Chapman says amateurs shouldn't cook on Thanksgiving
The idea of Chapman calling others amateurs is amusing.
P.J. O’Rourke wrote a National Lampoon column about how amateur drunks throw up on other people’s shoes. In Champan’s case, it would be other people’s rose bushes. That’s us, in 2000, at my house in Guelph. He barfed in the bushes.
But Chapman, food safety specialist and assistant professor of food science at North Carolina State University, did get quoted by a paper in Nebraska today saying,
"The biggest risk comes from undercooking. Color is not an indicator of safety or doneness. We see suggestions in recipes about making sure 'the juices run clear' but that's a myth. You also have to worry about cross-contamination -- which can happen when countertops, sinks or utensils aren't being cleaned properly between use with raw meats and other foods."
And this was Chapman last weekend tailgating at the Kansas State football game. We left early because he had digestive upsets. Amateur.
Top Chef: Medium-rare lamb is 140F and soy sauce is the secret ingredient in perfect gravy
Jennifer and daughter Ingrid brought the lamb, I did the cooking, and Amy’s mom flew in from Vegas. Another Thursday night in Manhattan (Kansas).
What better occasion to try out alleged perfect gravy that scientists with the U.K. Royal Society of Chemistry have determined contains drippings from a roast on a bed of halved onions, carrots and celery and the left-over water from boiled cabbage.
Add salt, pepper and a sprinkling of flour to thicken and … a touch of soy sauce.
Dr John Emsley, a chemical scientist, says soy sauce should be used in place of traditional gravy browning because monosodium glutamate from the soy sauce brings out the meaty flavour.
A spokesman for the society said:
“Chemistry and cooking are basically the same thing. Both need to have the correct formula, equipment and procedures. Just think of Heston Blumenthal.”
Eww. Blumenthal makes me think norovirus and barf.
And I didn’t take pictures of Thursday’s dinner, but Top Chef on Wed. night also struggled with lamb, and none of the hot-shot chefs could agree on how to define medium-rare lamb.
Chef Kevin (left):
“We’re having temperature issues with the lamb. What I think of as medium-rare, is apparently what she thinks of as rare. I don’t know who’s right or wrong, I don’t know if there is anyone who is right or wrong.”
The judges knew:
“This was seared raw lamb that was horrible.”
“Severely underdone.”
“Center was like jello.”
“A little too bloody.”
The lamb shoulder roast we had last night was cooked to 140F. There’s even a chart on the Internet that says medium-rare lamb is 140F. I have no idea where the numbers on the chart came from, but it seems about right.
Genius chefs and judges: use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer and stick it in.
The gravy was delicious.
Charred hamburger patties, no thanks
Digital tip sensitive thermometers are as important to a chef as espresso is to m.jpg)
wife and I. While inspecting a fast food restaurant which serves predominantly burgers, I noticed the chef relying solely on color to determine doneness of burgers. As mentioned time and time again on barfblog, color is not a reliable tool to determine doneness of burgers due to premature browning of meat which may result before the burger reaches 160°F, the temperature required to inactivate pathogens such as E. coli 0157 H:7. Studies have demonstrated that burgers cooked to 135°C and allowed to sit for a few minutes looked the same as a burger cooked to 160°C. After explaining this concept to the chef, the response was well I cook the burger on high heat until it pretty much looks charred. Oh “that’s a deal breaker.” I have been dying to use this catch phrase from 30 Rock for sometime now. I went on to explain what happens when meat is cooked at high temperatures to a point of charring. A chemical change can occur in the meat resulting in the formation of heterocyclic amines (HCA’s). To prevent this from occurring, one can lower the temperature used for grilling and flip patties continually. The use of tongs or spatulas should be used to flip meat as a fork will puncture the meat causing juices to run causing flame ups which are responsible for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a carcinogenic compound2. It is interesting to note that marinades and spices may reduce the amount HCA’s found in the meat. The addition of spices such as rosemary, thyme, sage, and brine, reduced the content of HCA’s below 60% when compared to a control1. It is always a good idea to scrape off any parts of the meat that are charred. Finally, always use a digital tip sensitive thermometer to determine if your burger is done 71°C (160°F).
Sources:
1. Antioxidant spices reduce the formation of heterocyclic amines in fried meat
M. Murkovic, D. Steinberger and W. Pfannhauser
Volume 207, Number 6 / November, 1998
2. Environmental Health Services. Food Council News. Volume 4 Issue 3. May 2001. Capital Health
Hamburger, meat and foodborne illness. Who's to blame? And how do petting zoos fit into this worldview
Amy is a carnivore. First time I went to dinner at her place, almost four years ago, we couldn’t decide what to eat. Eventually, Amy said, let’s go to the supermarket, get a couple of steaks, and grill at home.
I was in love.
Amy’s grill (right) served us well, but the years took its toll. So we splurged and got a new BBQ – the Weber Genesis -- which I used for the first time last night. Whenever we get a new car, or grill, or pretty much anything, since I insist on owning things for 10 years until they are completely spent, I marvel at the technological advances. It was awesome.
We grill meat and vegetables pretty much every day. And maybe it’s not so cool after last weeks tragic story of E. coli O157:H7 victim Stephanie Smith, but we eat hamburgers – make them at home from ground beef and turkey.
The news is confusing: The N.Y. Times feature by Michael Moss that started the latest round of confusion said hamburger trim was mixed together from all sorts of places and no one wanted to test for E. coli O157:H7 (that’s what happens with a zero tolerance policy; don’t test, don’t tell). Subsequently the Times said in an editorial that the only way to be safe was to cook hamburger to shoe leather, and former Centers for Disease Control-type, Richard Bessler told Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America the only way to cook meat safely is to "cook it to the point where most people wouldn't want to eat it."
Former U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary for Food Safety, Richard Raymond, responded on his blog that the Times story simplified a few things about testing and mixing, and that, “raw meat and raw poultry should not be considered to be pathogen free—ever.”
Then yesterday, the Minnesotans, home of Cargill, tried to poke a few more holes in the Times story.
Craig Hedberg, professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota, said,
“Testing of product, either raw materials or finished products, is something that has limited usefulness. We can’t test every square inch of an animal’s carcass to see if there’s bacteria present … it just would be too expensive.”
I’m not sure who we is, and playing cost off against human health is never a good tactic.
Ryan Cox, professor of meat science at the University of Minnesota said,
“If you were to go into a modern meat facility, it looks very similar to a surgical suite in a hospital.”
Especially with the sick people.
Cox explained that meat industry practices are so stringently regulated that “to infer in some way that we have an unsafe system would be certainly an error.”
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Pete Nelson , who spent 35 years running a USDA-inspected facility, defended the multiple sourcing used by large processing plants. He cited the need for a steady supply of beef in case an individual slaughterhouse is not able to deliver on time, as well as the need for a variety of meats to ensure consistency. …
Both Nelson and Cox said consumers have an important role in food safety, especially in the handling and cooking of raw meats.
“We both agree on the fact that there really wouldn’t have been much of a story to begin with, particularly with the instance [The New York Times] cited with the food sickness, if the product had been cooked to the correct internal temperature.
Ouch. Blame the consumer. USDA stopped that in 1994.
Cross-contamination is a serious issue, as repeatedly pointed out on this blog and in our research, and that’s why pathogen loads have to be reduced as much as possible before entering a further processing plant, a restaurant, a grocery store or someone’s kitchen. And then, as Raymond says, never assume meat – or any raw food – is pathogen free. Same with animals. Those 90 kids that got sick with E. coli O157:H7 at a petting zoo in the U.K. weren’t dealing with meat from different sources.
And no one has to cook to shoe leather. Meat thermometers can help, and stick it in until 160F for hamburger.
Our steaks were a delicious 125F, climbing to about 135F over time.
Hamburger doesn't have to be shoe leather -- stick it in
The editorial dudes at the N.Y. Times write in an, uh, editorial, that eating a hamburger should not be a death-defying experience.
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Too often it is. As Michael Moss wrote in The Times recently, E. coli sickens thousands of people annually, including a young dance teacher named Stephanie Smith, who was paralyzed after eating a contaminated hamburger. Her case offers a poignant reminder that President Obama and Congress need to quickly fill the safety gaps in food production. …
Already too much of the burden for food safety falls on consumers who are advised to cook hamburgers into shoe leather to kill off any dangerous germs. But even that is not enough because it is too easy for raw ground beef to leave behind toxic traces in the kitchen.
Cross-contamination is a serious issue, as repeatedly pointed out on this blog and in our research. But no one has to cook to shoe leather. Live confidently with a meat thermometer, and stick it in until 160F.
Gobble, gobble. It's turkey time in Canada
Thanksgiving is right around the corner (in Canada) and families are scurrying to purchase the most perfect, succulent turkey for the upcoming festivities. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of turkey, more a pasta kinda’ of guy, however, this year we’re cooking up turkey. Here are a few tips when cooking the bird. The turkey should be cooked to an internal temperature of 85°C (185°F). Use a digital tip sensitive thermometer to verify the internal temperature by inserting the thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh. It is a good idea to cook the stuffing separately so that it reaches an internal temperature of 74°C (165°F). In the event of leftovers, never happens in my family, refrigerate immediately by placing the turkey in shallow pans in the refrigerator, covered. Refrigerate stuffing and gravy separate from the turkey meat and consume everything within 3 days or freeze. Upon re-heating, turkey meat should reach an internal temperature of 74°C (165°F) and ensure that the gravy is brought to a rolling boil. Throughout the whole process of cooking the turkey, remember to always wash your hands. Happy Thanksgiving.
Cross-contamination is a huge risk, at home and in food service; 65% of UK chickens contain campylobacter
Food safety is not simple.
And because food safety is hard, it’s important to reduce the number of pathogens entering a home or food service kitchen.
The Food Standards Agency today published the findings of a new survey testing for campylobacter and salmonella in chicken on sale in the U.K.
The survey showed that campylobacter was present in 65% of the samples of chicken tested. Salmonella was in 6% of samples, 0.5% of these samples contained S. enteritidis and S. typhimurium.
Andrew Wadge, Director of Food Safety at the Food Standards Agency, said,
"The continuing low levels of salmonella are encouraging, but it is disappointing that the levels of campylobacter remain high. It is obvious more needs to be done to get these levels down and we need to continue working with poultry producers and retailers to make this happen. Other countries like New Zealand and Denmark have managed to do so, we need to emulate that progress in the UK."
FSA is to be commended for undertaking the retail survey, but should be slapped on the wrist for terrible risk communication, once again asserting that, “cooking chicken properly all the way through will kill the bug, so consumers can avoid the risk of illness.
“Taking simple measures in the home can reduce the risk of food poisoning. If food is prepared, handled, and cooked properly, avoiding cross-contamination with other food, then food bugs will not have a chance to spread and cause harm.”
Food safety is not simple. Piping hot is not an end-point cooking temperature.
The video below accompanying a terrific N.Y. Times feature on E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef demonstrates how easy it is to cross-contaminate, and they don’t even use a thermometer to ensure delicious 160F hamburgers.
Stick it in to tell if a hamburger is safe - with a thermometer; color and poking and pieces of metal are unreliable
Sorenne did not sleep last night.
There was seemingly nothing to console her, and I was up much of the night.
But I’m getting some payback now as she enters the third hour of her nap, and decided a homemade hamburger with grilled corn and salad would make a decent lunch for myself. Coupled with the season premier of Californication on the recorderer, I was set.
