Eating raw chicken - "22% have Salmonella"

[marcuspaleo]

Im just starting the primal diet. Have eaten raw lambs liver and kidney from a family farm for a few months and havent had any problems. Bought a chicken today from an organic farm and ate about 100 grams. I wanted more (lots more!) but I thought id wait a few days to make sure I was ok. Am i just being paranoid? Is it just the factory farmed chickens I need to be cautious of?

I read this:

“According to a Food Standards Australia New Zealand survey 84% of raw chicken carcasses tested positive to the food poisoning bacteria Campylobacter and 22% to Salmonella. This is similar to the findings of other surveys overseas. Notified cases of illness from Campylobacter and Salmonella in Australia have almost doubled over the last 20 years. OzFoodnet estimates there are approximately 220,000 cases of Campylobacter infection each year with more than 75% transmitted by food and 50,000 cases of Campylobacter infection each year can be attributed either directly or indirectly to chicken meat."

"Food poisoning results, on average, in 5.4 million cases a year including 120 deaths, 1.2 million visits to doctors, 300,000 prescriptions for antibiotics, and 2.1 million days of lost work each year. The estimated annual cost of food poisoning in Australia is $1.25 billion."

foodsafety.asn.au/media-centre/food-safety-experts-warn-home-cooks-not-to-wash-raw-chicken-australian-food-safety-week-12-18-november-2012/

In addition:

"Consumers should not assume that free-range or organicconditions will have anything to do with the Salmonella status of the chicken."

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16300088

But then I found:

"Here’s what they found: 38.8 percent of the conventional birds were carrying salmonella, versus 5.6 percent for the organic birds"

grist.org/organic-food/2011-03-25-study-organic-chicken-significantly-lower-salmonella-risk/

There is also a video on youtube of a guy who has been eating raw organic chicken for 10 years and he says he has never been sick.

Im very confused. My health is really bad and I cant afford to get salmonella.

[TylerDurden]

Aajonus once pointed out that something like 38% of all American households contain salmonella yet are not infected. It is all scaremongering. That said, most chickens are fed on 100% grains-filled diets, even the so-called "organic" ones, so should be avoided unless they have access to a lot of woodland and therefore lots of worms and insects and carrion.

[dariorpl]

Salmonella is in everything. Animals, plants, even in water.

I hear if someone doesn't bathe for a few days, their skin will be covered with salmonella.

I understand that your health could be so bad that you can't afford a detox. And then I don't know what I'd suggest.

AV said that for the elderly, if there was no other way to stop a major detox, having one meal a week of cooked chicken (baked) would work. I don't know if that's correct or not.

[Raw Matt18]

I personally wouldn't worry about it, the only problem is there diets Its very RARE  to find chicken that ate a proper diet.

[marcuspaleo]

Aajonus once pointed out that something like 38% of all American households contain salmonella yet are not infected. It is all scaremongering. That said, most chickens are fed on 100% grains-filled diets, even the so-called "organic" ones, so should be avoided unless they have access to a lot of woodland and therefore lots of worms and insects and carrion.

Im buying the best quality organic chicken i can find and I understand it is free to roam and eat its natural diet. I just hear so much about the dangers of raw chicken it has me a little spooked. Have you ever been sick eating it?

[TylerDurden]

Im buying the best quality organic chicken i can find and I understand it is free to roam and eat its natural diet. I just hear so much about the dangers of raw chicken it has me a little spooked. Have you ever been sick eating it?

Never while on an rpd diet.

[dariorpl]

Once about a year and a half ago, when the only raw animal product I could handle was fish (and I wasn't having it all that much), I tried 3 raw eggs which I thought at the time might have been raised better than the average, but in retrospect they probably weren't. Then I think it was that night or the next one, that I had some conventional chicken that was only cooked about half way through.

