Posted: July 23rd, 2009 - 2:37pm by Megan Hardigree

Gwyneth Paltrow has an interesting life.  She’s in movies, is married to a musician, names her first born after fruit, talks about bowel movements on T.V., and has celebrity chefs as friends. And to add to her list of accomplishments, she made an online video (posted below) about cooking.

She is preparing roasted chicken and potatoes and a summer salad. I am aware of Hollywood magic and editing film, but there are several times where hands and utensils touch raw chicken and then touch other things. That is called cross-contamination.

Cross-contamination is how people get sick (there may be unknown pathogens in or on foods we eat). Washing hands before cooking and after touching raw chicken is essential. However, we must remember to consider what else has touched the chicken (the knife and cutting board) and what our hands touch if we don’t wash after touching raw meat (the pepper mill, fresh herbs, knife, kitchen shears, etc.). And once you think chicken is done cooking, use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to make sure it is cooked to the proper 165°F.

Besides the handwashing errors, it was pretty annoying how she called every type of item from the farmers market as beautiful or gorg.