As part of National Chicken Month, the National Chicken Council (NCC) invites you to keep watch for in-store promotions and online contests, recipes, fun facts and more. The average American will consume about 83 pounds of chicken this year. NCC encourages people this month: "Don’t be average."

Follow us on Twitter (@ChickenFTW, @RoostSocial, @chickencouncil) and Facebook (The Chicken Roost, Chicken) for games, giveaways and tasty tailgating tips. Our Pinterest page will feature recipes and ideas for all your chicken meals and include specific ideas for including chicken when packing a school lunch.

NCC will also be celebrating National Chicken Month with a "Chicken a Day." NCC will share a #chickenaday for each of the 30 days of September to reflect on all of the joy brought to people from America’s favorite protein. Whether it’s your favorite chicken dish, a stuffed animal, a t-shirt or something else entirely, any picture that’s your "Chicken a Day" can be shared.

When fans use the hashtag #ChickenADay they’ll automatically be entered into a sweepstakes to win $500, enough for one free chicken meal per week for a year – through either a gift card to a local grocery store or to a local chicken chain restaurant. The winner will be chosen randomly from the pool of entrants and contacted to claim their prize.

As part of National Food Safety Education Month, NCC is joining with the Partnership for Food Safety Education (PFSE) to bring safe food handling and cooking practices to the forefront of consumers’ minds.

According to new research from the University of California, Davis, many consumers do not follow recommended food safety practices in preparing their own meals at home. Among the findings:

• Most participants, 65 per cent, did not wash their hands before starting meal preparation and 38 per cent did not wash their hands after touching raw chicken.
  
  
• Nearly 50 per cent of participants were observed washing their chicken in the sink prior to preparation, a practice that is not recommended as it leads to spreading bacteria over multiple surfaces in the kitchen.
  
  
• Forty per cent of participants undercooked their chicken, regardless of preparation method and only 29 per cent knew the correct USDA recommended temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
  
  
• Researchers observed that cooking thermometers were not widely used, with only 48 per cent of participants owning one.

PFSE and NCC will also be participating in two Twitter chats on 25 September: "I Live Food Safety Month 365 Days a Year" and "Kanny Kitchen- Food Safety Basics for a Hectic Life." Follow @Fight_BAC to get all the details.