Except I didn’t have Californication because I can’t tape it until tonight because Amy just had to watch and tape the season premier of The Amazing Race in case she missed a minute of the zzzzzzzzzzzz action.
And then I got this how-to-cook-a-hamburger advice by the geniuses at epicurious, forwarded by my friend Mike.
James Oliver Cury reveals his burger snobbery by suggesting those in search of a medium-rare burger – whatever that is – avoid “low-end” eateries because high-end eateries use higher quality beef and “preparation methods are superior: clean, safe, reliable.”
Guess he’s never heard of The Fat Duck.
In a linked story about burgers, the poke test for doneness is promoted:
“Medium-rare is softly yielding, medium is semifirm, well-done is firm."
Another says he prefers the visual approach, judging by the juices:
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"When they start to come out of the top of the burger, it's medium. When the juices that have oozed out of the top get cooked (stop looking red and become a bit more clear), it's medium-well."
A tip-sensitive thermometer is the only accurate way to determine whether a hamburger has been safely cooked to 160F.
Sorenne woke up before I could finish this, so I changed the TV in the background to something more child-friendly than, No Country For Old Men – Goodfellas was on AMC -- and safely fed her some leftovers.
Kate Gosselin: use a meat thermometer and maybe you won't give your kids Salmonella poisoning
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Earlier this week on Jon and Kate plus 8, or whatever it’s called, newly single Kate took to the grill for apparently the first time and was terrified of poisoning her brood.
“Dear chicken, please do not give us sammonella. Love Kate.” (Salmonella -- dp)
Cara gets bloody chicken. Kate laughs this off and says “oops” in the interview chair. … Ashley confirms the raw chicken.
Stick it in. And don’t poison your kids.
No passport, no lunch
Aside from travelling, I don’t carry my Canadian passport with me -- the last thing I need is to lose it while overseas. Sure, I understood when the doctor or Liquor King employee asked me to produce it, but not when I was refused a burger for lack of I.D.
This past sunny Sunday a few gal pals and I decided to grab a burger for lunch at an Irish pub-style restaurant. The place had appeal because of the outdoor seating and 10 dollar burger and fries (which we’d tried and loved before). Upon ordering our meals (sans alcohol) we were asked to present I.D. When I produced my Canadian driver’s license I was told that we could not eat at the establishment unless I presented my passport. Gutted, we grabbed a bite at Burger Fuel instead.
It’s probably not a common experience, but it had me thinking: Is the pub that’s so strict with its patrons equally as strict with its food safety? Would my burger have been cooked to the proper internal temperature using a meat thermometer – the passport of burgers?
Hamburgers and how to tell if they're done - the Netherlands version
A bites-barfblog reader from the Netherlands sent along this 2008 video, which has an English-speaking bit with a self-proclaimed hamburger professor in New York (New Amsterdam?) demonstrating the touch-the-hand method of determining whether a hamburger is properly cooked (note: this technique is complete BS).
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The technique in question appears about five minutes in.
Evan Henke: For the Jucy Lucy and stuffed burgers, the food safety jury is still out
Evan Henke, a student at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (right, sorta as shown), writes in this guest barfblog.com post:
During a recent trip to a Minneapolis restaurant, I ordered what is perhaps Minneapolis’s most significant contribution to the culinary world: the “Jucy Lucy.”
Legend has it that the Lucy, a hamburger with cheese stuffed inside of the beef patty before cooking (right, not exactly as shown), was invented in Minneapolis, although debate still rages as to which burger joint was the first to offer the Lucy to its customers. As I bit into the Lucy, I noticed that the center of the burger was quite undercooked, and I did not notice the use of a thermometer on the nearby grill. I immediately wondered what effect stuffing the cheese inside of the patty had on the survival of foodborne pathogens during the cooking process.
Maybe the added weight of the cheese would better insulate the side of the burger exposed to the surface grill compared to cooking a normal patty of equal thickness without flipping. Maybe any added moisture in the cheese would help kill any pathogen present in the beef, as long as the moisture was present.
But the true food safety implications of stuffing a ground beef patty with cheese or other ingredients are not well documented (left, not exactly as shown). The amounts of fat and water that escape from the cheese during cooking are not documented, and how those amounts affect the survival of foodborne pathogens present in the patty is unclear. It has been documented that E. coli O157:H7 shows increased resistance to heat in patties with higher fat and lower moisture contents[1]. It is possible that the composition of a stuffed burger, depending on the stuffing and fat and moisture content of the ground beef, could favor the survival of foodborne pathogens relative to a burger with no stuffing.
In a world of foods that taste delicious but can be deleterious to your health, the Jucy Lucy and stuffed burgers sizzle in mystery. How the addition of cheese to the center of the patty affects the survival of foodborne pathogens ought to be documented, not just for the health of my fellow Minneapolitans, but for the health of burger eaters everywhere. And of course, thermometer use is recommended whenever preparing ground beef.
The Make Your Own Jucy Lucy video is included below http://heavytable.com/make-your-own-jucy-lucy/. Warning: Conventional safe cooking technique not displayed in video.
Evan Henke is a student at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health pursuing a Master’s degree in Environmental Health. An avid fan of foodborne disease epidemiology and food safety, he spends most of his free time angering his friends with his knowledge of the food chain and careful scrutiny of food safety practices.
1. Ahmed, Nahed M., Donald E. Conner, and Dale L. Huffman. "Heat-Resistance of Escherichia Coli O157:H7 in Meat and Poultry as Affected by Product Composition." Journal of Food Science 60.3 (1995): 606-10.
Simply Recipes explains how to use fingers to test if meat is cooked (total BS)
In the expanding category of really bad food safety advice is this entry from Simply Recipes:
There are two basic methods to test for how done your meat is while you are cooking it - use a meat thermometer, or press on the meat with your finger tips. The problem with the meat thermometer approach is that when you poke a hole into the meat with a thermometer, it can let juices escape, juices that you would rather have stay in the meat. For this reason, most experienced cooks rely on a "finger test" method, especially on steaks (whole roasts are better tested with a thermometer).
For example, the story explains that to test for raw: Open the palm of your hand. Relax the hand. Take the index finger of your other hand and push on the fleshy area between the thumb and the base of the palm. Make sure your hand is relaxed. This is what raw meat feels like.
There’s more. This is what Johnny Cash and I think (below). Stick it in. Use a thermometer.
Thanks to another barfblog.com reader for the tip.
Yahoo Food sucks at food safety advice
Among the six most common ways to ruin a burger, which Yahoo Food is promoting ahead of Labor Day, is this nose-stretcher:
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Overcooking: This should be a crime recognized by the federal government. For the popular medium-rare, grill the meat exactly three minutes on one side (keeping the grill lid closed) and two minutes on the other. If you're going to add cheese, let it melt on top for another minute (and keep that cover closed!). We like our burgers medium rare, so much we've even sent them back at restaurants when they go beyond medium.
Nonsense. Using time make no allowances for variation in grill temperature, thickness of the hamburger patty and composition of the hamburger. A tip-sensitive digital thermometer is the only way to get a burger to the correct temperature of 160F, without overcooking.
Thanks to the barfblog reader who sent along the tip.
Stick it in for safety
The first thing I bought when we arrived in Florida a couple of weeks ago was a meat thermometer: groceries, wine, toilet paper – and a digital, tip-sensitive meat thermometer.
Can’t cook burgers without them.
Yesterday I ventured from our Venice Beach hideaway to the University of Florida in Gainesville to hang out with my friend Michael Batz and deliver a seminar at the Emerging Pathogens Institute about food safety culture stuf.
Michael and I went to lunch at some Spanish/Cuban place that seemed quite friendly, so, being the nerd I am, I ordered a hamburger.
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The server asked me how I would like it, and I asked, what are my options?
She said however I wanted it (that’s really what she said).
I said, 160 F.
She said, we don’t do that.
I said, well-done.
Stick it in.
Is it a barbeque or grill?
I am from California. In California, it’s called a barbeque. I went to college in Alabama and graduate school in Kansas where both places call it a grill. The box labeled it a barbeque grill, so I guess .jpg)
everyone is right.
Regardless of the name, I purchased my very first barbeque this weekend. I put it together correctly and cooked chicken on it. I had never barbequed (or grilled) by myself, but I knew exactly when my chicken was done cooking: my tip sensitive, digital thermometer told me so. My chicken was cooked to a perfect 165°F.
And yes, I also thoroughly washed my hands before cooking and after touching any raw chicken.
When you’re barbequing, stick it in..jpg)
Teenagers can use thermometers for food safety
Food safety type and barfblog.com fan Valerie Hannig of Wilmington, Delaware, sent me a picture of hope this morning.
For all those government agencies who say people won’t use thermometers, so they have to be told to cook burgers until the juices run clear, or until the food is piping hot, or something equally useless, here is Valerie’s son, Alex, temping a chicken thingy (below).
Valerie says, “It makes me feel great that after all these years I have been in food safety, it is nice to see good habits passed down to the next generation of foodies.”
Stick it in.
Don't kill your neighbor with undercooked hamburger
It seems everyone in the media is bent on cross-contaminating and undercooking their food this summer. On Monday night’s “Great American Road Trip” (a poor replacement for the Amazing Race), the first challenge was for the men to cook hamburgers on a charcoal grill in 30 minutes for all the families to judge. The challenge took place in Sedan, Kansas at the Red Buffalo Ranch.
First, host Reno Collier made a cooking demonstration. No handwashing stations are present anywhere in sight (see right). 
After Collier explained how he likes to talk to his meat as he formed a raw patty, he threw it on the grill and wiped his hands on a towel. The condiment station was well stocked, but there were no meat thermometers and no safety instructions. The DiSalvatore dad said he’d never cooked anything in his life. Silvio quickly asked for tips from his wife Amy who said, “Just don’t overcook it.”
Silvio: “How do I know when it’s cooked?”
Amy: “A little bit of pink inside. Good luck.”
The father of the Rico family made the decision to cook his entire 5 lbs of meat and he commented, “I really misjudged how long it would take to cook those things.” Ricardo’s giant burgers were far from being done when it was time to serve. 
Host Collier yelled out, “Feel free to check these things out before you go sticking them in your mouth.” [Katie, that was for you.] One of the kids commented, “I was more nervous about barfing than about winning the challenge.”
It’s mindboggling how much cross-contamination took place in this highly edited clip (see approximately minutes 11 to 20). I think I threw up a little bit in my mouth while watching. In the end, the Ricos went home, but surprisingly they did not receive the lowest score for their burger.
Raw burger is not safe to eat. Hamburger is done when it reaches an internal temperature of 160F as measured by a tip sensitive meat thermometer. (See Doug’s videos on youtube.) Color is an unsafe indicator of doneness. Wash your hands after touching raw meat and before touching ready to eat products like buns. I personally find it challenging to grill and avoid cross-contamination … so why does everyone keep saying how simple it is to make a burger?
If you want to risk your own stomach or life, that’s your business; but please do not try to kill your neighbors or your children with undercooked meat or cross-contaminated condiments.
Martha Stewart tries to kill Matt Lauer?
On the 7/14/09 edition of the Today Show, Martha Stewart cooked “Zesty Chicken Burgers” for Meredith Viera and a somewhat reluctant Matt Lauer. While Martha was going on about how special chicken burgers are, Matt quietly asked a food safety question.
Matt: “Obviously people are going to say you have to be careful how to cook a chicken burger. You have to get it to a certain temperature. Is that about right?”
Martha: “Um. Yeah. Well, you’ll see. It’s… It’ll won’t be pink inside. It’ll get …
Meredith: “It will have to be white inside.”
