In a recent study by Phang and Bruhn (Journal of Food Protection, 2011) only 4% of volunteers used a meat thermometer for checking burger doneness; only 13% knew the recommended internal temperature for ground beef; and the average hand-washing time for the volunteers was 8 seconds.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday will release a new but stripped-down antitrust rule regulating meat companies that’s far less sweeping than initial reforms that ran into strong opposition from businesses and Congress.
With E. coli O157:H7, more tests are conducted each year. Thankfully, the vast majority of the results have been negative, but there are still positive findings.
The USDA said that if Congress does not provide enough money for enforcing a new, sweeping antitrust rule for meat companies, it will abandon portions of the rule.
In a Federal Register Notice published Sept. 20, 2011, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that six shiga toxin producing E. coli serogroups — O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, and O145 (hereinafter STEC) — are adulterants on raw, non-intact beef product or components in the same manner as E. coli O157:H7.
Like the proverbial lineman whose number is only called when he commits a penalty, industry seldom gets any accolades for its efforts to produce safe food.
Everyone has heard the saying, “What you don’t know can hurt you.” If you make frozen, not ready-to-eat products, especially for household consumers, my question for you is, “How well does your product achieve lethality temperatures in the consumer’s home?”
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