E. coli vs. "Safe preparation of food"
71% of the public cook meat to it’s proper temperature.* That means that 29% of us are cooking meat in such a way that could cause sickness or even death, if it had anything in it like E Coli., Salmonella, or any other contaminant.
But here’s the good news…
Back in March, about 50 tons of potentially E. Coli contaminated meat was released to the public. Doesn’t sound like good news? Don’t worry. It’s already been consumed. The meat was sent to institutional distributors. And maybe that was a good thing because apparently, they cooked it right, or at least better than that 71% of us in the general public. Get this… only three people became ill from it. Three people! One can only suspect that because it went to institutions, maybe they had very strict food safety standards in place.
So let’s bring those practices into our homes…
I’ve always been good about food storage, cross contamination prevention, hand washing, etc. But my weakness was about “doneness”. I’m pretty good about using a meat thermometer in the oven. But I recently started using a meat thermometer for the BarBQ as well. Which is even more important than the oven, because BBQs don’t really cook as evenly. Chicken and pork are especially worthy of it. But so is beef and really, any meat, for that matter. Why not? It takes the guess work out of it. It’s cheap. It’s easy. You can pick one up on your next grocery shop for under $10.
But there’s lots of other important food safety guidelines, some of which I touched on above. To be really thorough, I recommend reading this page from the USDA. Print it. Study it. Review it. Learn it. Memorize it. Know it. Stick it on your refrigerator until you can recite it. There will be a test.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Factsheets/Keep_Food_Safe_Food_Safety_Basics/index.asp
Now, don’t be paranoid. Just be smart. Cooking is fun. And besides, we have to keep cooking and eating!
*Statistics according to a survey recently released by The International Food Information Council Foundation
