Eating Dangerously Page 11
Safety advocates, including Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives for the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, are eager for the U.S. FDA to release new growing guidelines for problem produce—cantaloupe, leafy greens, and tomatoes, for starters—as required by the Food Safety Modernization Act. “In our view, the food that comes to the consumer should be safe to eat, especially stuff that you will eat raw,” Halloran says. “But the consumer needs to realize we don’t live in a perfect world.”
Pregnant women, families with young children, the elderly, and those with compromised immunity should take extra precaution, according to Halloran, but the rest of the public shouldn’t worry too much. “Generally, these bugs are not wildly long-lived and hardy. You don’t have to become crazy for this. Some people don’t pay any attention at all, and that’s when you can have a problem.”
Ever wondered if you need to scrub the banana peel before you eat the banana? Or if rinsing chicken before you cook it washes off bacteria or just splashes it around your kitchen? Do you really need to wash “prewashed” spinach? How long can the leftovers stay out on the counter while you watch the Packers and the Patriots go into overtime? The answers are not as obvious as your mother’s wisdom once told you. Nor are they set in stone. One serious food-illness outbreak can upend years of assumptions in a university lab. But in this chapter, we’ve called upon national experts to walk us from the grocery aisles, through the kitchen, and all the way to the compost heap.
What to Look For at the Grocery Store
How many times have you grabbed the milk first, wandered over to the bakery aisle, checked the price on the latest Adam Sandler DVD, asked a few questions at the seafood counter, searched high and low for canned artichokes, and then realized your milk isn’t cold anymore?
A little terrain mapping of your regular grocery store is a good way to head off some food-illness dangers before you’ve even paid for the food. Grocery chains hire PhDs in human behavior and marketing to make your visit as labyrinthine and long as possible. More time in the store means more dollars in the till. Fight back with a little basic understanding about where they put the popular stuff, where they put the fresh stuff, and where they put the dangerous stuff.
Shop for dry goods first. You can take all day and even fit in that movie. Pasta, breads, canned items, the massive cereal aisle, all the bathroom needs like tissue and shampoo and toothpaste. With the cans, you probably remember a parent’s warning not to buy any cans that bulge outward, an unnatural result that can be an indicator of contaminants growing inside. But also keep an eye out for dents—they may be the result of an innocent drop or ding, but the dents can create a weak spot for outside bacteria to penetrate the can.
When that part of the list is done, cruise through the cooler aisles stacked with milk, cheese, eggs, and fresh meat. And now that you’re standing near the chicken parts, look up and realize why they hang rollers of clear plastic bags that seem to belong more in the produce aisles. Many home economists recommend bagging your fresh meat for an extra barrier between the meat packages and anything in your cart that might be consumed raw. If you’re planning to use the same hand to pick out fresh produce, slide your hand inside the empty bag first, grab the meat package with the bag as a glove, and invert the bag as you put it in your cart. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean all those food pathogens aren’t really out to get you. Easy steps like these can keep you mindful of food safety without pushing your behavior into the nut aisle.
Some consumer advisers will nudge meat lovers toward a grocery store’s fresh butcher counter if they insist on continuing to eat ground beef. They might recommend asking the store’s butcher to take an intact cut of beef, such as top sirloin or a chuck roast, and grind it on site into hamburger. It’s true this avoids the likelihood of buying hamburger made from grinded beef “trim” gathered from cows raised in a half-dozen states and foreign countries, a process that multiplies the hazards of E. coli by mashing all the “outside” beef surfaces into a ground core where pathogens are harder to cook out safely. At least one specialty grocer warns, however, that those butcher counters aren’t always hazard free, either. They are only as good as the sanitary habits of the butcher and any assistants, handling multiple cuts of beef under pressure of consumer time and demands. Reconsider frozen meat. One small chain sells ground bison burgers, from buffalo that are raised on the prairie and shot where they graze. The meat is packaged and frozen within about an hour, avoiding the feedlot and slaughterhouse messes that can turn cattle operations into a pathogen nightmare.
Careful meat consumers may also want to study up on a preservative packaging technique involving the counterintuitive deployment of carbon monoxide. These telltale puffy packages pump the gas around the meat, and the treatment can help keep beef looking red and healthy for twenty days on the shelf. The problem is, consumer advocates warn, the meat may still be spoiling under the mask of a better color. The meat industry and regulators worked out one of those head-slapping euphemisms for the process—“modified atmosphere packaging,” as if it were just a pine tree air freshener in the family sedan. It may be hard to tell which mainstream packagers use the technique, so look for a “natural” label on the beef. “Natural” packagers can’t use carbon monoxide.
As you head toward the produce aisle, remember that the total time from your grocery store cooler to your refrigerator should never be longer than four hours, according to most safety experts. Some say even two hours is pushing it.
The first thing that might hit you in produce is a rainstorm. Ever wonder about those artificial thunderstorms that emanate from hidden speakers and spout a rainforest mist from overhead spigots? Do they actually clean the lettuce? Are they creating a toxic pool of festering bacteria under your green onions? Are they freshening things up or making things worse? Most kitchen advisors call it a draw. The cold water can revive and preserve greens, keeping them from drying out and becoming vulnerable to various forms of rot. But they can also make dessicated greens look more alluring than they deserve. Ignore the distracting rainstorm and use your powers of discrimination to find a fresh sample.