Martha: “Yeah, all the way.”
And then on to how beautiful they are. Martha went on from touching raw chicken to touching the bun she served Matt’s finished burger on. He turned away from the camera both times he “took a bite” and claimed they were very good. Who knows if he really ate the potentially killer chicken burger. I wouldn’t have.
If you cook chicken burger, use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to make sure they reach an internal temperature of 165F. Wash your hands between touching raw meat and anything that is going to be served, especially if the person you are feeding is famous.
Many thanks to the barfblog fan who signaled Katie about yesterday’s Today Show.
Powell to Times - stick it in
The following letter appeared in the Dining and Wine section of this morning’s N.Y. Times:
Re “The Perfect Burger and All Its Parts” July 1:
The only thin piece of metal that should be stuck into the side of a hamburger is a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. Chef Seamus Mullen’s recommendation to put any thin piece of metal into the side of a burger, and “If it’s barely warm to the lips, it’s rare. If it’s like bath water, it’s medium rare,” only demonstrates the divide between food safety and food pornography.
Color is a lousy indicator of burger safety, as is the taste of metal sticks. Rather than putting E. coli O157:H7 on precious testing lips, use a thermometer.
Dr. Douglas Powell
Manhattan, Kan.
The writer is an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University.
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Andrew Stormer: stick it in for safety (a thermometer)
Andrew Stormer (right, exactly as shown), a Kansas State food science grad who used to work with me writes from Topeka:
Food is my career and a passion, so I often find myself in conversations with people regarding trendy food topics (organic, healthy, safe etc.). Today I found myself in the midst of a debate about the doneness of burgers with a plant employee.
The other dude was talking about the burgers he had grilled on July 4th. I asked him if he used a tip sensitive digital thermometer to determine if it had been cooked to 160°F, and the debate ensued. He proudly proclaimed that he could tell if they are cooked “just right” by looking at the color and pushing on them with his finger. I countered, stating that both of his methods were terrible indicators of doneness and that temperature is the only way to tell for sure. I mentioned premature browning and that 160°F was the necessary temperature to reach to ensure the death of the common patty-pathogen E. coli O157:H7.
He persisted, saying I was wrong, and that his method had always worked and he had never made anyone sick. How did he know that for sure, I wondered, explaining that the incubation period for E. coli was usually anywhere from about 18 to 72 hours, and that a person won’t exhibit symptoms of the infection until well after leaving the BBQ.
He didn’t have much of a response.
I then offered to find and show him studies, books, articles etc. that supported my claim. He wanted none of it, and wrapped up the debate nicely with, “I just know.” I was left frustrated and dismayed.
This is a dangerous and arrogant attitude to have towards food safety, but unfortunately I have come across countless others that share the same “I just know” train of thought. That said; his method is still a step above the “put-a-thin-piece-of-metal-in-the-burger-and-taste” method.
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From the we've never had a problem file: Salmonella in lasagna edition
NBC 29 reports that a group of central Virginia guests have Salmonellosis that appears to be linked to frozen lasagna from a popular pasta shop. In a classic blame game maneuver and "wha happened?" defense, the owner of Mona Lisa (the pasta shop) says that if his food is the source of the outbreak, it was likely customer error.
The owner of Mona Lisa pasta says his kitchen is not to blame for six central Virginia dinner guests coming down with salmonella. While he says he sold the frozen lasagna, it was not his kitchen that was responsible for cooking it to code.
Chef Jim Winecoff has been creating Italian dishes at his Mona Lisa Pasta Shop on Preston Avenue in Charlottesville for years. Winecoff said, “We’ve been here for eight years now providing lasagna, fresh pastas, sausage, ravioli, through the company.”
Winecoff is confident his kitchen is not to blame. Winecoff stated, “We’ve had no trouble whatsoever with our food in the past and I hope this is not a problem with our food. The customer has written instructions as to how to prepare the food, to bake at a certain temperature for a certain amount of time, and that's a food-safe temperature.”
It's early on in the investigation and not much information is available but the "we've been doing things this way for a while and never had a problem" optimistic attitude doesn't do much to build trust.
Especially in an outbreak situation.
An operator with a good food safety culture knows about the microbial risks associated with their products and who might screw up, whether it is suppliers, staff or customers. Blaming the customers is never a good thing, especially if you happened to sell them something with a pathogen in it. Ask the ConAgra pot pie folks. Or the Nebraska Beef ground beef folks.
Telling a customer the time of baking and at what temperature misses the measurable risk reduction step -- endpoint temperature. Food businesses selling this-needs-to-be-cooked items should be stating what temperature the dish needs to be cooked to and how the temperature needs to be measured.
Five kids sick with E. coli in Ohio county
The Cuyahoga County Board of Health confirms that three children have been exposed to the E. coli bacteria. Two more cases are under investigation.
"Five cases is very unusual for us to have," says Terry Allan, the health commissioner in Cuyahoga County.
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The three children with confirmed cases also have what's known as Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS).
Allan says the children must have contracted E. coli in one of two ways: either from a batch of meat that is contaminated or from just undercooked beef. Testing will be conducted on meat in the area, but so far, there is no indication that any particular batch of beef in Ohio is contaminated.
Or from thousands of other ways that E. coli O157:H7 can get into food or water or petting zoos.
Allan also says,
"If you don't have a thermometer, it's important that you cook that hamburger until it's no longer pink in the middle."
This is wrong. Color is a lousy indicator. Use a meat thermometer, be careful about cross-contamination, and have more microbial awareness than the health commissioner in Cuyahoga County.
BBQ safely with Douglas Powell
Look, I’m goofy. Probably the Brantford, Ontario, water, cause hometown pal Wayne Gretzky sure looked goofy on The Young and the Restless in 1981.
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I don’t want to be on video. But if that’s what it takes to get the message out about how to safely grill burgers this holiday weekend, then why not.
As I wrote the N.Y. Times today in response to their July 1, 2009 piece, The Perfect Burger and All Its Parts, Chef Seamus Mullen’s recommendation to use any thin piece of metal into the side of a burger, and “if it’s barely warm to the lips, it’s rare. If it’s like bath water, it’s medium rare” only demonstrates the divide between food safety and food pornography.
The only thin piece of metal that should be stuck into the side of a hamburger is a tip-sensitive digital thermometer.
Color is a lousy indicator of burger safety, as is the taste of metal sticks. Rather than putting E. coli O157:H7 on precious testing lips – stick a thermometer in.
Backyard bacteria and consumers: use a thermometer
I’m really proud of the folks who contribute to barfblog and bites.ksu.edu.
This morning, I wrote all the contributors from yesterday and said, I’m really proud, or good job, or something like that. The mixture of food safety content and personal experience on barfblog.com was excellent yesterday.
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Debora MacKenzie at New Scientist magazine seems to have noticed as well, and writes in a blog piece this evening,
Doug Powell food safety expert at Kansas State University and editor of the excellent barfblog says that the only way to ensure the safety of ground burgers is to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to make sure the whole patty has reached the 71 ˚C (160 ˚F) needed to kill E. coli.
Like I said, I’m proud to have a lot of smart folks around me.
Whole Foods porn
If you’re a retailer as big as Whole Foods, how hard is it to provide accurate information?
For their July 4 “perfect burgers” the food porn emporium 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.”
This means nothing, but as a smart food science prof once told me, processing is all about adding air and water and charging more; Whole Foods adds swarmy words and charges more.
Color is a lousy indicator of safety. Use a tip-sensitive thermometer, and use food porn for titillation, not safety.
N.Y. Times sucks at food safety: stick a piece of metal in a burger and lick it, rather than a thermometer, to tell if it's done?
In the continuing saga of bad food safety advice in the N.Y. Times – and the elevation of food pornography over food safety – the Times today ran a piece about the perfect burger.
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In interviews with dozens of so-called chefs around the U.S., not one mentioned the use of a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to ensure a final, safe temperature of 160F, or that color is an exceedingly lousy indicator of doneness or food safety (that's Ben, right, exactly as shown, grillin' up some Canada Day burgers)
The story does say, “testing for doneness is always a challenge for the home cook. Seamus Mullen, the chef and an owner of the Boqueria restaurants in the Flatiron district and SoHo, uses a wire cake tester. (Any thin, straight piece of metal will work as well.)
“We stick it in the middle through the side. If it’s barely warm to the lips, it’s rare. If it’s like bath water, it’s medium rare. The temperature will never lie. It takes the guesswork out of everything.”
Rather than putting E. coli O157:H7 on your precious testing lips, stick a thermometer in. You’re already sticking a piece of metal in so why not a thermometer?
Ben has just added to the Mark Bittman history of spewing out food safety nonsense that I have been tracking for at least two years.
The Times also published the whopper by Nina Planck, who at the height of the fall 2006 E. coli O157:H7 spinach outbreak, wrote in the Times that E. coli O157:H7 "is not found in the intestinal tracts of cattle raised on their natural diet of grass, hay and other fibrous forage. … It's the infected manure from these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms."
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This falsehood is routinely repeated, most recently in the entertaining but factually-challenged movie, Food Inc.
The natural reservoirs for E. coli O157:H7 and other verotoxigenic E. coli is the intestines of all ruminants, including cattle -- grass or grain-fed -- sheep, goats, deer and the like. The final report of the fall 2006 spinach outbreak identifies nearby grass-fed beef cattle as the likely source of the E. coli O157:H7 that sickened 200 and killed 4.
In my own unique version of how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people, I called Bittman and celebrity food porn doofus Jamie Oliver idiots for their advice on how to cook chicken and their ability to cross-contaminate an entire kitchen within seconds.
N.Y. Times, you are furthering your descent to irrelevancy.
PBS provides terrible advice for cooking hamburgers
This is why I don’t give money to PBS, or as Stephen Colbert refers to them, State-sponsored Jazz. Reminds me of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: they’re morons.
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Maybe not about everything, but about stuff I know about, they’re morons.
PBS is broadcasting this video about how to cook moist, well-done hamburgers. The cross-contamination is awesome, way to go cooks. These people have no clue, even though they talk about bacteria, they still contaminate the rest of the kitchen with their bacterial-laden hands, and then go on to tell viewers that color is a good indicator for food safety.
Color is a lousy indicator for food safety. Use a tip-senstive thermometer.
You want a moist burger? Cook to about 150F, let sit for 5 minutes while the temperature rises to 160F
Murder Burger's staff wear Meat is Murder T-shirts - and only serve meat
Murder Burger, a New Zealand gourmet burger store that opened in the swish Auckland suburb of Ponsonby last year, used the following for an on-line Help wanted ad:
"We need a bunch of people to hang out with, make burgers and talk shit.”
The ad specifically requested student nurses and teachers to apply, explaining, "I've gone out with two nurses and two teachers and they were all awesome."
Not wanted were politics students ("Nothing personal, we just don't understand you") or methamphetamine addicts.
"Again nothing personal. It's just that the benefit of you being able to work seven shifts in a row is pretty much outweighed by the probability that you will one day flip, grab a knife and become Mr Stabby."
I’m all for it, as long as the burgers are verified 160F with a tip-sensitive thermometer.
Another 'Bamaburger, no thermometers in sight
U.S. President Obama went to another burger shop in Washington for lunch today, ordering up a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, jalapeno peppers, and mustard – not the fancy Dijon mustard.
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He also ordered a cheeseburger for Brian Williams, anchor for NBC. The network was filming a day-in-the-life program at the White House.
