The Surprising Food Spotted Riding Around An Airport Baggage Carousel
The world grew a little bit more surreal on August 23 when the TSA shared a video from Seattle on Instagram that featured a cube of raw, skinned chicken wings and thighs traveling along on the baggage carousel. "There is a personal fowl on the carousel," they wrote in the caption of the bizarre clip before explaining that the chicken pieces likely fell out of their casing somewhere between the unloading of the plane and the loading of the carousel.
Apart from the sight of a cube of chicken at baggage claim, the actual shipping of raw chicken is not too unusual. On their website, the TSA states that meat, seafood, and other non-liquid foods can be brought either as checked or carry-on luggage. However, if there is ice, it must be completely frozen. Otherwise, the melted ice will be treated as any other liquid and not allowed on the flight.
In a statement to Newsweek, a spokesperson addressed the chicken sighting. "Our understanding is that it fell out of a cooler behind the block of chicken (and you can see the chicken is still in cooler shape)," they explained. "Our guess is that the owner did not think about the lid coming open and did not tape it securely enough."
What to do if a cube of raw chicken makes contact with your luggage
Considering how strange of a sight it is to see video footage of the traveling chicken cube, via social media, it was surely even more out of the ordinary for those present when the chicken was first spotted. So, what should you do if you ever happen to be confronted with raw chicken while collecting your bags? Well, understandably, it is imperative that you clean your luggage as soon as possible.
The USDA explains that when you are cooking chicken at home, you even have to sanitize the sink, lest the raw flesh spreads salmonella into your kitchen. The same goes for your suitcases, which could have collided with the chicken amid the hustle and bustle of the airport. To eliminate the polluting presence, you should clean every surface with warm, soapy water. Next, you should wipe down each surface and proceed to sanitize the item with either a commercial product or homemade concoction made with chlorine bleach and water.
Nothing, however, can quite sanitize your memory of seeing random meat passing by without explanation.