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Bazillions of pounds of ground turkey were recalled this week because a man died in California and scores more are puking up their guts and crapping blood. Dozens were killed in Germany by cute little sprouts and scores more had their kidneys destroyed. Fer cryin' out loud, both meat and veggies are dangerous! What is going on here? What can I eat?
Relax. You can eat anything you want. I'll get there in a minute with some solutions. But first, let's see
How Did Our Food Get So Nasty?
The air and soil all around us are teeming with microbes. Animal intestines are loaded with bacteria. Even yours. Your gut has thousands of different types of bugs happily munching along with you when you eat. Many are helpful. But a few are deadly. That's right, you can die from some foodborne pathogens.
Most of the bad guys are bacteria, although there are a few parasites and viruses that can get into our foods. The most unwanted dinner guests are Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Shigella, Listeria, Staph, Vibrio, and Clostridium botulinum. They cannot be seen or smelled. Although most of us can handle ingesting a few of these guys, choke down enough of them and even the healthiest of us will spend a few days crawling from bed to pray at the porcelain pulpit. Feed more than a few to Granny or Junior and it could be their last supper.
Think your chances of getting sick are slim? Ever had the "24-hour flu"? Well there's no such thing. Urban legend. What you probably had was food-borne illness. Probably caused by one of the rogues above. Or a hangover.
Animals can be contaminated by harmful microbes in the air, soil, or on their food. The bugs are there. They've probably always been there. But there are probably more of them nowadays because there are so many more people and pets and livestockt than ever before.
Water gets poisoned by runoff from livestock, birds, deer, mice, bunnies, pets, and even farmworkers. Mickey, Bambi, Bugs, and Tweety are like Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. They're "out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct."
Pets have nasty things in their systems too. As a result, contaminants are everywhere. On your sidewalks, on your shoes, on your floors. There's more of them on a football field than people in the whole world.
There's not much we can do to prevent animals and veggies from being adulterated. We can reduce the likelihood, but never eliminate it. We can do more to clean up the water supply. We can handle livestock waste better. We can reduce crowding in factory farms. We can change their diets. We can cut back on our meat consumption. We can improve the slaughter houses and butcher shops. We can hire more inspectors. We can lower the risk, but we can't eradicate it.
10:13 PM on 8/06/2011
I got a thermapen over a year ago, and it is awesome. Much better than the cheap ($10-ish) ones I had been using. Not trying to shill for them, but it has been worth the rather brutal cost…
Great article, Craig. I would only add a reminder to wash hands and prep surfaces lot, and always use clean plates and so forth for the cooked product. It’s always chilling to watch people handle raw food, and then contaminate a fridge or stove handle before lathering up. A quick wipe on a towel doesn’t cut it.
Then again, I tend to be a bit paranoid about this stuff.
08:04 PM on 8/10/2011
I get your point, but the fact is that nobody gets food borne illness from cheese food product, chicken nuggets, bologna, kool-aid, etc. In fact, all these contamination problems could drive people towards processed foods.
09:05 AM on 8/09/2011
Maybe if we start cooking our food instead of buying pre-cooked packaged crap and learn the right way we wouldn’t have to get sick from food. Poeple want a meal in a minute which makes cooking from scratch almost obsolete as no one wants to take the time. Sad .
09:10 AM on 8/09/2011
TUE 8/9/2011 – In my column above I warned that strawberries were especially susceptible to contamination and I tried to explain that contamination can come from wild animals including Bambi, Mickey, Bugs, and Tweetie.
Today I learned that Oregon has had an e-coli outbreak in strawberries likely caused by deer. At least one person has died. Here are the details:
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/08/epis-pinpoint-strawberries-in-or-e-coli-outbreak/
08:02 PM on 8/10/2011
Thank you soooooooooooo much.
12:49 PM on 8/10/2011
I absolutely adore the phrasing used in this piece… am a huge fan. To be totally honest, it’s all true.. well put, concisely thought out with variables, and chock full of info… as a Head Cook who cooks for 250 camp kids and staff per day, this all rings soooooooooooo true!
03:58 PM on 8/11/2011
To be fair, no thermometer is going to stop prions…
04:50 PM on 8/05/2011
Like I said, I’ve driven a car for 40 years and never been killed. That doesn’t mean it is safe. And the worst case of food poisoning I ever got was a famous bistro in Bordeaux. It’s Russian roulette unless you know the rules.
01:24 PM on 8/05/2011
I have eaten street food around the world cooked in less than sterile kitchens and never been sick from it.
The only time I got sick was from good old USA factory raised chicken.
04:48 PM on 8/05/2011
The topic was not about contamination. Antibiotics are a serious problem but another topic.
And good point on how a small bit of contamination can spread.
03:29 PM on 8/05/2011
No mention of how antibiotics in animal feed are increasingly resulting of the evolution of more and more dangerous antibiotic-resistant pathogenic bacteria? No mention of how factory meat processing can result in one episode of contamination being spread to millions of pounds of meat that can be shipped to all 50 states before the contamination is discovered?
07:40 PM on 8/05/2011
I hadn’t thought about the tenderizing of a piece of meat. When I marinate London Broil, I poke it with my fork to get the marinade inside…what a bad idea. I"ll stop it immediately.