The media accounts and video do not indicate how the burger was ordered – I always order well-done. Hopefully someone is sticking in a tip-sensitive thermometer to ensure the burger is cooked to 160F.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Americans should use a thermometer. Shouldn’t that apply to the President as well (photo below from AP)
Grill It! And make some kind of effort to kill the bacteria. With Bobby Flay
After the successful tip-sensitive thermometer verified 145 F leg of lamb for dinner guests on Saturday, I’m back to basics for Memorial Day. Whole wheat rolls from scratch, spinach and tomato salad from the garden, and a roast chicken stuffed with an enormous load of garlic.
While entertaining baby Sorenne with initial solids – banana, sweet potato – I was preparing the chicken and trying to ignore the terrible advice from celebrity chef Bobby Flay, who said his BBQed chicken was done when it felt fleshy to the touch and the juices were running clear (sorta looks like the ShamWow douche, right)
This is absolutely wrong. Color is a terrible indicator. For instance, this image (below, left) from Pete Snyder is of a fully 165F cooked chicken leg with back attached.
Oh, and the cross-contamination involving raw product and dirty hands with Bobby and his guests was a microbiological disaster. But it’s OK. He’s a celebrity. Maybe they don’t barf like the rest of us.
Memorial Day: Stick It In to verify the burger is cooked
I already caused a mini cow-poop storm when I suggested U.S. President Obama and VP Biden should be ordering their burgers based on a tip-sensitive thermometer verified 160F, and not the vague and meaningless, medium-whatever.
But food porn will always trump food safety.
So when the Obama Foodorama person wrote about turkey burgers today, there was no mention of temperature (in this case – 165F). There was 900 words of food porn – seriously, get an editor – and the cooking instructions consisted of:
“In a deep skillet, heat a small amount of neutral cooking oil on medium heat, almost to the smoking point. Put in four burger balls to cook at a time, and flatten down with a spatula. Cook for 3 minutes and flip, and cook an additional 3 minutes on the other side. In the last 30 seconds of cooking, pop Munster cheese slices on burgers, and cover pan so it melts.”
That has nothing to do with final end-point temperature, the temperature that kill the microorganisms that make people barf. Enjoy the Memorial Day holiday. And Stick It In for safety.
Food safety for people who don't cook: stop blaming consumers
The N.Y. Times asked me to comment on the food safety feature running this morning as part of their electronic Room for Debate section.
Douglas Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University and the editor of barfblog.com, writes:
ConAgra Foods said on Nov. 14, 2007 when it reintroduced pot pies that, “… redesigned easy-to-follow cooking instructions are now in place to help eliminate any potential confusion regarding cooking times.”
I tried to them out at the time and found the instructions inadequate.
Were the new labels tested with consumers? Is there evidence from ConAgra that pot pie fans were actually following the instructions on the labels? If the company was serious about making sure the instructions worked, it should have tested the new labels with at least 100 teenagers in observational studies to prove that a target market could actually follow the instructions before introducing the product to the mass market.
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The instructions direct consumers to use a food thermometer to test the temperature. But it appears that bimetallic thermometers (traditional kitchen thermometers) are used on both the ConAgra label and in the Times video; these thermometers yield inaccurate readings. For a more accurate reading, consumers would have to use digital, tip-sensitive thermometers.
Food safety isn’t simple – it’s hard. For decades, consumers have been blamed for foodborne illnesss – with unsubstantiated statements like, “the majority of foodborne illness happens in the home.” Yet increasingly the outbreaks in foods like peanut butter, pot pies, pet food, pizza, spinach and tomatoes have little to do with how consumers handle the food.
Everyone from farm-to-fork has a food safety responsibility, but putting the onus on consumers for processed foods or fresh produce is disingenuous — especially for those who profit from the sale of these products.
Preparing pot pies and blaming consumers
The N.Y. Times repeated my year-and-a-half-old home-alone reporting and video shoot with ConAgra pot pies and other frozen thingies in a front-page feature this morning and reached the same conclusion: the cooking directions suck.
(BTW, the Times video accompanying Friday's story also sucks, and they appear to use the wrong kind of thermometer -- always be tip-sensitive)
The frozen pot pies that sickened an estimated 15,000 people with salmonella in 2007 left federal inspectors mystified. At first they suspected the turkey. Then they considered the peas, carrots and potatoes.
Threatened with a federal shutdown, the pie maker, ConAgra Foods, began spot-checking the vegetables for pathogens, but could not find the culprit. …
So ConAgra — which sold more than 100 million pot pies last year under its popular Banquet label — decided to make the consumer responsible for the kill step. The “food safety” instructions and four-step diagram on the 69-cent pies offer this guidance: “Internal temperature needs to reach 165° F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.”
… attempts by The New York Times to follow the directions on several brands of frozen meals, including ConAgra’s Banquet pot pies, failed to achieve the required 165-degree temperature. Some spots in the pies heated to only 140 degrees even as parts of the crust were burnt.
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And in a staggering example of corporate arrogance coupled with blame-the-consumer, Jim Seiple, a food safety official with the Blackstone unit that makes Swanson and Hungry-Man pot pies, said pot pie instructions have built-in margins of error, and the risk to consumers depended on
“how badly they followed our directions.”
That’s assuming people can read, that they can read English, that the instructions are microbiologically validated and that the instructions are clear – meaning there has been direct or video observation of consumers attempting to cook following the instructions.
Obama at E. coli risk? What does a medium-well hamburger mean?
U.S. President Barack Obama and VP Joe Biden (right, photo from AP) ordered a couple of medium-well hamburgers for lunch today at Ray's Hell Burger in Virginia, and while media and blog reports were the usual gaga over, OMG, the President ate, no one asked, what does medium-well mean? Was the President at risk of contracting foodborne illness like the other 83 million American mortals each year?
Color is a lousy indicator. And who knows what medium-well means from one mom-and-pop shop to the next. One of the blogs is already having a heated discussion about what medium-well means and not one person has mentioned temperature.
Anyone out there want to do a graduate degree? Go to 100 burger joints, order burgers, and when they ask how would you like it cooked, ask the server, what does that mean. See if anyone mentions temperature. Write up the various responses in a methodologically sound way. You may save a President.
90210: Pregnant and hungry for a hamburger
Last night on 90210, Adriana, the drug-addict turned mother-to-be, was out dining with her boyfriend and ordered a hamburger, medium rare.
Pregnant Adriana could learn some things from Barfblog.
Medium rare does not mean the burger is safe to eat – rather a hamburger needs to be cooked to 160F, by someone who knows how to use a meat thermometer properly, to be safe. Cooking hamburgers to 160F is the only way to kill deadly microorganisms like E. coli O157:H7. Pregnant women, with their suppressed immune systems, should be particularly careful, and avoid certain foods.
Crispy, chewy chicken burger
I recently received a complaint from an individual who bit into a succulent chicken burger only to realize that the interior was still raw. This is the picture taken after biting into a crispy cooked chicken burger using a camera from a cell phone, gotta' love technology. This chicken was completely raw inside but appeared cooked on the outside.
My wife and I are finally embarking on our long awaited honeymoon to Europe to visit family and enjoy some time off. One of my all time favorite bands, Depeche Mode, will playing in Rome and we decided that we should go. Their latest song release reminded me of the answer I gave the establishment which was responsible for the raw chicken burger. An employee said that the chicken must of been cooked because it was really crispy-'Wrong.' Use a digital tip sensitive thermometer and stick it in.
Top Chef Super Bowl
The Super Bowl of football (at least in the U.S.) is Sunday so Top Chef on Wednesday decided to do a football-themed challenge that was probably taped 6 months ago.
The football metaphors used in the show were as corny as the ones in a recent press release -- USDA gives food safety advice to kick off your Super Bowl party – but at least USDA provided accurate cooking advice:
“Color is not a reliable indicator of safety -- internal temperature is. Use a food thermometer to be sure meat and poultry are safely cooked. Steaks should be cooked to 145 °F, ground beef should be cooked to 160 °F and all poultry should be cooked to 165 °F.”
On Top Chef, Jeff and his excessively complex meals were sent packing, although the always entertaining Fabio should have lost for overcooking venison.
Judge: The deer was already dead. You didn’t have to kill it again.
Fabio: It was still bleeding when I sliced it; it was beautifully pink.
Judge: That’s medium-rare?
Fabio: Yes
Use a thermometer, Fabio. It will make you a better cook.
Oh, and Carla (below) won, and proclaimed, “Hands up, whoa. Touchdown Carla”
Football food safety
I expect there are some Pittsburgh Steelers fans up preparing for a day of tailgating, even though the kick-off in the American Football Conference Championship game is not for another 12 hours.
Amy will be cheering for the underdog Baltimore Ravens, because back-up wide receiver and special teams specialist Yamon Figurs played ball at Kansas State.
Amy never really followed football, except for the band. I started taking her to Kansas State games, more for the spectacle than the sport, and Amy became a fan.
Those purchasing food at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh may want to be wary. Like tailgaters, perhaps people need to take their own digital, tip-sensitive thermometer.
ThePittsburghChannel.Com reports that three-quarters of all food vendors at the stadium have been cited for critical violations in the past two years.
“Inspectors cited the Steel City Grill for serving chicken, chipped beef and hot dogs as much as 40 degrees below the required temperature. …
“The Steel City Grill was cited for serving meat at lukewarm temperatures in 2007 and again in 2008.
The 2008 inspection also said the "cook does not know the proper cooking temperature for chicken."
As far as K-State football alumni in the three years I’ve been in Kansas, I prefer Zac Diles, who now plays for the Houston Texans. Unassuming, hard-hitting linebacker at Kansas State, just like I was in my own mind back in high school. We even wore the same number – #52.
PETE SNYDER: How to properly calibrate a thermometer
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A reader asked, “Any recommendations on how to calibrate a digital tip thermometer for home use?”
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So I turned to thermometer guru Pete Snyder of the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Pete says:
The best way is to make a crushed/slush ice mixture of ice in a Wearing blender and put the tip of the thermometer in the middle of the ice and see what the thermometer reads. If it reads between 30 to 34 F, it is calibrated and ready for use. If it reads outside these limits, throw it away and buy a new one.
Note, to get 32F, it has to be crushed ice. If it is just packed ice cubes, it will probably not be any colder than 34F. Don't use the boiling point of water. It is never 212 because of altitude and barometric pressure.
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How can you be sure microwaved frozen chicken is safe to eat?
Judy Foreman of The Boston Globe says the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends no matter how frozen chicken is cooked, from whatever kind of meal or chicken thingies, use a thermometer to ensure the internal temperature has reached 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
Good advice.
So why at the end of the brief article is Roger Fielding, a professor of nutrition at Tufts University, quoted as saying, "Always cut it open and make sure it is white, not pink or translucent. You really have to be careful."
Bad advice.
What you really have to be careful about is taking food safety advice from nutrition professors at Tufts University.
Color is a lousy indicator. Use a digital, tip-sensitive thermometer.
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Top Chefs don't use thermometers
Using a thermometer will make anyone a better cook – or even a better top chef. Thermometers remove the guesswork, and keep your family and friends safe.
But rarely is a thermometer found in the top chef kitchens. Last night, someone’s lamb looked raw and someone’s scallops were swimming, but the judges said they were perfectly cooked. How would they know? Sure, it’s a lot more fun to guess – and the new judge uses more pop culture references than I do – but I’d rather stick it in. And the cross-contamination was rampant in the kitchens last night.
Best line? When describing one of the chefs who always wants to prepare scallops, another said,
“For christsakes, all she does is scallops. It’s Top Chef, not Top Scallops.”
