Kerre Woodham: Don't put a freeze on fresh chicken

I've always thought of chickens as harmless, inoffensive things. Fluffy little cuties when alive, tasty and nutritious when dead.

But apparently, if the doomsayers from Otago University are to be believed, chickens have been the Trojan horse of the bacteria world. The researchers have called for the sale of fresh chicken to be banned as the succulent little birds are crawling with campylobacter.

Ninety per cent of fresh chicken sold is infected with campylobacter and the researchers say that when you combine that fact with poor food handling practices, you have a recipe for disaster.

Our campylobacter infection rate is three times that of Australia and 30 times that of the United States.

The scientists want immediate regulations introduced that would only allow the sale of frozen chicken - frozen chicken's OK apparently because the freezing process kills off most of the greeblies on the chooks. Certainly from what people have been telling me on the radio this week, a bout of campylobacter food poisoning sounds dreadful. The common theme is that people want to die. The stomach cramping and the nausea is such that many are hospitalised and they all told me that they would have been quite happy to have been discharged in a pine box rather than spend another day writhing in agony.

I'm touching wood the whole time I write this, (which makes typing very tricky), but I've never had food poisoning. Some of us must have cast-iron stomachs. I was fully prepared to get food poisoning in Cambodia, but I'm the only person I know who can go to a third world country, eat from food stalls for damn near a month, and gain weight.

Anyway, from what the Otago Uni researchers and the Food Safety Authority spokespeople are saying, it appears I have a greater chance of catching campylobacter in my own kitchen rather than Cambodia, but so far, so good. It must just be the luck of the draw as to whether or not the chicken you pick is the one marked with the X, or else there may be some people more susceptible to bacteria.

Surely, though, we don't need more regulation. If the chickens need a little chlorine wash before they go on sale, give it to them. If people need to be educated about correct food handling procedures, bring back compulsory home economics for a couple of years at intermediate. If dodgy cafes and restaurants need to be shut down because they are distribution centres for disease, shut them down. And besides, it's not just the chooks who are the harbingers of horrific bugs.

What about all the poor buggers in the flash seats at Eden Park, crippled with food poisoning from the norovirus after someone at the catering company decided to pass off manky Korean oysters as the good, honest Clevedon variety?

The word from the street is that coleslaw is also something to steer clear of, and I can remember from my Fair Go days, a million years ago, that custard squares were considered veritable camping grounds for bacteria.

Is nothing safe? I love food. I love preparing meals to share with my friends and family. I love the whole process of cooking, and I love eating. It's an enjoyable pastime and means much more to people than merely the consumption of energy units to fuel our bodies.

I will continue to eat chicken and I will continue to enjoy it because I fear the day is coming when we will all receive a little pill containing the nutrients we need particular to our height, body types and occupations.

That will surely solve the problem of obesity, poor nutrition and food poisoning, but I, for one, would rather live dangerously.