|
Cooking a burger? Stick a thermometer in it
Meat color is no guarantee against E. coli
August 18, 1997
Web posted at: 10:31 p.m. EDT (0231 GMT)From Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen
(CNN) -- Barbecuers who think they're protecting themselves against E. coli contamination by checking the middle of their burgers to be sure they're brown are not doing the one thing that ensures their meat is safe.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the only way to make sure there's no E. coli garnishing your burger is to test it with a meat thermometer.
"We're saying you need a thermometer to indicate 160 degrees," says Kaye Wachsmuth of the USDA. "The color may not be a reliable indicator."
The USDA started telling people to use thermometers two months ago, but it doesn't seem to have caught on.
"No," says a man cooking out in the park, "never used a thermometer."
"Mm, mm," says a woman, also grilling out in a park. "Never used a thermometer."
The USDA used to say that being brown in the middle was enough insurance against E. coli, but now the agency has changed its mind.
Handle it safely
Research at Kansas State University found that burgers can look brown, but still be less than 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71 degrees Celsius) inside, the temperature at which E. coli die.
The recall last week of 1.2 million pounds of ground beef is a reminder that food isn't always safe.
"The best thing the consumer can do is to know that he or she also has the responsibility to cook their meat and poultry at the right temperatures and handle it safely," USDA Secretary Dan Glickman says.
Safe handling means a lot of hand washing. E. coli can spread from person to person. In fact, only two of the four children who died from E. coli in the Jack in the Box incident several years ago actually ate at a Jack in the Box restaurant. The other two caught it second-hand.
This time, however, none of the 16 people in Colorado who became ill from eating meat contaminated by E. coli got it from fast-food restaurants. They got sick from their own cooking.
They didn't know that hamburgers are like Thanksgiving Day turkeys: to make sure it's done, use a thermometer.
- Consumer News - Fitness and Health - Warnings
- Consumer News - Fitness and Health - Safety
- Consumer News - Food - Meat
Related sites:
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
- USDA's Home Page
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Home Page
- Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP) - a non-profit organization devoted to victim assistance, public education, and policy advocacy for safe food and public health
- FDA Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition
- The E. coli Index
- E. coli Primer
- E. coli Information Page
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.
|
Sound off on our message boards You said it... |
|
© 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.