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Oh Oprah: Celebrity cook makes food safety errors
“Doug. Oprah is cross-contaminating everything.”
Sure enough, there was Oprah on TV this afternoon in a repeat broadcast, with Christina Ferrare, who is supposedly cooking Oprah’s holiday meals.
In a three minute segment, Oprah and her gal pal managed to repeatedly touch raw poultry and then touch everything else on her celebrity kitchen set – including cooked poultry – never once washed their hands, incorrectly inserted a meat thermometer into the bird, and said the bird had to be cooked to 180-185F. The correct temperature is 165F.
Christina will not be cooking any of my meals. I’m sure she is relieved.
Dipping Areas: The food on Top Chef sucked so bad no one got kicked off
PhD student Ben is cursing me. I know he’s just finished watching Top Chef. So did I. So he had to endure smug stock-fixer Martha Stewart, who is constantly touching her hair when cooking. And the pretentiousness of food porn that is Top Chef.
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But give credit when deserved. Two weeks ago some of the chefs served lamb and used a food thermometer – they just didn’t say anything about proper temp or whether the thermometer helped decide whether the lamb was done.
But this week, a refrigerator door was left open overnight and a bunch of pork and duck was sent to the trashbin after hours at room temp.
Said one aspiring top cheffie:
“I cannot serve meat that is not at a safe temperature. I could kill or make very sick everybody in the room.”
Oh, and 15 years before Top Chef showed up, Toronto comedy fabs, Kids in the Hall, were skewering the fascination with all things food porn.
Frozen to cooked in plastic to done - the bird worked out
Amy and I usually host a Thanksgiving dinner for the Manhattan (Kansas) stay-at-homes. With Amy almost 40 weeks pregnant and me driving to the Kansas City airport to pick up my youngest, Courtlynn, we kept things simple.
I was going to do another of those fresh turkey breasts, but the store was sold out. So in the name of science, or reality cooking, I got one of those Jennie-O turkeys I’d seen advertized. Pete Snyder has posted a method for cooking a bird direct from frozen, but I wanted to try out this technology.
The bird comes in a plastic bag, and while I’m not a fan of cooking things in plastic bags, this seemed to work. A half-dozen slits, into the oven, off the airport. Too much salt for my taste, and overcooked due to travel, but that’s what the gravy is for. And a day later, the leftovers are yummy.
Foo Fighters fans of Top Chef
Team Sexy Pants edged out Team Cougar on Top Chef tonight as the wannabe celebs made a Thanksgiving meal for the Foo Fighters and their entourage of 60.
Dave Grohl, right, said, “Did someone offend the smores guy cause I think he spit on mine.”
And the smores guy got booted.
Drummer Taylor said of one desert, “I don’t like pumpkin foam … No more barfaits.”
Unfortunately, both teams cooked turkey in microwaves, and no one used a digital, tip sensitive thermometer, or any kind of thermometer.
Keep it safe for Thanksgiving, and stick it in.
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Yes Virginia, you can thaw turkey on the counter
I’ve gotten more done around the house in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years. Must be the nesting hormones. Amy figures she’s had enough. Baby’s due in a few days, but Amy would rather have it out now. My youngest daughter, Courtlynn, arrives on Thanksgiving for five days, and we hope the baby arrives then as well.
But, there’s still work to be done, and every year, it’s the same issue. We say it’s OK for people to do what they are already doing – thawing turkey on the counter – and people freak out. After all, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and their extension types insist it is never OK to thaw turkey at room temperature.
We have lots of evidence and have written about it in peer-reviewed journals. But why doesn’t USDA or FDA, with all their resources, tell people why it’s not OK to thaw poultry at room temperature instead of repeating -- as my friend Marty once quipped -- like a fascist calling out country line dancing instructions, that it is never OK to thaw at room temperature?
Show us the data.
Pete Snyder at the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management in St. Paul, Minnesota, has a summary available demonstrating the safety of thawing poultry at room temperature at http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Thaw-counter.html.
My group wrote a review note on the topic a few years ago, and it is included in its entirety at http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2007/10/articles/food-safety-communication/how-to-thaw-poultry-ignore-government/
However you thaw your turkey, use a digital, tip-sensitive thermometer to ensure it has reached an internal temperature of 165F. The laws of physics are apparently different north of the 49th parallel and poultry is required to reach 180F. No one knows why the Canadian government has different advice. And they’re not telling anyone.
Rob Mancini: Use a thermometer, and use it right
“A concierge is the Winnipeg equivalent of a geisha.”
I thought that line was so good on the television show, The Office, last night --when a few of the staff took a business trip to Winnipeg, Canada -- that I wrote it down for future use.
So when telegenic public health inspector Robert Mancini of Winnipeg (former co-host of the television series Kitchen Crimes, right, pretty much as shown) e-mailed me about something he saw, I had my excuse to use the Winnipeg line.
Rob writes:
“Yesterday, upon walking into a restaurant kitchen to perform a routine inspection, the chef was actually using a metal stem thermometer to determine doneness of a hamburger patty. Naturally, this excited me until I asked the chef what temperature he was aiming for. He said 130˚ F. Lovely.
“Just because a chef has a thermometer and uses it once in a while doesn’t really mean anything, they need to be aware of proper cooking temperatures. The chef, assuming that I was a health inspector (I guess all my fancy gadgets gave that away) used the thermometer to impress me and perhaps gain some extra bonus points. It almost did as I scurried over, maybe too excitedly, but sadly left disappointed. Let’s get people talking about food safety.”
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Bad cooking advice from Australian chicken industry
This is a picture I got from Pete Snyder years ago. It’s a chicken leg, back attached and it’s fully cooked. The red stuff has to do with the age the chick was harvested at. The point is, the only way to accurately cook meat is using a digital, tip-sensitive thermometer. Color is a lousy indicator.
Not so says the Australian Chicken Meat Federation (ACMF), which highlights a host of BBQ food safety failings, yet inexplicitly insists,
“Consumers need to be encouraged to routinely adopt simple food safety practices. The best way to check your chicken is to pierce it and see if the juices run clear.”
If it’s so simple, why can’t the industry get it right? Stick it in, and use a thermometer.
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What do rare, medium and well-done mean? Especially with hamburgers?
Amy and I are at the University of Wisconsin in Madison -- and I’m struck by how food safety things seem the same.
Amy got invited to speak at a French conference, and we didn’t know if we’d embark on the 10-hour drive this late in the pregnancy, but she said yes, so I tagged along.
Last time I was in Madison was 1997, when I gave a couple of talks at a BSE seminar for the Food Research Institute (FRI). A cursory look back and there were outbreaks involving petting zoos, unpastuerized apple cider, contaminated meat, and listeria. Once I get caught up on news you’ll see the outbreaks are still the same.
So we’ll keep looking for new messages and new media to reduce the number of sick people. As part of that, I had lunch with some FRI friends at The Great Dane Pub & Brewing Co.
Under the sandwiches and burgers section, the menu states,
“We cook our hamburgers and steaks to temperature. Here is a general guideline:
Rare – a cool red center
Medium Rare – a warm red center
Medium – a pink center
Medium Well – a slight hint of pink
Well Done – no pink."
Veteran barfbloggers will know that color – especially with beef – is a lousy indicator of doneness, and an even worse indicator of safety. Over half of all burgers will turn brown before they reach a safe temperature of 160F.
So I told the waitress I wanted a burger, and, when she asked me how I wanted it, I said 160F.
She looked at me.
My guests started to chime in, “You have to understand, he’s an assh…” but I cut them off.
Your menu says, cooked to temperature. That is the temperature I want it.
She started to back away slowly …
OK, well-done, but tell me what the cook says when you ask for 160.
When the waitress returned with the burger, she looked at me, like, you really are an asshole, but did tell me the cook said, if he wants it 160F, he wants it well-done. Why didn’t he just ask for that?
Because temperature is the only way to tell. Stick it in – for safety.
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How to know if it's done? Don't listen to Good Housekeeping or NBC
Amy’s getting to the final stages of pregnancy. Our house on the hill isn’t quite so attractive. All of her teaching is in the afternoon, so lunch-time TV usually includes Days of Our Lives. Sure it’s a stupid soap opera, but if hockey great and hometown pal Wayne Gretzky can appear on The Young and the Restless with a bad mullet, Amy can tune out to an hour of Days of Our Lives.
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Loving husband that I am, I flipped the TV to NBC about 10 minutes before the soap was due to start. What I saw was horrifying.
Kathie Lee Gifford has apparently attempted to resurrect her career by doing some NBC Today Show extension. And they did a piece with some woman from Good Housekeeping on how do you know if it’s done. These people perpetuated every food safety myth and probably made some folks ill. The only way to tell if it’s done is to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. Color is a lousy indicator.
Stick it in.
Cooking a Thanksgiving turkey... and side dishes
Thanksgiving is coming up (11/27/08), and just recently passed in Canada (10/13/08). Both have common foods and in this video a few different recipes are prepared keeping in mind food safety practices. Turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing are featured.
Canadian Thanksgiving dinner tonight - hopefully I won't make anyone barf
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday – a celebration of the harvest with food, friends and family.
Canadian Thanksgiving is today, so in an effort to enhance Canadian Studies, or at least the ability of Kansans to be able to geographically identify Canada as that place up north, Amy and I host an annual dinner, for ex-pats and, this year, our students.
They never turn down food. We remember what it’s like to be students.
But the supermarket I frequent didn’t have whole turkeys – American Thanksgiving isn’t until the end of November. There was, however, a fresh, huge turkey breast, reduced for quick sale (which meant I couldn’t thaw my turkey on the kitchen counter). So I bought two, experimented, and will be using the trusty meat thermometer.
We’re going to go eat, when the other 10 people arrive.
A video will be up in a few days.
Are you food safety savvy?
That’s what dietician and TV personality Leslie Beck asked yesterday in the Toronto Globe and Mail as she posed a pre-Canadian-Thanksgiving food safety quiz.
Leslie (right) didn’t do so good -- and she’s the alleged teacher with the answer book.
That’s because she went to the Coles Notes version -- the Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education – for her answers instead of doing some digging.
“While food processing has been blamed for many of these (foodborne) outbreaks, the fact remains that the majority of food-safety problems occur at home. It is estimated that Canada has as many as 13 million cases of food poisoning every year, most of which could be prevented by safer handling of food at home.”
With at least 20 people dead from listeria in cold cuts in Canada, such a statement is not only factually inaccurate, it is condescendingly harsh.
“Fresh produce must always be washed - true or false?
Answer: True
Fresh fruit and vegetables should never be consumed without being washed under clean, running water - even prebagged, prewashed produce.”
Chirstine Bruhn, UC Davis, do you have something to add on this? Last I saw, scientists were saying don’t rewash the pre-washed greens for fear of contaminating clean product. Food safety is not simple and there are lots of disagreements – which is why these laundry lists of do’s and don’t’s, are fairly useless. People are interested in this stuff, give them some data, some information, some context, not just questionable marching orders.
“What temperature does your stuffed Thanksgiving turkey need to reach before it is safe to eat?
Answer: d) 82 C (180 F)
Use a digital meat thermometer and cook your turkey until the temperature at the thickest part of the breast or thigh is at least 82 C (180 F)."
No idea where this comes from, because Health Canada won’t let mere mortals peek at the wizard behind the green curtain who makes such pronouncements (watch the video below for how Health Canada derives at consumer recommendations for things like cooking temperatures). The recommended internal temperature in the U.S. is 165F. You can read how that number was determined at http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2007/10/articles/food-safety-communication/thawing-and-cooking-turkey/.