The number-one question here in produce is bruised fruit: in need of a good, understanding home, or dangerous to your happy home? Kitchen scientists are more worried about scratch-and-dent fruit than they used to be, now that they have powerful microscopes and video that can show minute pathogens invading openings at a once invisible level. You might as well get your money’s worth and seek out the least blemished fruit. If you do take home some orphaned apples or beat-up pears, cut generously around the bruises and dents that can act as wide-open doors to bacteria.
Bag the produce before putting it in your cart. The plastic can be recycled, and an extra barrier between the greens and the cart, or the fruit and that drippy meat, is another food safety bonus. You don’t know where that cart has been—it’s fairly likely the germ mobile recently toured the store carrying a sneezy kid eating a sticky fruit roll-up. Keep the bagged produce away from your chicken and other raw meats, even if the meats are also in plastic bags. It only takes a drop of chicken juice dribbling out of the bag to contaminate your veggies. The produce bags have the added bonus of keeping your purchases off the checkout conveyor belt, which just in the last hour has likely hosted everything from fast-thawing ribs to bleach.
There are a few areas and shelves in the grocery store most food safety experts just don’t want you near, no matter how careful or lucky you think you are. To name a few:
the part of the seafood aisle offering oysters from the Gulf of Mexico
raw—meaning unpasteurized—milk and milk-based products, such as Mexican-style “queso fresco”
health-food sprouts, from alfalfa to radish to mung bean
The oysters are too often contaminated with dangerous bacteria, especially in summer. Raw milk products are notorious contributors to outbreaks, including one of the
deadliest in the modern era. Sprouts contribute up to 40 percent of all produce-related illness cases in a given year, because the time, warmth, and humidity it takes to grow them from seeds are all safe havens for bacteria. If the health food side of you wins when it comes to sprouts, cook them thoroughly instead of eating them raw. Throw them in the stir fry for as long as you cook the other vegetables, and don’t just toss them in at the end for a quick sauté.
Natural grocers have one last buying tip for the growing number of consumers looking to nuts as a protein alternative for vegetarians and those cutting back on red meat. Extra-careful stores will refrigerate pistachios, almonds, and other nuts, as leaving them out for too long at room temperature can risk rancidity.
There’s one last grocery-store-related step after you’ve brought it all home. Pleased with yourself because you remembered to use the reusable shopping bags that were drifting aimlessly around your back seat? Great, but don’t forget to throw them in the washing machine. Bacteria love to reuse things, too, unless somebody breaks the cycle.
During Preparation
When unpacking your grocery bags, think about where you are putting things in the refrigerator. Put the most vulnerable foods deep in the fridge, where they will stay the coldest. Don’t put eggs in the door, even though some refrigerators are designed with egg trays there. Make sure you store meat on shelves below produce, not on top of it. Restaurants are written up by health inspectors for putting raw meat on shelves above vegetables and fruits that will be served raw because the meat could drip on them. Some experts even suggest storing raw meat not only in a plastic bag, below the vegetables, but also in a plastic container that would collect any leakage.
Thinking about chomping into that apple you just pulled out of the grocery bag and set on your counter? Considering popping a few grapes straight out of the bag and into your mouth? Hang on. Don’t assume the produce you buy at the supermarket, even the shiny, red delicious apples or the pretty, rosy nectarines, are ready to eat. Tempting as it is to bite right in, wash the apple first. The majority of experts we talked to advised scrubbing produce with a brush and water—just tap water. Not soap and water. Not even one of those sprays sold in the produce section at the grocery store that claims to remove wax, germs, and pesticides. The truth is that studies have shown the sprays don’t work any better than plain old tap water. And soap film clings to your food. Not very appetizing.
If you don’t have one, invest a few dollars in a produce scrub brush. It’s similar to a potato scrubber or those bristled brushes used to wash dishes. Just before you’re going to eat a piece of fruit or a veggie, hold it under tap water and scrub it. This will help remove any dirt and bacteria lurking on the surface. As for fruits with a rind or peel, experts recommend scrubbing those, too, if you’re planning to cut into them, which could drag any bacteria clinging to the peel or rind into the center of the fruit. It may sound over the top to rinse off a banana before you eat it, but if you’re going to slice it in half and save part for later, or hand half to each of your kids, wash it first. Also, it’s best to wash produce right before you’re going to eat it. Otherwise, whatever bacteria you didn’t remove during that tap-water bath is going to multiply as it sits on your counter or in a baggie in the refrigerator. Listeria is one of the bacteria that thrive even in the cool temperatures of a refrigerator. That’s something to keep in mind if you’re thinking of assembling a fruit salad from a bunch of half portions sitting as leftovers in your fridge for the past few days. Experts advise against saving half a piece of fruit. Better to toss that half an apple that’s been hanging out in the refrigerator, growing bacteria, than repurpose it for a salad or sneak it into a lunch box.
