 In 2017, a study more than a thousand food poisoning outbreaks determined that poultry, specifically chicken, was the most common culprit, highlighting the role of poultry as a major source of foodborne outbreaks in the United States. Fish was second, beef was third, but aren't people more likely to order their burgers rarer than their chicken sandwich? See, the biggest problem isn't the cooking, but the handling. Both at home and in the store. A shop-along study was conducted to determine actual shopping behavior of consumers who purchased raw poultry products. What did they find? Neither hand sanitizer or wipes were observed in 71% of grocery store meat sections of the stores visited, and even when they were there, only one participant out of the 96 they followed used it. Therefore, it's important to educate shoppers on the importance of using hand sanitizer in the meat section after touching poultry packages, because food poisoning bacteria can get on the outside of the package. Plastic bags were available in most meat sections, but only a quarter of the shoppers used the bags for their raw poultry purchases. The shoppers just usually placed the poultry directly in the main basket of the grocery cart, where it could come in contact with fresh produce that may be eaten raw in a salad or something. And then, where does their hand go? They didn't use any kind of sanitizer, and they then just grabbed the handle of the cart. Because they're not passing good hand hygiene when handling poultry in the grocery store meat section, they could contaminate a variety of items as a result of contact with their hands. Touching the cart after directly handling the poultry packages could potentially mean that the cart becomes a risk factor for salmonella or campylobacter for the next person. The bacteria potentially left on the cart could affect other shoppers, not just the person picking up the poultry. So some kale shopper, following all the safety precautions, can come along and still be exposed to poultry contamination via the cart. In addition to touching the cart, poultry shoppers may also touch a personal item after touching a raw poultry package, a personal item like their children. After touching poultry packages, 31% of shoppers touch a personal item, like their purse, their child. Most left the store with poultry separated in its own bag. However, most consumers then took it out of this protective layer when they got home, and one in three placed the package directly on the counter before it went into the fridge. And most were just put straight in, where it could potentially come in contact with other items. More than one in five consumers correctly stored raw poultry on the bottom shelf in a sealed container or plastic bag, always in the bottom, since if the raw juices leak, they could contaminate other foods. The next mistake most people make is then washing or rinsing raw poultry before cooking it. Up to 90% of people say they wash their chicken before cooking it, because that's what they're used to, and they want to rinse the slime off. The problem is that the slime can be splashed throughout like a two-foot halo of contamination around the sink. A lot of folks heard you weren't supposed to do that, but they continue to do it anyway. Fewer than about one in 10th thaw frozen poultry the way they should in a sealed container or plastic bag submerged in cold water, with the water changed every 30 minutes. Is it better to put raw poultry on a wood cutting board or a plastic cutting board? Neither is safe as they both get rapidly contaminated. Failure to then use a food thermometer is another potentially unsafe practice, given that 70% of chicken pieces that were judged by consumers as done had not reached safe internal cooking temperatures. In focus groups, many participants thought food thermometers were unnecessary to determine whether mean poultry was cooked thoroughly, because they'd been cooking for years without once getting food poisoning. But have they ever got a 24-hour flu? There's no such thing as a 24-hour flu, that's likely food poisoning. Stomach flu or stomach bug, that's likely food poisoning. Ever had a urinary tract infection? There are multiple lines of evidence indicating poultry as a major food animal reservoir for urinary tract infection bacteria that lay in weight in the rectum and then crawl up. There are more than a million food-borne salmonella and campylobacter infections every year in the United States. Although half of Americans think it's not very common for people in the United States to get food-borne illness because of the way food is prepared in their home, food safety experts estimate that the home is the primary location where food-borne disease outbreaks occur.