Aussie food types are slightly warming to the use of thermometers, following the U.S. and now Canada.

The New South Wales Food Authority (that’s the state agency where Sydney is) says in a new advisory about unsafe cooking temperatures that, “it’s not a bad idea to invest in a meat thermometer probe.”

“Different meats require different cooking temperatures to destroy harmful bacteria.

“For example, a steak need only be seared on the outside and can be rare inside, while minced meat must be carefully cooked to destroy bacteria. That’s because minced meat has far greater surface area than steak and therefore greater risk of bacterial contamination.

“One way is to simply cook minced meat, sausages and poultry until well done, right through to the centre. No pink should be visible and juices should run clear.

“Using this method should ensure your meat and poultry is free from harmful bacteria, although people’s idea of what constitutes "pink" and "clear running juices" might differ from person to person, that’s why it’s not a bad idea to invest in a meat thermometer probe.

“A meat thermometer helps you make sure all potentially harmful bacteria have been destroyed through proper cooking. A thermometer probe shows you the exact temperature inside the meat or poultry so you can be sure it’s cooked all the way through.”

Color remains a lousy indicator of meat safety and tenderness. Use a thermometer and stick it in. It’ll make you a better cook.

Surveys still suck.

Using I-own-a-thermometer as an indicator of thermometer use is as useful as I-own-a-sink therefore I wash my hands. Or, I own a toilet, so I always hit the bowl. Or … use your imagination.

Researchers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration report in the Journal of Food Protection that the use of a food thermometer is the best way to ensure that meat, poultry, and other foods reach an internal temperature sufficient to destroy foodborne pathogens.

The 1998, 2001, 2006, and 2010 Food Safety Surveys were used to analyze changes in food thermometer ownership and usage for roasts, chicken parts, and hamburgers in the United States.

But surveys still suck.

The paper notes that when E. coli O157:H7 was first associated with ground beef in the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommended that consumers cook hamburgers until the meat was ‘‘brown or pinkish brown in the center. However, as a result of research that showed that one out of four hamburgers may be brown in the center before reaching a safe internal temperature, the USDA changed its advice to consumers— instead of using color as an indicator of doneness in hamburgers, consumers should use a food thermometer to ensure that a safe temperature has been reached. In May 2000, the USDA launched the Thermy educational campaign to encourage consumers to use a food thermometer when cooking small cuts of meat, such as hamburgers and chicken parts. The USDA also provided guidance to consumers about the safe temperature for various cuts of meat and poultry.

Ho Phang and Christine Bruhn reported earlier in JFP 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. They concluded Thermy had not been successful.

We did our own survey with 40 people brought in to cook a chicken meal in a Kansas State kitchen and videotaped their behaviors. Many participants reported owning a food thermometer (73%) and nearly half (42.5%) of participants reported knowing the suggested end temperature for cooking poultry to ensure doneness. When asked the final recommended internal temperature for chicken, the mean response was 214°F with a range of responses from 140°F to 450°F. (The correct answer is 165F)

Of those participants observed measuring the internal temperature of the product, only three used the thermometer correctly. During observation, two individuals who used the thermometers failed to remove protective casings prior to taking internal temperature readings, and therefore used the instruments incorrectly.

Surveys do not measure behaviors: they give an indication of what people think their behavior is, or what the survey person wants to hear, but that isn’t going to get people to use a thermometer (tip-sensitive, digital).

Shopping for food is competitive sport in Brisbane.

There are bargains to be had, but limited by geography – I’m on a bicycle – time and seasonality.

And the prices change almost daily for no apparent reason other than supply and demand.

The majority of Australians hate the megalomart duopoly of Coles and Woolworths but within a 2-mile radius, I can choose amongst five fruit and veg places, three butchers, three bakeries, the ubiquitous Coles and Woolworths, and my favorite, the Dutton Park Fish Market.