Both are better than the U.K.’s, “piping hot.”
“What is the safest way to thaw your Thanksgiving turkey?
Answer: d) In the fridge
Never defrost a turkey at room temperature.”
Yes you can, and I will be this weekend. Check out Pete Snyder’s comments and our own work in this area.
We’ll be videotaping the turkey preparation for our annual Canadian-expat-in-Manhattan (Kansas) Thanksgiving feast on Monday.
Microwaves are great for reheating, not so great for cooking
An outbreak of salmonella in raw, frozen, breaded stuffed chicken has sickened 32 people in 12 states. As the number of frozen, meal solutions increase – chicken kiev, cordon blue, strips, nuggets and others – a Kansas State professor is warning consumers to be careful with that entrée.
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“Some of these frozen meals are fully cooked and just need to be reheated, and some are raw,” says Dr. Doug Powell, associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University. “It doesn’t seem fair, but consumers really have to read the labels. Raw product should always be cooked in an oven, not a microwave, and needs to be checked with a digital, tip-sensitive thermometer to make sure the food has reached a safe temperature of 165F.”
Investigators from the Minnesota Department of Health notes that this is the sixth outbreak of salmonellosis in Minnesota linked to these types of products since 1998. The findings prompted the officials to urge consumers to make sure that all raw poultry products are handled carefully and cooked thoroughly, and to avoid cooking raw chicken products in the microwave because of the risk of undercooking.
A table of the relevant outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=32&sc=419&id=1245
and below.
Stick it in: Use a thermometer to cook foods so your friends don't barf at football
U.S. college football kicks off Saturday. Time to put on your favorite school’s colors and brush up on that fight song. Thousands of students and alumni will be heading out to the stadium, tailgating, and firing up those grills. Hamburgers, chicken, ribs, or beans, there will be plenty of food on hand.
Use a food thermometer to make sure you aren’t serving your friends and family undercooked meats. Make sure to cook ground beef to 160°F(1), while chicken needs to reach 165°F(2). That way when your team takes the field, you aren’t puking or stuck on the toilet. And using a thermometer will make you a better cook. People are impressed by this. Good food safety will allow you to fully enjoy the tailgating atmosphere, so you can cheer your school onto victory.
It’s all on video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmyMmjfFo5Y
References
1: Ryan, Suzanne M., Mark Seyfert, Melvin C. Hunt, Richard A. Mancini. Influence of Cooking Rate, Endpoint Temperature, Post-cook Hold Time, and Myoglobin Redox State on Internal Color Development of Cooked Ground Beef Patties. Journal of Food Science. Volume 71 Issue 3 Page C216-C221, April 2006
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2006.tb15620.x?prevSearch=authorsfield%3A%28M.C.+Hunt%29
2: Focus On: Chicken. Food Safety and Inspection Service. United States Department of Agriculture. April 4, 2006. http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/chicken_food_safety_focus/index.asp
French food porn - burger chic
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As French chefs have embraced the quintessentially American food, they have also made it their own, incorporating Gallic flourishes like cornichons, fleur de sel and fresh thyme. These attempts to translate the burger, or maybe even improve it, strongly suggest that it is here to stay.The story has a lot of food porn about $50 burgers and nothing about food safety. Or thermometers.
Frédérick Grasser-Hermé, consulting chef at the Champs-Élysées boîte Black Calvados, said,
“A hamburger is the architecture of taste par excellence. The meat needs to be a mix of fatty and lean. Not raw, not rare. It must be medium rare. At the same time the bread needs to be smooth, tepid, toasted on the sesame side. I like to brush the soft side with butter. There needs to be a crispy chiffonade of iceberg lettuce. Everything plays a role.”
Rare, medium-rare, these terms are too subjective. Use a thermometer, and stick it in.
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Coffee, Conagra and consumers - talking in bed
The coffee place was just opening and as I awaited my order, a load of prepared sandwiches arrived. The first thing the staff member did was insert a tip-sensitive digital thermometer into one of the sandwiches to verify that the proper temperature had been maintained. Good on ya. The guy getting my order said it was standard operating procedure, and as we chatted it emerged he was newly arrived in Wellington from Montreal. Another Canadian buddy. Or friend.Next was a talk with ConAgra’s Food Safety Council in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s ConAgra of pot pie and peanut butter fame.
Quality experts at ConAgra Foods today will hear from a lawyer who has sued the company due to food borne illnesses and from two food safety advocates as the company stresses the need to keep its products safe.
"It's part of raising the game and listening to every expert on the food safety front," said Teresa Paulsen, ConAgra spokeswoman.
ConAgra decided to bring in Bill Marler, Barb Kowalcyk, director of food safety and co-founder of the Center for FoodBorne Illness Research and Prevention, and myself to hear what we had to say.
Marler told the Omaha World-Herald he was going to talk about fostering a culture that focuses on food safety while remaining profitable in a competitive industry, and credited ConAgra Chief Executive Gary Rodkin and other company executives for inviting him to speak.
"It says a lot for the company.”
Being in Wellington, NZ, and 17 hours ahead, provided several technological hurdles, which we sorta managed to get around. Video didn’t work, so the folks in Nebraska saw my slides and heard my disembodied voice – apparently in surround sound. I was talking into a telephone (left, exactly as shown), advancing my slides, but had no audience feedback. While awkward, I could get used to this lecturing style.
By the time I spoke with the consumer advisory group for the New Zealand Food Safety Authority later that afternoon, I had the message much more focused: here’s the top-5 factors that contribute to foodborne illness, here’s the research we do to reduce the burden of each, and here’s how we use different mediums and messages to foster a food safety culture, from farm-to-fork.
It’s been good to reflect on why we do the things we do, and it’s been great traveling in Wellington with Amy. Now it’s time for a couple of days of hanging out, catching up on news if I ever get my e-mail working again, and then its off to Melbourne on Sunday.
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How to cook hamburger - more from France
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From cooking ”a hamburger to the center” (page 21) to “well-cooked” (page 12), the document is short on specifics, and absolutely wrong when speaking to an audience I particularly care about these days – pregnant women.“For sensitive consumers (pregnant women, children, the elderly…) eat any meat (beef, poultry, pork) “well done” (that is to say at 65°C = disappearance of pink color), and avoid the consumption of raw meat, of some cold cuts (charcuterie) or tripe product.” (p. 15)
The temperature – 65 C or 149 F – is too low for any ground meat or poultry, and simply does not equal the disappearance of pink.
Color is a lousy indicator of doneness. So is well-cooked, cooked to the center, and, as the Brits prefer, piping hot. Use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. And stick it in.
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I try not to be a food safety jerk
Here's what Doug Powell does: He whips out the thermometer he's recently taken to carrying with him.You might wonder how the food-safety expert finesses such a potentially awkward social situation.
"I go into it very academic, professor-ish like," he said.
"I try not to be a jerk."
… But nobody will eat a burger off his grill that hasn't been stabbed in the side with a tip-sensitive digital thermometer and is cooked to a minimum of 160 degrees.
I’ve taken thermometers while tailgating at Kansas State football games, I’ve stuck them in potpies, and I’ve converted at least one French professor into using a thermometer. I know it’s awkward to ask questions, or listen politely while someone gases on about how safe their food is cause it comes from some dude with a RR address, but really, I try not to be a jerk.
Below are two videos, one tailgating, and one on how to cook hamburgers.
Now, can someone explain the American fascination with fireworks and the desire for students – especially males – to ignite the noisemakers every night, beginning July 1. What are they compensating for?
Color is crap -- no matter what the French government says
Amy translated parts of the document, which stated,“I would especially like to point out the simple method of control described in the memo that consists of visually verifying that the meat is no longer pink in the center to assure that the temperature range is respected.”
Amy's best translation of another part of the document is:
Cooking the ground beef patties through to the center eliminates the E. coli O157:H7 bacteria. This method of cooking can be considered as a kill-step according to the French Agency for Food Safety (AFSSA). This corresponds to an internal temperature of 65 C. While elaborating control procedures for the cooking temperature of ground beef patties, a simple method for assuring that the temperature range is sufficiently respected is to visually verify that the meat is no longer pink in the center. This can provide a sure and practical control procedure for personnel preparing the meals in institutions that do not have means to continually measure the internal temperature of finished products.
It is important to make the food service staff aware of these measures that allow the prevention of the risks of E. coli O157:H7. These measures are not incompatible with the good quality of the dishes served.
If eating habits cause certain French consumers to prefer ground beef patties that are pink in the center, recent organoleptic studies seem to indicate that the taste for rare meat develops with age and that young children appreciate well-done meat. The same has been found by a recent ad hoc study recently directed by a committee from the AFSSA.
Color is a lousy indicator of doneness in all kinds of meat, especially hamburger. The references are all here, along with a video.
Stick it in. Use a digital, tip-sensitive thermometer.
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Top Chef tailgating
Ryan learned on Top Chef last night that California-style tailgating doesn't play too well in the heartland -- or at least, Chicago..jpg)
Accurately measuring whether food is safe or not is also not high on the Top Chef to-do list. Sure, the Australian dude (or New Zealand, the show refers to him interchangeably, which will equally please the Aussies and Kiwis) was chastised for being unsanitary -- cross contamination and double dipping -- but use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to ensure safety and quality. Sick it in.Check out our youtube video of tailgaters at Kansas State's last home game - against Missouri -- back in Nov. 2007.
How to properly cook hamburgers
Cooking burgers to 160°F is the only sure way to tell that it is fully cooked. Cooking hamburgers to 160°F kills unwanted microorganisms such as E. coli O157:H7, a deadly ingredient. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 61 deaths a year from E. coli, and thousands more ill. Ground beef was recalled 19 different times in 2007 for E. coli contamination.
E. coli O157:H7 loves hiding in the intestines of animals, such as cows. During slaughter, if workers do not follow safe practices it can get onto the cuts of meat. Steaks can be cooked to varying degrees of doneness because any potential for microorganisms exists only on the surface. However, with ground beef the muscle is mixed up and the organisms are spread throughout the meat.
When cooking, don’t rely on the burger’s appearance to tell if it is done. Many people think a burger that is no longer pink is a done burger. This is not the case as pointed out in many studies (here, here, and here). Sometimes burgers look done well before they hit 160°F.
To measure the temperature of a burger, go out and buy a tip sensitive digital thermometer. Remove the burger from the grill or stove and insert the thermometer into the side of the meat all the way to the center. Wait until the thermometer reads 160°F before serving. Add the toppings of your choice, and enjoy!
Podcast 1
Podcast 2
References
Hunt, M.C., O. Sørheim, E. Slinde. Color and Heat Denaturation of Myoglobin Forms in Ground Beef. Journal of Food Science Volume 64 Issue 5 Page 847-851, September 1999.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1999.tb15925.x?prevSearch=authorsfield%3A%28M.C.+Hunt%29
Ryan, Suzanne M., Mark Seyfert, Melvin C. Hunt, Richard A. Mancini. Influence of Cooking Rate, Endpoint Temperature, Post-cook Hold Time, and Myoglobin Redox State on Internal Color Development of Cooked Ground Beef Patties. Journal of Food Science. Volume 71 Issue 3 Page C216-C221, April 2006
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2006.tb15620.x?prevSearch=authorsfield%3A%28M.C.+Hunt%29
Seyfert, M., R.A. Mancini, M.C. Hunt. Internal Premature Browning in Cooked Ground Beef Patties from High-Oxygen Modified-Atmosphere Packaging. Journal of Food Science. Volume 69 Issue 9 Page C721-C725, December 2004
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2004.tb09923.x?prevSearch=authorsfield%3A%28M.C.+Hunt%29
Mallie's big burger -- did they use a thermometer?
