To rinse or not to rinse

It might be said of me that I’m, um, a bit queasy about some food. I’d even guess that harsher language has been applied, perhaps even by my mother who, when I first stopped eating meat some 15 years ago, used to sneak in chicken consommé to whatever dish we would be eating, she was so annoyed. In many families, including mine, cooking for someone is closely tied to loving them, and my saying no to meat in some ways constituted an emotional rejection. We’re mostly over that now (I think!) but I do get how off-putting self-imposed dietary restrictions or fussiness can be.

I am trying to be less finicky with food. I ate a veggie dog just the other day that had both fraternized with chicken and tumbled onto the very-much-used-by-dogs grass along Kits beach during a fun barbeque. I had my priorities straight—don’t be a loser and spoil the great mood by thinking too much about what might or might not have attached itself to my dinner. I was very cool (relatively speaking), and it was good for me—I just wiped it off and devoured it.

But I'm not going to pretend that I'm not slightly neurotic about the circumstances that need to be in place for me to feel good about eating food.

For example, fish: if fish is to be cooked in our house, it must be thoroughly, blatantly (if done by Craig) rinsed and patted down before cooking. Not totally calm about eating fish, I need this ritual to set the stage for enjoying the meal. It's a clean thing, I guess. But today, I came upon news from the blogosphere that repudiates this process. Helen Rennie, scribe of the neat blog Beyond Salmon, writes in answer to a reader’s question about the merits of rinsing fish:

“You don't need to rinse fish, chicken, pork, or any other meat before cooking. Not only does it not get rid of bacteria, it spreads bacteria (if water splashes from the sink in the process of rinsing). What kills bacteria much more effectively is cooking.”

Thoughts? (Oh, and if they’re about some of my peccadillos about food/germs—I already know they’re annoying. I’m more interested in the no-rinse theory. Do you rinse your fish? If you do, would you stop because of the above information?)

Comments

[Travis]

I don't rinse to remve germs, but sometimes there's actual crud on fish -- a nice rinse gets rid of that. But no, rinsing for germs is something I haven't done, and now it looks like I was right!

[James]

The only meat I rinse is chickens and turkeys, with cavities to be rinsed. I'm not sure why, but the instructions always include a phrase about rinsing the cavity.

Oh, and thanks for being so very cool about the veggie dog. I take responsibility for both its downfall and fraternizing with boobs.

[kiley]

James, you also saw that it actually got cooked while I neglected it entirely!

I think I am going to continue rinsing, because of the crud factor. Whatever bacteria I encourage will get cooked off anyway.