Dutton Park is a suburb adjacent to the University of Queensland and the fish market is literally a non-descript hole in the wall down and around from a semi-popular restaurant on the way to the uni. They don’t advertise because they have trouble meeting demand. But they do send e-mails saying what’s in and what’s on special.

That gets back to the competitive sport of shopping.

Two days ago the price of oysters went from $15 a dozen to $20 for two dozen. I told Amy we were having oysters, and she invited over a colleague for dinner last night.

We went through 48 oysters, two blue swimmer crabs and some homemade Napoletana leek pizza.

As a man of large appetites, I wanted more. So after early morning swimming lessons for the daughter, Sorenne and I biked off again to visit with Paul the fishmonger (Sorenne likes the live mud crabs, and the fishheads).

Saturday lunch was more oysters, more blue swimmers, and some Hervey Bay scallops, served with a grated, marinated carrot and beet salad.

All this is on my mind because of the recent death of a South Bend, Indiana, man from vibrio after eating raw frozen shrimp.

Health officials interviewed the man's wife and determined that he had eaten shrimp from a 16-ounce bag of frozen, raw, peeled and cleaned shrimp sold under the Harvest of the Sea brand. Testing on a second bag of the same brand of shrimp found in the man's freezer determined that it contained the bacteria afflicting the man.

Felger said that bag of shrimp came from a Martin's Super Markets store in South Bend. The supermarket chain voluntarily pulled the shrimp from its freezers in during the weekend of Feb. 17-18 after learning that it could possibly be contaminated. But the store didn't issue a voluntary recall to customers until March 3 because they didn't have all of the information they needed until then, the company's advertising manager, Dave Mayfield, told WSBT.

He said that once they got the facts, they issued the recall.

Test results confirming the bacteria were in the shrimp were received last Friday, and the next day Martin's Supermarket emailed its recall notice to South Bend-area media.

Felger said he believes Martin's Super Markets acted appropriately by pulling the product once they were notified.

I buy the crabs cooked. The oysters and scallops I grill for about 90 seconds, along with a (small) dollop of garlic butter loaded with homegrown basil and rosemary, and a dab of hot sauce. I temped a scallop today because I’d never grilled fresh ones before – 140F. Probably a bit high but tasted great.

Paul can talk lovingly about his product, I can write food porn about the preparation, but neither of us – nor anyone else – knows which raw seafood might be carrying a dangerous bacterium, virus or parasite. I pay attention to cross-contamination. And I cook seafood, verified using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer.

(although imperfect)

Those words, in parentheses, are the most important in a paper by CDC-types about self-reported consumption of pink beef, and impair the conclusions.

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control used FoodNet data from a 2006-2007 survey of 8,543 respondents to conclude 75.3% reported consuming some type of ground beef in the home, and of those respondents who ate ground beef patties in the home, 18.0% reported consuming pink ground beef.

That’s a high number, but is pink hamburger correlated with cooking temperatures of less than 165F? Not always.

For purposes of the paper, pink hamburger is equated to undercooked and therefore potentially dangerous hamburger, except for the acknowledgement that color is an “imperfect” indicator for the consumption of undercooked ground beef.

The authors do mention in the paper that “color is not a reliable indicator of ground beef doneness, and thermometer use was not assessed so self-reported consumption of pink ground beef may not truly represent consumption of undercooked beef.

A series of studies beginning in the 1990s and led by Melvin “Hunter” Hunt of Kansas State University concluded that color is a lousy indicator of whether hamburger has reached a microbiologically safe internal temperature of 160F with something like 30 per cent of burgers browning prematurely, based on levels of different forms of myoglobin within hamburger. The U.S. Department of Agriculture agrees, and has a thorough summary of the problems with color at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/Color_of_Cooked_Ground_Beef/index.asp.

So why base a consumer study on color, which research concludes and U.S. and Canadian governments agree in the form of consumer advice, is unreliable? Guess it was easier.