I had extreme diarrhea and moderate stomach pain whenever I ate anything for the following 2 months. Anything I ate gave me stomach pain and got passed as water within 20-30 minutes. However, when I saw this was happening, I started trying all sorts of different things, including mild fasting and even junk food, I even tried having nothing but 7up, in an attempt to make it stop. It didn't. Maybe that made things worse. I don't know.

Now on the primal diet for 3.5 months I've had raw chicken from 3 different sources that claim to be organic and free-range (meaning the chickens get to walk around in the open field and maybe eat some bugs), and haven't had a problem with it so far. If anything, what worries me the most about chicken is the scalding process used to remove the feathers, which may cook the skin somewhat.

[Wolf]

I had extreme diarrhea and moderate stomach pain whenever I ate anything for the following 2 months. Anything I ate gave me stomach pain and got passed as water within 20-30 minutes. However, when I saw this was happening, I started trying all sorts of different things, including mild fasting and even junk food, I even tried having nothing but 7up, in an attempt to make it stop. It didn't. Maybe that made things worse. I don't know.

I had gotten something like this a couple times before, too.  Anything I ate cause stomach pains and discomfort, and bad diarrhea.  I found that the only thing that helped settle my stomach and not cause pain or problems was to drink raw milk.  I know another time my mom thought she had food poisoning again (she'd been in the hospital for it a few times before) I gave her a glass of my raw milk to drink and it helped her a lot and she got better just fine.  I know most people on here don't advocate for raw dairy, but I would highly recommend it for any bouts of possible food poisoning.  Though, I guess everyone is different.

I only got sick when I was eating raw foods and also ate SAD foods, I'm pretty sure the SAD food was the cause since I only got sick after eating the SAD food.

but, I say if you ate the raw chicken and felt just fine, then go ahead an eat as much of it as you want.  If you happen to feel sick and get diarrhea from it, try drinking some raw milk (or raw kefir if you can get it) for it.  If that doesn't help, then you might need to fast.

[marcuspaleo]

Thanks to everyone for the comforting  and reassuring replies. Im going to stick with "Taste testing" each chicken by eating 50-100 grams, then waiting 48 hours, and if i feel fine, Ill consume the rest. Ill just do that until  I feel comfortable with what i am doing.

Once about a year and a half ago, when the only raw animal product I could handle was fish (and I wasn't having it all that much), I tried 3 raw eggs which I thought at the time might have been raised better than the average, but in retrospect they probably weren't. Then I think it was that night or the next one, that I had some conventional chicken that was only cooked about half way through.

I had extreme diarrhea and moderate stomach pain whenever I ate anything for the following 2 months. Anything I ate gave me stomach pain and got passed as water within 20-30 minutes. However, when I saw this was happening, I started trying all sorts of different things, including mild fasting and even junk food, I even tried having nothing but 7up, in an attempt to make it stop. It didn't. Maybe that made things worse. I don't know.

Now on the primal diet for 3.5 months I've had raw chicken from 3 different sources that claim to be organic and free-range (meaning the chickens get to walk around in the open field and maybe eat some bugs), and haven't had a problem with it so far. If anything, what worries me the most about chicken is the scalding process used to remove the feathers, which may cook the skin somewhat.

What cured your stomach pains? I had that too for about 6-7 months and I realized it was from eating raw almonds. As soon as i cut them out the pain stopped (took about 2 weeks)

[dariorpl]

What cured your stomach pains? I had that too for about 6-7 months and I realized it was from eating raw almonds. As soon as i cut them out the pain stopped (took about 2 weeks)

As time went by the stomach pains got less and less intense until they were gone by about the first month. And then on the second month I still had diarrhea, but less intense than the first month. It gradually went away. I wasn't eating anything special, and wasn't eating any raw animal products. It got to a point by the 6th week or so where I thought it was funny and ridiculous that this "detox" or salmonella poisonioing (didn't know what it was) just wouldn't go away. Everybody told me to go see a doctor, but I refused. After it was over, I felt recharged and it seemed like I felt better than I did prior to getting this issue. But I could be wrong. It still took me over a year after that to psyche myself into eating raw eggs or chicken.

