Is it OK to marinate chicken and pork together?

Question

I just want to minimize dishes taken to a BBQ--marinating pork chops in a lemon/herb/olive-oil baste along with some chicken skewers. Is there anything to worry about with trichonosis when preparing pork in same dish with other meats at room temperature? I can't imagine it's a problem, but you never know...

Answer

Don't worry about the pork contaminating the chicken, but rather vice versa. A good rule of thumb with chicken is to treat it as a biohazardius contaminant. Because it is. Salmonella is present IN chicken meat, unlike other meats where you will only find microbes on the surface. Your marinade doesn't seem particularly inhospitable to pathogen growth, so cross contamination would be a nontrivial concern. OK, if you overcook your pork chops as some insist on doing, it shouldn't be much of a concern. However, may as well be safe and split the marinade between two ziploc bags. It's a small effort to mitigate risk.

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