After 12 hours of preparation and baking, the 134-pound burger emerged Saturday at Mallie's Sports Bar and Grill.The ''Absolutely Ridiculous Burger,'' made with beef, bacon and cheese, was delivered on a 50-pound bun, sells for $350, and orders require 24 hours' notice. Flipping the burger required three men using two steel sheets.
That's all nice, but did they use a thermometer to acquire data for doneness? Regardless of the size, stick it in.
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Use a meat thermometer
Bouchard blames it on the media, "with its glorified tales of salmonella we've been scared into thinking that illness, disease and toxins lurk in every package."
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There's nothing glorious about salmonella.Bouchard says always keep a box of disposable latex or plastic gloves in the kitchen. Put them on whenever you handle any raw meats or fish. And immediately sterilize your cutting board and knife with a commercial disinfectant or a solution of diluted chlorine bleach before going on to any other task.
OK.
Bouchard also says the answer to the problem of overcooking is to use the sear-and-bake method of cooking.
"In 15 minutes, we had perfectly cooked chicken, with the meat cooked through but still tender and juicy. The same cooking technique could be applied to cuts of pork, beef, turkey or even fish."
Wrong. The only way to tell if meat like chicken is properly cooked is to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. And it will make you a better executive chef cause you won't overcook meat.
Stick it in.
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What temperature would you like your lamb chops?
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I immediately jumped in, blowing my food safety cover, and asked, "You actually have thermometers back in the kitchen?"
She said, "Yes."
I've been a food safety geek for coming up on 15 years. No one has ever asked me what temperature I wanted my food.
I couldn't believe it.
The occasion was Angelique's birthday, so Amy and I, along with Bob, decided to take our friend to the newest Manhattan (Kansas) eatery, della Voce.
When ordering, the waitress told us the meat on the menu was hormone and antibiotic free. Uh-oh, I thought, another over-priced food porn joint. Not interested.
But, the food was good and the atmosphere was great for a leisurely 2.5 hour meal. Stick it in.
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How to check if a turkey is cooked: "piping hot" is not sufficient
Same with the Irish.
For the home cook, the data is the tip-sensitive digital thermometer, and a recording of 160F for hamburgers, 165F for poultry.
For the U.K.'s Food Standards Agency, it's, "check it's piping hot all the way through."
I have no idea what that means.When I hear piping hot, I think of Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
Seriously, the best the taxpayer-funded FSA can come up with is:
So make sure your turkey is cooked properly:
* check it's piping hot all the way through
* cut into the thickest part to check that none of the meat is pink
* if juices run out, they should be clear.
Wow.
One of the great things about the barfblog software provided by food safety dude Bill Marler is that we can see what people are searching for. Since Thanksgiving, people are repeatedly searching for, "Where to place a thermometer in a turkey."
So, not only are they using a thermometer, they want to know how to do it properly.
Don't ask the U.K.'s Food Standards Agency.
Or Ireland's safefood, which yesterday said it's safe to cook stuffing inside the turkey and,
"remember, always make sure your cooked turkey is piping hot all the way through, with no pink meat, and all the juices run clear."
But here are some tips. And some pics from our Thanksgiving turkey.
Food safety guru Pete Snyder says, If you have stuffed the turkey, you must cook the stuffed bird until the stuffing is above 150F. This assures a 10,000,000-to-1 kill of Salmonella. At this point, the breast will probably be 165F, which is very safe, and the thigh will be about 185F, which is necessary to make this muscle tissue soft.
Sara Moulton on ABC's Good Morning America says:
The thermometer goes into the thickest part of the thigh and should not touch the bone.
The U.S. National Turkey Federation says to insert the thermometer 2 1/2 inches in the deepest portion of the turkey breast or into the inner thigh near the breast. Make sure the thermometer does not touch a bone. When inserting the thermometer in the turkey breast, insert it from the side. The thermometer is easier to read and more accurate than when inserted from the top.
And the U.S. Department of Agriculture says for whole turkeys, place the thermometer in the thickest part of the inner thigh. Once the thigh has reached 165 °F, check the wing and the thickest part of the breast to ensure the turkey has reached a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F throughout the product.The Brits are right to say that people shouldn’t wash their turkeys before cooking them -- a cross contamination nightmare -- but why they refuse to advocate tip-sensitive digital thermometers is baffling. And risky.
And these are happy people not barfing because I used a tip-sensitive digital meat thermometer, and didn't rely on "piping hot."
Science fair: Using photos to check when a burger is done
Above a stove, the girls mounted a camera that took a picture every 30 seconds. They measured how much each burger shrank during cooking, and recorded the size when it reached the proper temperature. Aided by computer software designed to measure geometric shapes, they calculated the percentage of shrinkage for various brands of frozen patties. And then they tested the finding by injecting raw burgers with E. coli.
The principal investigator, Naomi Collipp, suggested that "It pretty much worked every time."
Interesting idea, but seems like it's drastically more complicated than having thermometers everywhere. I do like the thinking-outside-of-the-box nature of the project though -- thermometers might not get used in every kitchen and maybe a grill-mounted camera snapping pictures burgers leads to safer food. Would be interesting to see how fat content impacts their findings.
Food science cafe
We had our first, monthly, Food Science Café, last night, and while numbers were small, I still believe that, if you build it, they will come.As long as it's useful.
Adrianna Deweese of the Kansas State Collegian wrote that Douglas Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at K-State, said the purpose of the monthly discussions is to talk about food safety and science in a different setting than a classroom.
Powell showed his meat thermometer to those in attendance, and said it is important to get a digital, instant-read, tip-sensitive meat thermometer, which costs about $12.
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"Lots of people use it for whole birds or roasts, but I think it's more important actually for the burgers and the ground beef," Powell said. "Ten years ago I would have never used one, but now I feel naked when I don't - I feel vulnerable."When he is asked at a restaurant how he would like his hamburger cooked, Powell said he responds he would like it "160," meaning he would like it cooked to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Food color often is a poor indicator of when it is properly cooked, Powell said. K-State food-safety research has found about 25 percent of tested hamburgers turned brown before they reached a safe temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit, he said.
"We're always just trying to find one way to put information out and take information in," he said. "We're just always trying to find new ways to get it out there so we have fewer sick people."
The network also has several blogs at www.donteatpoop.k-state.edu and
barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu. Powell also wore a T-shirt Monday night that said "ne mangez pas de caca," which is French for "Don't eat poop."
"It's had more effect than anything else," Powell said of the message.
Angela Dodd, senior in food science, was quoted as saying Food Science Café discussions are
"a great way for students to become aware of what's going on in the media about food safety. Food pertains to everybody, and it's a part of everybody's life."
I didn't really like the long table set-up. Next month, we're probably going to do it in the on-campus bowling alley. Only place to get a beer at K-State.
Cooking a frozen pot pie in a microwave
This is a ConAgra Banquet turkey pot pie Amy and I purchased the evening of Oct. 9, 2007 and kept in the freezer. It had the P-9 code on the side -- the ones implicated in the Salmonella outbreak -- and on sale, 2-for-$1.This is me in our kitchen on Monday Oct. 8, preparing Thanksgiving (Canadian) chicken for guests. Note the white microwave in the back left corner.
This is our GE Turntable microwave oven cooking the turkey pot pie at 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 10, 2007. I have no idea what the wattage is.
The front of the pot pie package includes statements such as:
Ready in 4 minutes; microwavable
And
KEEP FROZEN
COOK THOROUGHLY
The microwave cooking instructions on the back state:
For food safety and quality, follow these cooking directions:
Microwave Oven
(fine print: Ovens vary; cooking time may need to be adjusted.)
1. Place tray on microwave-safe plate; slit top crust.
I could not slit the top crust. It was frozen solid.
2. Microwave on High.
(Med. OR High Wattage Microwave 4 mins.
Low Wattage Microwave 6 mins).
This is the turkey pot pie after 4 minutes on high in the microwave. I was able to slit the crust. The temperature stabilized around 48 F. I must have a low wattage microwave.
The is the turkey pot pie after 6 minutes on high in the microwave. Near the surface, the temperature registers at 204 F (left). However, the temperature lowered as I moved the probe to the center. Temperature approximately 127 F (right).
The microwave cooking instructions also state:
3. Let Stand 3 minutes. Carefully remove as Product will be hot.
After 3 standing for 3 minutes the interior of the pot pie reaches 148 F. The recommended safe end-point temperature for poultry is 165 F.
This is the pot pie after 6 minutes in the microwave on high, standing for 3 minutes, followed by an additional 2 minutes in the microwave on high; 194 F.
I eat the pot pie.This is completely anecdotal and in no way representative. However, as my research colleague Randy Phebus just posted on barfblog.com:
"Why any food product containing raw ingredients of any kind (actually, in this case the chicken cubes were fully cooked, but the veggies and dough were not) would have microwaving as a primary preparation procedure, particularly when starting from a completely frozen state. Microwave heating of this type of product would no doubt be variable, and particularly when you look at all the different types of microwave ovens out there. Perhaps the message that we should be spreading is that microwaves should only be used to heat pre-cooked products. Then, we also need to address the almost universal ambiguity in prep instructions on food packages. What do consumers really understand, or better what do they not understand, about these written label instructions? One other important bit...are the label instructions always properly validated for their food safety effectiveness in the first place?"
It's undercooked... or is it?
Almost two weeks ago Top Chef’s cheftestant Sara M. was sent home after two consecutive undercooked dishes. Admittedly, her halibut in the Quickfire challenge was raw in the middle, but she didn’t agree that she served raw chicken at the French Culinary Institute. She told the judges, “I sliced the chicken myself, and I checked every single one,” and to her colleagues she insisted, “That chicken was not $#%-in raw, cause I cut every single one.” Still, Judge Gail Simmons said her chicken was pink, and as the night went on, her chicken became raw in the retelling.
Does the chicken in this picture look cooked to you? Color is a lousy indicator of the doneness of chicken. The pictured chicken comes from Pete Snyder, meat thermometer guru, and has been cooked to the required 165 F. Sara would have had a stronger case, had her flavors not been off, by using a meat thermometer and having hard evidence to back up her dish. Cutting the chicken and visually checking the internal temperature is not a proven food safety method.Just yesterday the National Pork Board reportedly began their case for lowering the recommended cooking temperatures for pork from the currently approved 160F. Board member Steve Larsen said, "We've conducted an initial retail study and risk assessment, and the science of safety is definitely there to support the lowering." How would you know your pork is a few degrees off from optimal taste and safe cooking temperature just by looking at it? Ask pork superstar cheftestant Howie. He won once with perfectly cooked lamb chops that were verified with a thermometer.
They call me...Tater Salad.
I was recently a guest at a “welcome back” picnic along with about fifty other students. A few of the dozen or so faculty in attendance grilled up a box full of beef patties and tossed them in a pile for us all to assemble and consume in traditional picnic fashion. I looked them over, picked a luke warm specimen out of the bunch and threw it on a bun with ketchup. But was it done? It certainly looked done, but charred as it may appear, color is no indicator of doneness.
The star of the show, however, was really the five tubs of Kroger brand Mustard Potato Salad lying open on the adjacent table. “Poop Salad" as it was recently dubbed by a ColumbusING blogger from Columbus, Ohio, where E. coli O157:H7 was found in the salads during a routine safety check. This was after the product was distributed and sold, of course. (That’s just the way these things work.) So Kroger did the socially responsible thing and issued a recall in attempt to remove the possibly tainted salad out of the refrigerators of innocent people and dispose of it properly.
