K A S H R U T . C O M_©

The following additional story concerning kosher chicken food safety is from the FoodSafetyNews on October 11, 2013.

Timothy D. Lytton and Joe M. Regenstein, Ph.D. wrote a article explaing the misconceptions about kosher chicken production in the general public and the article below and the need for further study.
According to the authors: "A more likely explanation for the elevated E. coli levels lies in feather removal. The most efficient and common way to remove chicken feathers is to soak the carcass in scalding water, which makes the feathers easier to pluck mechanically. Kosher restrictions do not allow for any form of cooking a chicken — which includes immersion in scalding water — until after the meat has been soaked and salted to remove the blood. As a result, kosher production requires chickens to be dry plucked or soaked in very cold water to firm up the flesh so that it survives an automatic plucking process. Immersion in scalding water prior to plucking of non-kosher poultry production reduces microbial load, by either washing microbes away or by killing them, which might account for differences between kosher and other production methods."
The authors stress that any further study needs to be based on understanding kosher production and regulation.

The following health related news is from the ThePoultrySite on October 8, 2013.

A study at Northern Arizona University (NAU) and four other institutions found antibiotic resistant E. coli in chickens from a range of production methods, but the greatest amount was found in kosher chickens. "Kosher chickens carried the greatest amount of antibiotic-resistant E. coli, while organic chicken showed antibiotic-resistant bacteria levels just as high as conventional chicken. Only chickens 'raised without antibiotics' (RWA) came in with reduced but still contaminated, levels of the E. coli 'superbug".
"The chicken researchers are from the Horace Mann Bronx Campus, Translational Genomics Research Institute of Flagstaff, NAU and George Washington University in Washington DC. Dr Bruce Hungate, director of the Ecosystem Science and Society Center, and NAU professor of biology, headed the team. The research was funded by the Merriam-Powell Center for Environmental Research and the Ecosystem Science and Society Center, both at NAU."
The researchers purchased 213 samples of raw chicken from 15 locations in the New York City metropolitan area from April to June, 2012.
"The study found that strains of E. coli isolated from samples in the RWA category tended to be resistant to fewer drugs 'but the difference was not significant versus conventional and organic, which did not differ from each other' ".

Ed. note: cooking the chicken so that the internal temperature reaches 165° F. will kill the bacteria in the chicken.