04:47 PM on 8/05/2011
Good point on the needle tenderizing! It is a dangerous practice! But I have several thermocouples from US and China and they are all pretty close.
03:31 PM on 8/05/2011
Really great article, especially the suggestion to cook your meat, especially ground meat, sous vide for long enough to pasteurize it, but not at such a high temperature as to ruin it.
You should also be aware that many meat processing companies are poking holes in the meat with a tool that is similar to a Jaccard, in order to tenderize it. Unfortunately, just like grinding meat, this has the real risk of driving bacteria into the once presumably sterile muscle. Regrettably, there is no requirement to label such meat, as opposed to the standard in Europe.
So no, it doesn’t need to be cremated, like the standards used to call for, but most meat does need to be pasteurized in accordance with the table you provided.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure that I share your optimism regarding the accuracy of digital thermometers, especially those coming from China. I’ve tested about 15 different brands, and found some that were right on, and others that were way off, despite claiming 0.1F accuracy.
My suggestion is to buy an inexpensive analog (non-mercury) basal or ovulation thermometer, such as the Geratherm from Germany, or even two of three if you really want to be sure. They only cost about $13, and in my tests were accurate to within 0.05F, compared to a NIST-certified reference thermometer. Then use that thermometer and a water bath to calibrate your working thermometer.
05:41 PM on 8/05/2011
I cut the meat in half when I think it’s ready and verity the center has heated up is is not red.
05:39 PM on 8/05/2011
My teeth need the exercise, and the juice is mostly fat.
You should be able to calculate the internal temperature is you have an accurate measure of the actual temperature of the oven and the surface of the steak.
I prefer to steam the meat, since is better insures complete heating.
04:45 PM on 8/05/2011
IR themometer measure the surface temp. You need a probe to measure the interior temp! Very important diff! Yes, we must learn to enjoy ground meat well done, but there is no need to eat a steak well done. Food scientists say it is optimum tenderness and juiciness at about 135-145, and there is no risk.
08:25 PM on 8/05/2011
Some thoughts about well done: Food scientists have proven that when cooked to about 135F to 145F with a good digital thermometer in the "geometric center", that’s medium-rare to medium, steaks are juiciest and most tender (they have gizmos that measure shear force and moisture). When cooked to well done, much of the juices are gone and the proteins seize up and get their undies in a bunch. They get significantly tougher and less tasty.
04:14 PM on 8/05/2011
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
03:58 PM on 8/05/2011
I would suggest the IR thermometers so you can check the temperature at different points in the oven without even touching it.
Steaming meat works very well. It’s as easy as putting a glass cover over the plate when you microwave it.
Learn to enjoy meat well done.
05:24 PM on 8/05/2011
Gastreoenteritis is very real! But it is not the flu. And most gastroenteritis is food-borne illness. Noro is something else altogether. But not the flu.
04:56 PM on 8/05/2011
I got food poisoning from undercooked chicken at a "gourmet" restaurant–now I’m careful how I cook meat at home.
On the other hand, it’s going to come as a surprise to the CDC that non-(or, more precisely, not-always-)foodborne viral gastroenteritis (the "stomach flu") does not exist; particularly Norovirus. That stuff is contagious as all get-out even when there’s no food related transmission, and cruise ships and institutions have a real problem getting rid of it.
05:23 PM on 8/05/2011
I swear by ThermoWorks digital pocket thermometer. $25 is a small price to pay for peace of mind (and perfect medium rare steaks everytime!)
05:23 PM on 8/05/2011
You’ve done it once again. Great article. Informative, entertaining and easy to understand.
I’ve downloaded the pdf. I’ll skip the sou vide, but I will be buying a digital thermometer. It’s time. I’ve got the old fashioned one but it’s time to go digital. Probably a lot more accurate too.
08:57 AM on 8/06/2011
I have a fairly sensitive system in that if I eat something that’s a little off, my system lets me know in short order and generally goes through me pretty quickly. So it probably was the steak sandwich.
07:08 PM on 8/05/2011
It is possible that the steak sammy did you in, but usually it takes more time than this.
05:24 PM on 8/05/2011
Worst food poisoning, Went to a bar and grill in NYC by Washington Square and ordered a steak sandwich. Then got on a plane to LA. It hit me an hour into the flight. I’ll never forget it. Thought I was going to die. I was only 15 at the time so I hate to think what would have happened now. The funny thing was I was fine by the time I landed.
06:37 PM on 8/05/2011
Meathead, it’s great to read yet another informative article by you! I have a ThermoWorks digital thermometer you recommended some time earlier this year. I haven’t had any food born illness since then and I grill a lot and like my steaks Med.rare. Burgers on the other hand I cook to the med. well side. Thanks again, Dave
07:15 PM on 8/05/2011
Worst food poisoning...shigella in 1980. I got it from airplane food that I served to others…yikes. I was out for nearly 4 months and my fellow flight attendant ended in intensive care. The difference…I lived in San Francisco and she lived in small town Oregon. I was crawling on the floor in delirium when my husband got home from a trip…about 3 or 4 hours after my first symptoms. As someone who travelled a lot , I’ve had a few bad ones since then but nothing like that. Thanks for a very informative article.
07:26 PM on 8/05/2011
Traveled to Ireland in April and got sick twice. The second time, my husband and I both had ordered the same thing. No fun for me.