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tangential_quip t1_itvqzhi wrote

This just invites more questions. What could the cooked chicken possibly be infected with? And why would you ever let cooked chicken come in contact with raw chicken? You are definitely looking the wrong way about contamination.

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Queen_of_Crows0 OP t1_itvr47i wrote

So... that's a no?

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CoralPilkington t1_itvr9df wrote

It means your question doesn't make any sense.

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gimperfied1 t1_itvrche wrote

Generally the act of cooking it destroys any bad bacteria that could contaminate it to begin with... Assuming you've cooked it thoroughly that is.

You're much more likely to infect cooked with raw

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Phage0070 t1_itvta0e wrote

Foods usually "go bad" because of the action of tiny organisms called "bacteria". These bacteria eat the food and poop out waste which can be toxic to humans. Bacteria also reproduce very quickly so even a few hours in the right conditions for their growth can result in dangerously spoiled food.

Cooking usually kills all the bacteria but it won't get rid of the poisonous poo, which is why you can't make spoiled food safe just by cooking it.

Raw chicken is dangerous because it can contain live salmonella bacteria which can make humans sick. Cooking the chicken kills the bacteria so they can't infect people, but allowing raw chicken to contaminate cooked items will result in people eating raw chicken and potentially live salmonella, which would be bad.

Cooked chicken on the other hand is safe to eat though so the raw chicken isn't going to be contaminated by touching it. Of course cooked chicken isn't safe forever so if the cooked chicken has had time to spoil then it can have a bunch of poison bacteria poo in it. There could also be a larger population of bacteria on the spoiled cooked chicken than initially on the raw chicken, reducing the time before the raw chicken spoils itself.

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Ippus_21 t1_itvub7t wrote

The whole point of cooking chicken is to kill off pathogenic bacteria.

There's literally no way properly-cooked chicken could "infect" raw chicken.

You can definitely get germs on already-cooked chicken, though, especially if you leave raw chicken/chicken juice on surfaces in your kitchen and cross-contaminate the cooked food. And since it's already warm (presumably cooling down from its cooking temp once it's off the heat) and not likely to be re-cooked to a high enough temp, any pathogens can reproduce quickly to toxic levels if you leave it out... someone could get sick from eating the cooked chicken. That's why you're supposed to quickly refrigerate leftovers of high-risk foods like meat - to inhibit pathogen growth.

You could conduct an experiment:

  1. Take two boneless chicken breasts of equal weight and thickness.
  2. Cook one to the recommended internal temp of 165F.
  3. Put them both in ziploc bags and immerse in a tepid water bath for ~15 min to bring their internal temps close.
  4. Leave the sealed bags on the counter, checking for bad smells, etc, every day until one of them goes bad.
  5. If you have nerdy friends with a biology lab, you could even see what kind of microbes they can culture/identify from the samples.
  6. Throw them BOTH in the trash when you're done. This shouldn't have to be said, but the way you asked that question...
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Flair_Helper t1_itvygnh wrote

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