Whole Foods sucks at food safety. And if they are going to recycle recipes, I’m going to recycle criticism.

With the July 4 holiday on the way, Whole Foods is once again promoting its recipe for the self-proclaimed perfect burger, which says,

“Grill meat to desired doneness; about 4 to 6 minutes per side over a medium hot fire. Be careful not to overcook, which will dry out the meat. If you're a cheeseburger fan, add the cheese as soon as you flip to the second side.”

This is nonsense. Color is a lousy indicator of food safety and I guess “desired doneness” is about freedom of choice. But if you don’t want to make your kids or guests barf, use a tip-sensitive digital meat thermometer, and stick it in.
 

Food porn was on the menu last night as the new season of Top Chef kicked off. That’s me watching for about 30 seconds (right, not exactly as shown).

Earlier in the day I got a press release about the Grilled Australian Lamb Burger with Brie Cheese, Cranberry Compote and Roasted Jalapeno Aioli, “America’s new favorite upscale burger” created by Anthony Jacquet, executive chef of The Whisper Lounge in L.A. (left, exactly as shown).

The burger won the “Make Australian Lamb America’s New Favorite Burger” contest, sponsored by Plate Magazine and Meat & Livestock Australia.

The cooking constructions state:

To prepare burgers, place patties on hot grill. Cook for 2 minutes and then turn a quarter turn and cook for another 2 minutes. Flip burger and cook another 2 minutes. Turn a quarter turn and cook another 2 minutes. Add brie cheese and cover with a stainless steel mixing bowl for another minute. Pull burgers off of grill and let rest. They should be medium rare.

I don’t know what medium rare is. If Australia wants to increase consumption of lamb burgers, require clear cooking instructions, like using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to ensure the burger reaches 160F so people won’t barf and consumption of lamb doesn’t plummet.

Susan Burton of Slate Magazine required almost 2,000 words yesterday to say she likes meat – well-done – and that she hates the food thermometer.

I honed in on the modern American history of doneness, in large part because it can be tracked precisely—thanks to the meat thermometer. This early-20th-century invention brought about a giant cultural shift: the reliance on a gadget—rather than instinct, or experience—to assess our meat. The thermometer was promoted to home cooks as a tool of scientific precision. It was also an instrument of relaxation, something that freed you from worrying about misjudging the meat: "A roast thermometer makes for carefree roasting," advised the 1959 edition of Fannie Farmer's famous tome. By midcentury, temperature measurements were a common feature of cookbooks.

Our standards for doneness changed rapidly when, thanks to Claiborne, Julia Child, and others, we discovered, and began to venerate, cooking methods that originated abroad. Once American palates adjusted to the European style of underdone meat, guidelines fell even further. (Child's leg of lamb: rare at 140 in 1961; 125 in 1979.) Times writer Florence Fabricant took note of this development in a 1982 article called "A Trend Toward 'Less Well Done.' " Fabricant called overcooking "a tradition in this country" and attributed the change to the influence of "Oriental" and "French nouvelle" cuisines. She also connected the trend to the then-new vogues for crisp-tender vegetables and for raw foods, like sushi. But eating rare meat wasn't simply a matter of evolving taste. It was a means of signaling something about yourself, an ethos. When Fabricant's article was published, serving your guests rare meat showed you were sophisticated.

These days, it shows you're cool. (Look no further than the title of Bourdain's forthcoming bad-ass memoir: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook.)

Somehow, author Burton manages to simultaneously trash the precision of a meat thermometer and propagate food safety myths about so-called factory farming.

She’s so cool, she likes food well-done and doesn’t need a thermometer.

I’ll continue to stick it in.

Many countries have a Food Safety Week or Month, which seem primarily designed to circulate bad information and blame consumers for getting sick.

The U.K. celebrates Food Safety Week 2010 from June 7-13 (I can hear the monster truck radio promo dude doing the voice-over for the commercials – ‘experience the thunder, Food Safety Week 2010 will rock your world’).

This year, the focus is on Campylobacter, which, at 55,000 reported cases annually, causes the greatest number of foodborne illnesses in the UK. The key messages for this year’s campaign are to cook thoroughly and avoid cross-contamination.

