Recently, the dangers of Salmonella, in particular from eating chicken, have been mentioned so much on TV that you would expect incidences of infection to have reduced to almost zero. Sadly this is not what has happened. For people who eat chicken, the risks of getting ill or worse are far higher than they should be, and hospitals still treat thousands of victims every year.

Better understanding of Salmonella will help chicken consumers eliminate the dangers and avoid infection.

So what is Salmonella?

Put simply, it is a type of food poisoning which is caused by a bacterium that lives in people, poultry and other animals.

For those who get salmonella, the symptoms include feverishness, diarrhoea, being physically sick (ie vomiting) and strong stomach cramps. This may start within a few hours after eating the problem food and can last up to 3 days. Normally, people make a full recovery after a few days rest, but in some cases, it can become worse, requiring hospitalisation and in a few cases, it can even prove to be fatal.

Reducing the Risks of Salmonella

The advice given to those who are cooking with chicken is :

• Clean your hands AND the chicken before before cooking.

Salmonella can be present on your hands and also on the hands of anyone else how has touched the chicken. Washing thoroughly reduces the risks.

• Keep uncooked chicken away from anything on the kitchen counter.

When preparing a chicken meal, cross contamination is a major hazard. To reduce the risk, do not use the same cutting utensils for uncooked chicken as is used for cutting vegetables. Also, use one cutting board for the chicken and another fo the vegetables.

If you follow these precautions, cooking with chicken is perfectly safe and has benefits fro your general health,

Assuming you are now feeling a little more upbeat about purchasing and cooking chicken, here are a few other things to consider to make your chicken meals more healthy and tasty.

Nowadays there are many benefits to purchasing 'free-range' chickens or even totally organic chickens. Even the high street grocery stores are starting to sell 'organic' or 'free-range' chicken, so gettiing hold of it is easier than ever. This is a good thing because many of us are unhappy that the larger chicken farms are just trying to make more money and not looking out for the health and wellbeing of their poultry, or the end consumers. The name, 'free-range' is usually better known by those seeking to have a healthier eating lifestyle - it needs the chickens to have access to the open air and be allowed to wander around and eat naturally instead of being restricted to a small pen, or crammed into a barn with thousands of others. Free range chickens live a happier and stress free life, and this results in a taster meat, and a cleaner conscience for the consumer.

Organic chickens, which may also be 'free range', have the extra restriction that they are not subjected to antibiotics, hormones, herbicides or pesticides. Many people think that both Free-range and organice chickens taste better and are juicier.

Did you know that organic chicken breasts only have 10 fat calories, 110 thigh calories and a whole chicken only has 130 calories?

If you are trying to lose weight, that has to be worth knowing, right?

If you are an athlete or body builder and are concerned about protein, free-range chicken breasts have 22 grams, thighs have 19 grams and the whole chicken has 21 grams - all of that from a meat that is really tasty!