[FRANCIS HOWARD BOND]

Such a pity to deny yourself a real treat like Raw Chicken and Raw Eggs because of all the scaremongering.    I have eaten lots of supermarket (poor quality??) Raw Chicken and found it delicious (perhaps I am a poor judge??) but without incident or discomfort.   Hope you continue to enjoy it - at your own pace!

[marcuspaleo]

Such a pity to deny yourself a real treat like Raw Chicken and Raw Eggs because of all the scaremongering.    I have eaten lots of supermarket (poor quality??) Raw Chicken and found it delicious (perhaps I am a poor judge??) but without incident or discomfort.   Hope you continue to enjoy it - at your own pace!

Thanks Francis, I will persist, but slowly. How long have you been eating raw chicken and can you give me any tips? I definitely feel better eating it, but im always concerned and stressed at the possibly of facing the next week vomiting. I just found these links expressing similar concerns:

rawpaleodietforum.com/primal-diet/food-poisoning-from-chicken/
rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/got-very-sick-off-eating-raw-chicken/

[FRANCIS HOWARD BOND]

REPLY:
Very sorry indeed that you are vomiting,  more usually a loose bowel results from Raw Chicken, and can last for some time.   Raw Chicken is difficult to manage, and not recommended for Newbies early on.   We do seem to develop a natural level of immunity through exposure to dirt and germs, but it may prove a long road.   Looking at the Raw Chicken salad in our Forum ‘3 meals: Sushi, Cod and Chicken’  should renew your enthusiasm for the Chicken!   By all means proceed at your own pace, because it is easy to become discouraged by repeated disappointments.

I ate Raw Chicken long before 1991 and Raw Meat and Raw Fish since 1978, so such food has made be ‘bomb proof’ to an extent.    We are never guaranteed a safe passage, however, and more extreme eating, such as I am trying now, has even more hazards – such is life!

Get the best available Raw Chicken, confine eating to the breasts, and try a little first to see how it settles down.
You can always put the remainder in the refrigerator to wait and see if this is the right moment to indulge to a greater extent.   Follow advice from more experienced members, particularly Tyler and Rawzi and let me know how you get on.   The Forum is here to support all its members, so make use of it, we are a friendly bunch.

[common_sense]

I have been eating raw chicken for about three months, each day 8 to 12 Oz, no problem. Salmonella can be found in ready to eat vegetable salad as well, it not possible to eliminate them entirely, below certain level it should not cause any problem, even at higher concentration, the only problem is a temporary diarrhea, like what happened  sometime if you eat in a not so clean restaurant. Of cause, if your immune system is compromised, it is different story. Though, I only eat frozen, organic chicken breast, eat immediately after thawing (I found it taste better when it is still very cold). Did not try fresh chicken at shelf, suspect that Salmonella or other bacterial may grow to higher level at higher temperature.   

[dariorpl]

I've only been eating raw organic fresh (never-frozen) chicken for 30 days. and I didn't have it every day, not even close, but I've had up to 1.5kg in a single day and 12kg in total from 4 different suppliers. I've eaten the meat, skin, cartilage, marrow and some bone and organs. Never had any major problems with them. And they taste amazing.

Also, over the past 100 days I've had 222 large organic chicken eggs from 5 different suppliers (and will soon try 2 more). The worst I had was some intense intestinal cramps and mild diarrhea that lasted 2-3 days. But I got it after mixing raw eggs with raw conventionally raised lean ground beef. After one night at room temperature, the top of the mixture turned a dark brownish black-purple color, sort of like century eggs. I don't know what it was that caused that. I then threw it away.

(yes, I keep a food log)

[jessica]

i have eaten the "organic" chicken from the grocery raw on many occasion with the only issue being it gets a little weird if its to wet as it gets old and makes my stomach feel a little loose?? but thats only happened a few times and my fault/learning curve for not knowing proper storage.  i wouldnt suggest eating those chickens though, raised on grains and also allowed growth hormones in some cases...