I cringe when someone says, ‘food safety is simple.’

A review of existing studies by the U.K. Food Standards Agency found that, although people “are often aware of good food hygiene practices, many people are failing to chill foods properly, aren’t following advice on food labels and aren’t sticking to simple hygiene practices that would help them avoid spreading harmful bacteria around their kitchens.”

Yes, individuals are impervious to risk; been known for decades.

And there’s that word, ‘simple’ again.

I especially cringe when someone says, ‘cooking a hamburger is easy with these simple food safety steps.’

Ho Phang and Christine Bruhn report in the current Journal of Food Protection that in video observation of 199 California consumers making hamburgers and salad in their own kitchens, handwashing was poor, only 4% used a thermometer to check if the burger was safely cooked, and there were an average of 43 cross-contamination events per household.

There’s some good data in the paper about what consumers do in their own kitchens, and the results are an additional nail in the self-reported-food-safety-survey coffin: people know what they are supposed to do but don’t do it.

But what the paper doesn’t address is how to influence food safety behaviors. Instead, the University of California at Davis authors fall back on the people-need-to-be-educated model, without out providing data on how that education – I prefer compelling information – should be provided.

The authors state:

• educational materials need to emphasize the important role of the consumer in
preventing foodborne illness and that foodborne illnesses can result from foods prepared in the home.;

• the gap between the awareness of the importance of hand washing and the actual practice of adequate hand washing should be addressed by food safety educators.

• food safety educators should address the lack of reliability of visual cues during cooking (stick it in -- dp);

• food safety educators should emphasize faucet cleaning with soap and water as a way of preventing cross-contamination; and,

• ignorance about food irradiation point to a further need for education.

The authors do correctly note that program to promote the use of thermometers when cooking burgers, initiated by the introduction of Thermy in 2000, has not been successful. So why do more education?

And the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in Jack-in-the-Box hamburgers happened in Jan. 1993, not 1994 as stated in the paper; someone should have caught that.

Burger preparation: what consumers say and do in the home
01.oct.11
Journal of Food Protection®, Volume 74, Number 10, October 2011 , pp. 1708-1716(9)
Phang, Ho S.; Bruhn, Christine M.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2011/00000074/00000010/art00017
Abstract:
Ground beef has been linked to outbreaks of pathogenic bacteria like Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. Consumers may be exposed to foodborne illness through unsafe preparation of ground beef. Video footage of 199 volunteers in Northern California preparing hamburgers and salad was analyzed for compliance with U.S. Department of Agriculture recommendations and for violations of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Food Code 2009. A questionnaire about consumer attitudes and knowledge about food safety was administered after each filming session. The majority of volunteers, 78%, cooked their ground beef patties to the Food Code 2009 recommended internal temperature of 155°F (ca. 68°C) or above, and 70% cooked to the U.S. Department of Agriculture consumer end-point guideline of 160°F (ca. 71°C), with 22% declaring the burger done when the temperature was below 155°F. Volunteers checked burger doneness with a meat thermometer in 4% of households. Only 13% knew the recommended internal temperature for ground beef. The average hand washing time observed was 8 s; only 7% of the hand washing events met the recommended guideline of 20 s. Potential cross-contamination was common, with an average of 43 events noted per household. Hands were the most commonly observed vehicle of potential cross-contamination. Analysis of food handling behaviors indicates that consumers with and without food safety training exposed themselves to potential foodborne illness even while under video observation. Behaviors that should be targeted by food safety educators are identified.
 

 As a Canadian citizen with permanent U.S. residency living in Australia, I get confused.

Even with a language professor by my side, I can barely understand a damn word anyone says – especially the Canadians.

Fellow Queenslander Pat Dignam also appears confused when he writes in the Irish Times that food irradiation “is routine in some countries, including the U.S., so eating rare hamburgers there is safe.”

No. A small fraction of American ground beef is irradiated, and almost none of that is available at retail or food service.

Mr. Dignam is correct when he says, “During the butchering process, the surface of cuts of meat may become contaminated with bacteria, notably E. coli, from the intestines of the animal (regardless of the standards applied by the farmer and butcher). Cooking an intact piece of meat on the surface is sufficient to kill any such bacteria. However, when a piece of meat is minced, contamination on the surface can be spread to any part of the product. … Irish mince is not irradiated, so the process of cooking through is crucial. E. coli infection can be fatal, so anyone who wishes to eat rare or raw minced beef in Ireland should take note of these facts.”

Well said, except for the U.S. bit. And things get confusing when intact cuts like steaks are needle-tenderized.

The facts are ground beef in the U.S. needs to be cooked to 160F (71C) as verified by a tip-sensitive digital thermometer.

Stick it in.

A human tooth was found in a burger made by Bigard in Quimperlé, sold by a supermarket in Angers, France.

Nathalie Dayiot discovered the tooth crown was in a burger prepared by a friend at his home in Angers. He bought it in trays guaranteed "100% muscle" in the Grand Carrefour Maine Angers. "I felt something hard, says the young woman. I spit. It was a tooth on a pivot."

Romuald Gross, who made the purchase, has every intention to complain to the Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and Fraud.

The hamburgers were manufactured at Bigard in Quimperlé. The consumer advocate, Mr. Julien Roulleau, said two of the four who had attended the lunch were victims of food poisoning recorded this morning by their doctor, following the consumption of hamburgers. "The remaining burgers were seized by the DGCCRF. Beyond the problem of the tooth, it is important to know if the lot was consumed," said Me Roulleau.

Carrefour's management promised an internal investigation and states that "the traceability of the product was traced back to the supplier concerned and to the manufacturing site."
 

There’s a lot of talk about hamburgers in the run-up to Father’s Day and most of it is crap.

Literally.

Someone in Japan made a hamburger out of human poop, the use-a-piece-of-metal-and-sear-your-tongue method of checking whether a burger is done is making the rounds, and someone else says 120F beef is safe.

The poop burger is the safest choice.

Because if you’re going to eat poop, at least cook it (and try not to cross-contaminate the kitchen).

My Health News Daily reports today researchers in Japan have synthesized meat from proteins found in human waste.

"In the food safety world we say, 'don't eat poop,'" said Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University. "But if you're going to, make sure it's cooked."

The Japanese researchers isolated proteins from bacteria in sewage. The poop-meat concoction is prepared by extracting the basic elements of food — protein, carbohydrates and fats — and recombining them.

The meat is made from 63 percent proteins, 25 percent carbohydrates, 3 percent lipids and 9 percent minerals, according to Digital Trends. Soy protein is added to the mix to increase the flavor, and food coloring is used to make the product appear red.

The researchers came up with the idea after Tokyo Sewage asked them to figure out a use for the abundance of sewage in mud, Digital Trends says.

Powell is not familiar with the researchers' method, but said he guesses that they are first heat-treating the sewage before they reap its resources.

"Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with this," Powell said. "It could be quite safe to eat, but I'm sure there's a yuck factor there," he said.

However, Powell said there is the potential for cross contamination in the laboratory where the poop meat is made. That's why it's a good thing the meat will eventually be cooked.

But what if the final product was not going to be cooked?

"I wouldn’t touch it, " Powell said.

Pass it on: Meat made from poop is safe, but you should cook it before you eat it.