So how does a recall happen? The information goes out: newspapers are picking up the story, TV news crews are spreading the word, satellites in outer space are linking up… but people are sitting around eating recalled potato salad like there’s just a little guy in a booth tapping Morse code and sad little beepings just can’t keep up.
It’s sad that it seems so true. Somebody out there is not keeping up. But who? During the recent Castleberry chili recall people were still eating the stuff, not knowing there could be a botulism toxin inside, weeks after the recall was announced.
How do we get people to care about the safety of the food they eat? “I was tainted on a production line (possibly),” the tater salad cries. “You threw me…in-to pub-lic.” But the public isn’t paying any attention.
Casey Wilkinson is an undergrad research student at iFSN, and she loves her mom's tater salad.
Heat em up, eat em up... KSU!
My favorite time of year is here, college football season. My team, the Kansas State University Wildcats kicks off their season Saturday night on the road against Auburn. Even though I won't be traveling to the game I'll still be doing the one thing I love to do before a home game, grilling out. To me, nothing is better than getting in some brats and burgers before walking up to the stadium to cheer on my cats. However, the tailgating scene can get pretty crazy sometimes and food safety may slip some people's minds. Here are some good tips for the tailgating season.
- Keep cold food in a cooler at less than 40°F (and keep there beers this cold too!)
- Make sure the different meats are kept wrapped to prevent cross contamination. Making a burger topped with chicken is delicious, but stacking these meats is only acceptable after cooking
- Cook food to the right temperature
- Steaks (beef, pork, fish, lamb) - 145°F
- Ground (beef, pork, lamb) - 160°F
- Chicken (whole, ground) - 165°F
- Probably the smartest thing you can have is a meat thermometer. It's the only true and tested way to tell if the food is done, and many are small enough to fit in your pocket. These should be a tailgater's best friend.
- Hot foods should not be left out for more than 2 hours. As much as you might want to have some food after the game, it is not acceptable to leave the burgers out for all 4 quarters. Put it away and reheat if needed.
The post title is a play on a popular chant at K-state games, thus I find it easy to remember to heat my foods to the proper temperatures. Starting next week you can find me at the Bill Snyder Family Stadium cooking, and losing my voice inside the stadium (from about where the picture above was taken).
Prediction: KSU 21 - Auburn 20
Restaurant Wars
In last night’s episode of Bravo's Top Chef, the winning team used a meat thermometer. While this is a rarity within the celebrity chef circle, at least based on what we see in the final cut, it’s the second time I’ve seen one used on Top Chef this season (both times the chefs became winners, and both times they were cooking lamb). Last night Quatre’s sous-chef Howie wielded the same sort of digital tip-sensitive thermometer that we use at home. He had the unsliced chops, on their side, and inserted the thermometer into the middle of the meat. (Of course, this week the cheftestants also had head judge Chef Tom Colicchio watching them in the kitchen.) While Howie’s former nemesis, Joey, called his chops, “Typical Howie, undercooked!” the judges said they were cooked beautifully and perfectly. They had ordered their chops rare. For those of you interested in trying this at home, there is no simple answer for finding the correct temperature of perfect-rare and safe lamb chops. Some recipe sites I consulted recommended a temperature of 125 F-130 degrees for medium rare. However, according to USDA for beef, veal and lamb (steaks, roasts and chops), medium rare is at 145 °F and medium is 160 °F.
Hormel proposes the following:
“Traditional guidelines state that lamb cooked very rare, rare, medium rare, or medium should have an internal temperature ranging between 115ºF to 145°F. With increased concern over bacteria that may be present in the internal portions of lamb, it is now recommended that whole lamb cuts be cooked to a final internal temperature (after resting) of not less than 145°F.”
While Howie may have hit the right temperature to please the judges, no one knows what his magic thermometer reading actually was. Still, I’m glad to see a thermometer once again on the show, used correctly (i.e inserted into the thickest portion of the meat), and this time for more than a second.
Just cook the burgers and no one will get sick ...
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Andrew Wadge is the chief scientist for the U.K. Food Standards Agency; Andy has a blog.On Aug. 2, 2007, a Judith Hilton posted on Andy's blog that,
"UK Government advice about cooking burgers is more stringent than in the US and we were asked to consider whether our advice was still appropriate, bearing in mind claims the cooking times and temperatures recommended in the UK may lead to overcooking and deterioration in the quality of some products.
"Mindful of this, but also of the fact that undercooked burgers can harbour harmful food bugs such as E. coli O157, which can cause food poisoning and kidney failure, and that the advice had not been expertly reviewed since 1998, we asked the ACMSF to review what we were saying, which is that burgers should be cooked to 70°C for 2 minutes or equivalent. In other words, until burgers are piping hot throughout, there are no pink bits and the juices run clear."
On Aug. 2, 2007, I posted a comment, asking,
Why is the U.K. advice considered more stringent that the U.S.? Especially when the U.K. makes no mention of using meat thermometers and instead relies on the tremendously misleading, cook until the juices run clear?
On Aug. 7, 2007, Ms. Hilton responded that,
"The stringency relates to the time-temperature combinations whereby US guidance allows combinations that will provide a lower log reduction that 70 degrees for two minutes.
The reason we don't mention temperature probes during cooking is that they're not commonly used in the home over here. … Sorry you don't find the reference to juices running clear helpful. It's there as an additional safety check, alongside cooker manufacturer' instructions. These instructions are designed to achieve a minimum temperature of 70 degrees C for two minutes or equivalent."
Without getting into the inadequacies on cooking instructions (and we don't just blather about it, we're doing research on it, rightt now -- dp) I responded,"Thanks for your comments. But they seem incomplete, especially when you are claiming that U.K. standards are more stringent than U.S. (and I'm Canadian so find the jingoism peculiar).
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture seems to have covered much of the basics in this oldie but goodie release. And while use of thermometers may be low in the U.K. and elsewhere, isn't it the responsibility of government agencies to produce evidence-based material, and even promote best practices? Like using meat thermometers? It's a research challenge we will be undertaking."
Top Chefs... Stick it in
Last night on Bravo’s Top Chef, Micah got eliminated for her bad-tasting but healthy meatloaf. Last week, Micah caught my attention as she used a meat thermometer in the barbeque elimination challenge. She came in the top three for her perfectly grilled lamb chops.
This is the same show that has had openly sick (or at least nauseated) chefs cooking anyway because they didn’t want to be kicked out of the competition (they wouldn't get work in Michigan, where the state has proposed that someone with vomiting, diarrhea or a sore throat with fever could not return until 24 hours after the symptoms are gone).
And last night when the oven wasn’t working and Cheftestant Sara M’s chicken didn’t get done, she handpicked and served the pieces that looked cooked… no meat thermometer in sight, at least to the viewers.
Although Micah’s gone now, hats off to her. Often depressed and crying, missing her daughter, Micah still had the presence of mind to stick in the meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of her barbecued meat. Whether she did it for accuracy or safety, Micah’s choice to use a thermometer stood out. How often do you see one on a TV cooking show? Perhaps the climate on the reality cooking circuit will change.
In 2004, Doug's laboratory reported that, based on 60 hours of detailed viewing of television cooking shows, an unsafe food handling practice occurred about every four minutes, and that for every safe food handling practice observed, they observed 13 unsafe practices. The most common errors were inadequate hand washing and cross-contamination between raw and ready-to-eat foods.
Hey, reality cooking show producers: serve up another helping of food safety.
Washing my meat thermometer - part II
Not quite satisfied with my inability to get a quick answer to my meat thermometer quandary, I did a Google search on “Food Safety Question.” “Ask Karen” popped up as the first hit. She’s the FSIS virtual representative for USDA. I typed in my question, “Do I need to wash my digital meat thermometer or is this bad for the mechanism?” This is what Karen said:
Thermometers are devices that measure temperatures. Using a food thermometer is the only reliable way to ensure the safety of meat, poultry and egg products. To be safe, these foods must be cooked to an internal temperature high enought [sic] to destroy any harmful microorganisms that may be in the food.If I were anyone else, I would have given up with this huge list of questions. But being the inquisitive (stubborn) nerd that I am, I searched through and clicked on “What is the proper way to clean a food thermometer?” Karen says, “As with any cooking utensil, food thermometers should be washed with hot soapy water. Most thermometers should not be immersed in water. Wash carefully by hand.”
* Are food thermometers best for large cuts of meat?
* Can oven-safe bimetallic coil thermometers be used in the oven?
* How accurate do thermometers need to be?
* How many people use a food thermometer?
* How to use a food thermometer?
* Can I use a people thermometer for meat and poultry?
* What are deep fry thermometers?
* What is a bimetallic coil thermometer?
* What is a liquid-filled thermometer?
* What is a pop up timer?
* What is a refrigerator thermometer?
* What is a T-Stick?
* What is a thermistor thermometer?
* What is a thermocouple thermometer?
* What is a thermometer fork?
* What is an instant-read thermometer?
* What is an oven cord thermometer?
* What is an oven thermometer?
* What is the proper way to clean a food thermometer?
* What percentage of Americans own food thermometers?
* What types of kitchen thermometers are available?
* Where can I buy a food thermometer?
* Why is it so important that people use a food thermometer when cooking meat, poultry, and eggs?
Karen’s advice sounds … sound. But it isn’t really practical if I’m cooking two things on the grill at once. Will the internal temperatures get hot enough to kill the microbes on the metal if I probe another piece of meat? I’m certainly no scientist, but I wonder what the real cross-contamination risks are. I also wondered if another source would give me a different answer.
Next I Googled, “Wash meat thermometer” (in quotes) and I got exactly one result-- a document entitled “FY 2001 Annual Report of Accomplishments and Results: Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service.” This report, comprised of many project overviews, provided one on “Quick & Easy Cooking Schools.” In this project pilot cooking schools were offered in two Oklahoma counties, one of which had a 159% higher rate of foodborne illness than the rest of the state and this was 219% higher than the rest of the U.S. Using a 70 page Quick & Easy Cooking School curriculum, thirty cooking schools were taught in 2000. As a result, the worst county (Washita) dropped from 159% above the state rate to 100% below the state rate for foodborne illnesses. Here are some other “anecdotal” results:
“In addition, there was an increase in the number who used a meat thermometer after attending the cooking school. Moreover, the following are samples of additional food safety comments from participants regarding what they learned: ‘Wash meat thermometer in-between insertions. Do not just rinse the grilling tray that held raw meat but wash it before putting cooked meat back on it. Do not thaw meat on the counter.’”
My friends at iFSN also found the following references for me:
From the Beef Information Centre “Thermometer Know-How” states, “Always use hot soapy water to wash the tongs, plate and thermometer stem used in checking partially cooked meats before using again.”
From the food safety network’s own page, Cooking Temperatures 06.jul.05, “Wash the thermometer stem in hot soapy water every time you use it.”
The explanation that finally cured my curiosity was this one from O. Peter Snyder Jr. His study, “FOODBORNE ILLNESS HAZARD CONTROL STRATEGIES FOR CHURCHES AND NON-REGULATED GROUP FEEDING SITUATIONS” in 1992 for the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management (May 1998 edition) explains that while cooking large pieces of meat, “Do not roast meats, etc. on a spit or stick the meat with a fork, because it will unnecessarily contaminate the center of the food. Always wash the stem of a thermometer before putting it into cooked, ready-to-eat food.”
Now on to investigating how many people use a fork when they grill.
