Do kitchen scissors that have cut cooked bacon pose a food safety risk?
March 7, 2015 9:34 AM   Subscribe

Help us settle a family dispute! If I cut cooked bacon with my kitchen scissors, do they pose a food safety risk if I don't wash them and just put them back in the knife block?
posted by banjonaut to Food & Drink (31 answers total)
 
I would say that if you use a knife or scissors on almost any food, cooked or not, they are a safety risk if you don't wash them. I think that would go double for meat...

I mean, I'd feel fine using them an hour later, but the next day? No.
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:38 AM on March 7, 2015 [29 favorites]


Fat left on the scissors could grow bacteria. Cooked bacon or not, please wash them.
posted by cecic at 9:40 AM on March 7, 2015 [18 favorites]


Doesn't that leave the scissors with bacon grease? Yes, wash them, please, I would hate to be the next person to use them.
posted by kellyblah at 9:44 AM on March 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


If you wouldn't put an unwashed knife back in the drawer, why would scissors be different?
posted by sageleaf at 9:44 AM on March 7, 2015 [9 favorites]


I just googled a bunch about bacterial growth on bacon fat, and couldn't find anything official enough to link; but the vast majority of people agree to store bacon fat in the fridge because all fats will go rancid at some point.
posted by Juliet Banana at 9:44 AM on March 7, 2015


YES THEY DO. Why would you do that. I would go insane if someone in my household was doing that. GROSS.
posted by instead of three wishes at 9:48 AM on March 7, 2015 [58 favorites]


Here's the USDA on how you should store various types of bacon, and for how long. Now, it's true they don't include "greasy scissors" on their table, but then again none of the recommendations for storage are "leave it in your knife block at room temperature until you finally feel like washing off the scissors."
posted by Juliet Banana at 9:48 AM on March 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


What! Gross, clean your tools!
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:50 AM on March 7, 2015 [12 favorites]


Yes. Of course it's a problem. Consider an unwashed plate. What's the difference?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:51 AM on March 7, 2015


Well, yeah. They'll definitely have bacon fat/residue on them, and next time you go to cut something else with those scissors (tomorrow? next week?) there will be unrefrigerated, possibly-rancid meat residue on your scissors.

Also, said fat is going to drip down the scissors into your knife block, creating a veritable food safety time bomb in the scissor slot. So even if you washed the scissors next time, you're going to be putting them away in rancid bacon fat, which at room temp is surely a luxurious home for all kinds of bacteria. Wash your scissors.
posted by snorkmaiden at 9:56 AM on March 7, 2015 [9 favorites]


I'd be so grossed out at what the knife block interior is looking like. You can't easily clean a knife block and most never do. Your introducing a lovely mess into the scissor slot and not only will that residual fat go rancid, but some kind of bacteria could get a foothold in that mess and re contaminate your scissors even when they're put in clean.

Wash your tools. This isn't harmless and it's gross.
posted by quince at 9:58 AM on March 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


Response by poster: Thank you. My husband was angry that I stopped him from putting the scissors back. I know he and I have very different definitions of a clean house, but I thought I should get a sanity check. Scissors are in the sink about to be washed!
Edit: fortunately we can wash our knife block.
posted by banjonaut at 10:00 AM on March 7, 2015 [8 favorites]


Dispose of the knife block. Keep the husband.
posted by myselfasme at 10:13 AM on March 7, 2015 [11 favorites]


You can (and should) sanitize the knife block by briefly submerging it (or spraying it down) in a solution of water and bleach.

Who knows what else is lurking in that knife block now that we know what your husband's habits are when no one else is looking ;))
posted by jbenben at 10:42 AM on March 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


If I cut with my scissors these things: this is what I do::

Uncooked meat: really wash
Cooked meat or anything else with fat: wash
vegetables: rinse and dry
anything sweet, including fruit: remove bits, hot water rinse and dry.

In a nutshell, if everything's water-soluble, a rinse is probably enough. If there's fat at stake, you need soap. If there's germs at stake, you need soap and hot water.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:07 AM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Ew! Yes, clean them - why would kitchen scissors be different than any other dish/cooking tool?
posted by augustimagination at 11:19 AM on March 7, 2015


Yeah, both gross and something that should be cleaned. If the bacon grease was the equivalent of properly rendered lard, it's something that could be stored at room temperature, but I'm not sure that you can consider those equivalent.

(Though that's a completely different thing from the environment inside the knife block. I actually bleach my kitchen shears, too, and try to work it into the joint between the blades where I can't scrub.)

