, with some microbiologists suggesting that the large numbers are due to producers using more antibiotics, while others point to the de-feathering process of kosher chickens as the culprit.
As long as its fully cooked, doesnt that kill all traces of E-Coli?
Don’t forget the soaking and salting that the chickens go through. If one chicken has e coli and that chicken is put into a vat with 100 other chickens, then there is a chance that all 100 chickens get e coli. Ditto for salmonella.
We are talking about the soaking before and after melicha. What is the temperature of the water? How much salt? Was the chicken cleaned properly beforehand? All are factors.
Just cook the chicken to 165 degrees F. and you will be safe.
There are major parts missing from this piece quoted here:
He went on Saturdays to ride around metropolitan New York and buy up chicken, (and that he doesn’t keep kosher). What was considered “Kosher” chicken if bought on Shabbos? Possibly it may have been kosher from a gentile store – but thats a whole different variable. Or maybe its the actual store, not ALL kosher chicken.
Also, another thing that is worrying:
“Drugs used by companies to raise chickens are “considered a trade secret” in the United States, provided they use FDA-approved antibiotics, it is difficult for researchers to track. He noted that 29.9 million pounds of antibiotics are used each year in meat production, compared to 7.7 million used for human medical purposes.”
Could it be that drugs used for kosher chickens aren’t as effective at preventing E-coli?
Its crazy to incur the risk of disease and illness through eating chickens having ecoli contamination as a result of the kosher chicken producers making the birds resistant to antibiotics or using improper de-feathering procedures. Either way, its another reason why more and more yidden are turning to a vegetarian diet and relying on Tofu for protein. In fact, the winning recipe in this year’s kosher gourmet cook-off was a tofu-based chulent using a secret recipe from the alte heim.
All you need to do is cook and carefully clean the area and anything that touched raw chicken. This needs to be done with any chicken, meat, fish and even vegetables.
A very bright young man from a very supportive family. Perhaps he will go on to do great things.