The survey did further verify a long-standing observation that is apparently ignored by every local, state or federal agency that says rates of E. coli O157:H7 increase in summer months because more people barbeque: there’s no correlation with cooking. Instead, the correlation is with microbial loads in cattle, which increase in spring and summer.

“We noted a distinct lack of seasonality in the consumption of ground beef or pink ground beef patties in the home. This contrasts with the marked seasonality reported for E. coli O157:H7 infections in humans, which peaks in the summer months. These data suggest that factors other than seasonality in ground beef consumption, such as differences in food handling practices or increases in the amount of bacterial contamination on meat and other foods or environmental sources during warmer months, are responsible for the seasonal increase in E. coli O157:H7 infections. Shedding of E. coli O157:H7 by cattle peaks during the spring and summer months, corresponding to the period of the highest incidence of human infections. Others have suggested that fluctuations in E. coli O157:H7 prevalence in cattle may be linked to human infections. Our data support this hypothesis and suggest that further attention to pre-harvest food safety interventions may be warranted to decrease the numbers of organisms shed in cattle feces and, ultimately, decrease the number of human infections."

For those who think consumers need to be better educated to reduce incidence of foodborne illness, the survey found yet another link to trash such a notion.

“Although persons with higher education and income reported consuming pink ground beef patties in the home more often, this group consumed ground beef overall less frequently. These findings do not explain these patterns, but we speculate that the increased level of risky behavior among more highly educated and higher income respondents may be due to several factors. These persons may not prepare food at home as often as other groups and
therefore may be less practiced in appropriate safe food handling and cooking practices or they may prefer pink ground beef. Higher income persons have been shown both to have more confidence in the safety of the national food supply and to be more likely to use unsafe food practices than lower income persons. Persons that are more educated may also perceive themselves to be at less risk for foodborne illness and consequently be more likely to engage in risky behaviors. The increased willingness among this population to engage in unsafe food-related behaviors has been suggested to rise from more prevalent beliefs that they understand and can control food safety risks.”

Or, smart people can be dumb. Certainly applies to me (the dumb part).

The abstract of the paper is below.

Ground beef consumption patterns in the United States, FoodNet, 2006 through 2007
Journal of Food Protection®, Volume 75, Number 2, February 2012 , pp. 341-346(6)
Taylor, Ethel V.; Holt, Kristin G.; Mahon, Barbara E.; Ayers, Tracy; Norton, Dawn; Gould, L. Hannah
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2012/00000075/00000002/art00016/
Infection resulting from foodborne pathogens, including Escherichia coli O157:H7, is often associated with consumption of raw or undercooked ground beef. However, little is known about the frequency of ground beef consumption in the general population. The objective of this study was to describe patterns of self-reported ground beef and pink ground beef consumption using data from the 2006 through 2007 FoodNet Population Survey. From 1 July 2006 until 30 June 2007, residents of 10 FoodNet sites were contacted by telephone and asked about foods consumed within the previous week. The survey included questions regarding consumption of ground beef patties both inside and outside the home, the consumption of pink ground beef patties and other types of ground beef inside the home, and consumption of ground beef outside the home. Of 8,543 survey respondents, 75.3% reported consuming some type of ground beef in the home. Of respondents who ate ground beef patties in the home, 18.0% reported consuming pink ground beef. Consumption of ground beef was reported most frequently among men, persons with incomes from $40,000 to $75,000 per year, and persons with a high school or college education. Ground beef consumption was least often reported in adults ≥65 years of age. Men and persons with a graduate level education most commonly reported eating pink ground beef in the home. Reported consumption of ground beef and pink ground beef did not differ by season. Ground beef is a frequently consumed food item in the United States, and rates of consumption of pink ground beef have changed little since previous studies. The high rate of consumption of beef that has not been cooked sufficiently to kill pathogens makes pasteurization of ground beef an important consideration, especially for those individuals at high risk of complications from foodborne illnesses such as hemolytic uremic syndrome.