In search of a more definitive answer which I thought might be out there somewhere because applying oil or grease to blades for corrosion resistance is a thing, I came across this interesting book excerpt (PDF) entitled "Corrosion in the Food Industry and Its Control" but it doesn't mention blades being protected from corrosion this way in food-processing machinery.
posted by XMLicious at 11:59 AM on March 7, 2015


Totally gross but its almost certainly not a food safety issue. Lard is basically shelf stable if the moisture is low enough and the bacon fat is also cured, salted AMD smoked.
posted by JPD at 1:35 PM on March 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


Unless it's uncured bacon, which is increasingly common.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:37 PM on March 7, 2015


Agree with JPD. The issue isn't really food safety. It's just whether you want grease in your knife block. Any bacon fat that gets in there will go rancid in a few months time and maybe make other stuff stick but cooked bacon fat itself will be harmless. We live in germ phobic times.
posted by stellathon at 2:10 PM on March 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


I have a few pairs of regular scissors that I use in the kitchen and then put in the dishwasher and replace when they break from regular dish washer use. Surely there are sturdier kitchen scissors out there too that might be worth looking into. I enjoy having a few pairs in case one is already in the dishwasher just like my other favorites like spatulas, flippers, whisks, knives.
posted by RoadScholar at 2:46 PM on March 7, 2015


Totally gross but its almost certainly not a food safety issue. Lard is basically shelf stable if the moisture is low enough and the bacon fat is also cured, salted AMD smoked.

Bacon isn't just bacon fat, it's thinly sliced pork belly. The same bacteria that grow on bacon left in the fridge too long will grow on any residue on the scissors or knife block. It may not be much, but transfer that crop of bacteria back to any newer bacon (or anything else) when cutting and you have a bunch of bacteria with a new source of food. Lard is safe to keep at room temperature for much longer without an issue because it has been rendered and filtered, meaning it has been heated and held at a point where bacteria is killed, and water and protein are removed. It's not a hospitable place for anything to grow afterwards, though it will still eventually oxidize and get rancid. Even cured, smoked, salted bacon still has water in it, and protein, and sugars, and with some oxygen plenty of stuff will happily grow on it. You can't compare it to lard.
posted by oneirodynia at 3:18 PM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Lard is basically shelf stable if the moisture is low enough and the bacon fat is also cured, salted AMD smoked.

Just for the record we should note that for the U.S., the USDA "Bacon and Food Safety" page Juliet Banana linked to above says that bacon doesn't actually have to be smoked.

It also seems to attribute the same possibilities for bacteria and parasites to be present in undercooked bacon as those which would be in undercooked pork.
posted by XMLicious at 3:54 PM on March 7, 2015


Even if it isn't smoked or cured he's using them to cut crispy cooked bacon.

But the vast vast vast majority of american bacon is smoked and cured. Not to mention uncured bacon isn't something any person would call bacon. Its belly.
posted by JPD at 4:52 PM on March 7, 2015


Yeah, I find it extremely annoying that what's just raw pork belly is labeled as "uncured bacon" in supermarkets.

Even if it isn't smoked or cured he's using them to cut crispy cooked bacon.

Just try saying that again when the Trichinella larvae burst out of their cysts and burrow into the speech centers of your brain!

Only kidding, I agree that if it's not undercooked then the dangers of undercooked pork do not apply.
posted by XMLicious at 5:11 PM on March 7, 2015


I would say that bacteria isn't much of an issue. However, this is how you get ants. Having food smeared all over your kitchen is an invitation for an insect infestation which is a big health issue. I've been in a kitchen infested with roaches, it was one of the grossest experiences of my life.
posted by Foam Pants at 7:38 PM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Food particles, meat in particular, at an unsafe temperature for more than four hours - and then using it on more food?

From a food safety standpoint, that'd be "shut down the restaurant until people get their head outta their @@@" behavior.
posted by stormyteal at 9:23 PM on March 7, 2015


I feel bad enough for your husband that I'll confess: before I got to the "knife block" part, I was on his side. Definitely wash them to avoid getting grease on other things, but honestly if my life called for dedicated cooked-bacon-cutting-scissors that were stored in isolation, I doubt I'd ever do more than wipe off the crispy bits with a paper towel.

This does assume the bacon is for personal consumption; I don't feel that living my life in accordance to all possible food safety standards adds a lot of value, but would not subject others to this philosophy without explicit consent.
posted by teremala at 11:06 PM on March 7, 2015


Even if it isn't smoked or cured he's using them to cut crispy cooked bacon.

Cooked food can still spoil. Especially if it's sitting in a dark environment that is probably moist--few people dry their knives (and scissors) fully before putting them back into a knife block.

(this is why I use a magnetic knife strip)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:08 AM on March 8, 2015


an invitation for an insect infestation which is a big health issue.

This is the real problem, I think. If you pulled out dirty scissors (or any kitchen thing) you'd at least be able to clean it before it was used again.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:22 AM on March 8, 2015


Response by poster: Thank you everyone! I'm no neat freak, but in the kitchen, I default to washing in hot soapy water anything that touches food (much to the detriment of my hands). Just to allay fears for our health, everything is now thoroughly clean, even the knife block insert can run through the dishwasher. My awesome husband has been helping me because I've been off my feet after surgery, and is not usually the chef. The truth is, I partly wanted to be right, and I wanted to be safe, and wanted to explain well why I needed those scissors washed. You've helped me!
posted by banjonaut at 8:59 AM on March 10, 2015


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