Cooking raw chicken isnt for the faint of heart. Poultry recalls are a common occurrence these days, as chicken can carry bacteria like salmonella and campylobacter that can play some nasty tricks on our digestive systems (or worse, kill us). Cooking chicken also presents the unpleasant reality of dealing with a dead bird. A pale, slimy, dismembered bird.

And yet, Americans ate an estimated record 93 pounds of chicken per person in 2018.

Since so many home cooks turn to chicken as a weeknight staple, lets ease the fears we have about handling raw chicken. We gathered some of the most-asked questions and sought answers from a trusted expert: the United States Department of Agriculture. We talked to Adam Ghering, a public affairs specialist at the USDA. While he now works in consumer education, he began his career in a chicken slaughter facility, so he knows a thing or two about handling poultry.