The communication types at the Food Standards Agency (FSA) have come up with a draft press release that local councils could use to promote the good deeds of Food Safety Week (or in bureau-speak, FSW!) entitled, Take simple steps to avoid food poisoning.

If avoiding food poisoning was so simple, why do so many people get sick?

“People should not worry unduly about food poisoning; there are some simple common sense steps people can take to avoid getting ill. Just storing, handling and cooking food properly will minimise the risk.”

Can I duly worry about barfing from the food I eat?

Bob Martin, a food safety expert at the FSA, said,

“Proper cooking will kill food bugs. It's especially important to make sure poultry, pork, burgers and sausages are cooked all the way through. If there's any pink meat or the juices have any pink or red in them, germs could be lurking! Check your food is steaming hot all the way through before serving.”

These are not recommendations for proper cooking; these are recommendations for food safety failures. Is steaming hot an improvement on piping hot? How do I check if food is steaming hot, won’t I burn something? Do hamburgers and chicken legs steam when they are cooked? Is color really the best way to tell if food is cooked? Why do bureaucrats have to excessively use exclamation marks?

As part of the interactive learning section, the British feds ask,

Q4. How can you tell that chicken is properly cooked? (Tick all that apply.)

1. It’s hot on the outside
2. It’s not pink
3. The juices run clear
4. After the time stated on the instructions
5. It’s golden brown
6. It’s steaming hot all the way through

A. It’s not pink, the juices run clear and it’s steaming hot all the way through, 2,3, and 6.

To ensure chicken is properly cooked, you should check the thickest bit of meat, either large pieces in something like a curry, or with a roast bird at the thickest part between the breast and leg. The meat should be steaming hot, with no pinkness and any juices should run clear.

Check it with your eyes? Your finger? Your tongue? How about, check it with a tip-sensitive digital thermometer because color is a lousy indicator for food safety.

“During 2010, the Agency will be developing a new campylobacter risk management programme. Although this new programme is expected to involve extensive work with industry to reduce the prevalence of campylobacter in UK-produced retail chicken, the promotion of messages about good food hygiene to consumers through initiatives such as Food Safety Week will remain an important factor in reducing human campylobacter infections.”

There is no evidence such information programs do anything but lower the credibility of a supposedly science- or evidence-based agency.

On this Memorial Day, which can be traced back to Decoration Day at the end of the American civil war, stick with some of the cooking advice from the Americans and Canadians – use a tip-sensitive thermometer and stick it in.

Stories abound about meat.

It’s the Thursday morning before the long-weekend carnivorous orgy known as Memorial Day, so of course there are media accounts of meat: USA Today describes the problems of farmers who rely on small, family-owned slaughterhouses inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; the N.Y. Times weighs in about non-O157 Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (note – there are a lot of other STEC than just six).

Others will cover those details.

The run-up to Memorial Day also has another tradition – bad food safety advice, often from N.Y. Times food columnist Mark Bittman, and boring food safety advice, usually from government and all the clones that mindlessly repeat banalities.

I noticed three years ago while travelling by train through France when Bittman wrote,

"… well-done meat is dry and flavorless, which is why burgers should be rare, or at most medium rare. The only sensible solution: Grind your own. You will know the cut, you can see the fat and you have some notion of its quality."

He must have those super space-aged goggles like Scott on Imagination Movers that allow him to see the dangerous bugs.

Yesterday, Bittman penned his annual homage to the burger in all its rare and microbiologically-challenged glory. Play along at home, and see how many instances of microbiological cross-contamination you can spot in the video available here.

And the only way to determine if any food has been safely cooked is to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. Color or time are lousy indicators of doneness. Or, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture says,

“1 out of every 4 hamburgers turns brown in the middle before it has reached a safe internal temperature. The only way to be sure food is safely cooked is to use a food thermometer to measure the internal temperature.”

And the snappy USDA slogan -- It’s Safe to Bite When the Temperature’s Right!

(Exclamation marks should be reserved for the truly exclamatory; let the reader decide; Strunk and White, Elements of Style)

Stick it in.