Keep in mind, though, that if certain produce is contaminated at the farm or on the truck on the way to the grocery store, there likely isn’t a lot consumers can do at home to mitigate that. Consider the surface of a strawberry, with all its nooks and crannies around the seeds. It’s nearly impossible to scrub out any lingering bacteria without demolishing the berry.
Even though it won’t work on a delicate strawberry, keep your produce scrubber handy for other fruits, everything from pears to zucchini. And just as you should throw your reusable grocery sacks in the laundry every once in a while, make sure you stick your produce scrubber in the dishwasher about once a week.
As for other kitchen gadgets on the market that promise to protect you from bacteria, don’t get carried away. Antibacterial cutting boards are kind of silly, according to our experts, who doubt they actually work. Instead, use common sense and make sure not to cut vegetables on the same cutting board you just used for raw meat, unless you disinfect it first with hot water and soap. One expert put antibacterial cutting boards in the same category with many other antibacterial products that have become all the rage—a special coating can’t protect you from a careless, easily avoided move. Not only can antibacterial materials kill healthy “background” organisms, they can give a false sense of security. Just because your car has antilock brakes doesn’t mean you should drive as fast as you want—an antibacterial surface can’t make up for other food safety mistakes.
There’s no need to scrub all the carrots, celery, and potatoes you are about to toss into the crockpot. Just give them a quick rinse to remove dirt; cooking is going to kill any dangerous pathogens hanging out on the vegetables. If you are planning on eating produce raw, wash it. The salad you’re planning to serve, tossed with baby spinach and spring greens? The mist sprinkling on it every few minutes at the grocery store doesn’t suffice. Wash your lettuce with tap water, then pat it dry and let it air out a few minutes on your clean counter. Here’s the exception: if you buy packaged, prewashed lettuce in a bag, don’t take it out and wash it again. Experts say the lettuce will stay cleaner if you transfer it directly from bag to bowl instead of running it through the sink and letting it lie on the counter. Never prepare a bath for your lettuce in the kitchen sink, letting it float around in there. You might think you’re making it cleaner, but more likely, you’ve just contaminated it with bacteria that was lurking in the sink.
For the same reasons, use separate cutting boards and cutting utensils for produce and meat. At the least, wash the cutting boards in a sanitizing solution before switching uses. Some food experts have given up on the debate between plastic or wooden cutting boards; the plastic boards are easier to throw into the dishwasher for a good “sanitizing” cycle, but they can accumulate many of the same deep grooves and abrasions as a wooden board. The current wisdom is to sanitize all kinds of boards frequently, and toss out old cutting boards more often than you’re used to. If the wooden ones have been through the washer so many times their glue seams have fallen apart, then it’s time to use them for kindling anyway. Never chop green salad onions atop the board where you just finished tenderizing a raw pork chop.
One of the great kitchen debates is whether you should rinse meat before you cook it. Most experts say no. It’s true running raw chicken under water is going to rinse off some Salmonella or Camphylobacter, but it’s also true that you’ve just increased the odds you’re going to drip some of the chicken juice on your counter, maybe even the floor. Not to mention your sink where you are placing other dishes and utensils. There is less chance for contamination if you take the chicken out of the package and head straight for the cutting board or frying pan. A splatter of bacteria-laden turkey juice, for example, can land six feet away, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Six feet. If you cook it properly, any harmful bacteria will die.
During Cooking
So now you’re actually cooking, and there’s nothing left to worry about but making sure the pasta is al dente and stirring the mushrooms so they don’t burn, right?
Almost. We’re trying to avoid words like worry when you’re finally in the kitchen and nurturing your family or friends with a well-planned meal. The world’s kitchen safety experts don’t want to scare you a
way from the place; instead they want you to absorb some of the easier food safety rules so that it all feels as natural as honey on biscuits. Now that the produce is chopped and the sauté pans are warming, keep a few simple dos and don’ts in mind while you craft anything from a ham and cheese to a Beef Wellington.
Do keep washing your hands frequently, as you go back and forth from browning chicken to assembling a berry-nut salad. Just as you want to keep a dripping bag of raw chicken breasts well below or away from a head of red leaf lettuce, you want sanitary hands to be the barrier between handling meat and sorting greens that are going to be eaten raw.
This next advice may seem obvious: Don’t cook when you’re sick. But washing hands and wearing gloves in a restaurant kitchen seems obvious, too, and look how many employees don’t do that—more than 50 percent, in one recent study. Don’t be the one to spread strep through the whole family. You may think you’re good about sneezing into your elbow, like the health department cartoons show, but just beyond your elbow is a plate of sliced pears. It’s very hard to make your hand washing keep up with your unconscious series of touches to the nose, the eyes, the mouth—all places where germs are weeping at an alarming rate. Call for take-out. Or get your spouse or one of the kids to open a can of soup.
The best thing you can do, that few cooks have learned yet, is to get a good meat thermometer and learn how to use it properly. Many cooking stores or websites offer handy fridge magnets with the safe internal heat temperatures for a variety of meats. Slap it on the fridge next to your kid’s spelling test. As Ohio State’s Lydia Madeiros puts it, most families remember they have a meat thermometer on only one day of the year: Thanksgiving, when mothers-in-law are expert at sowing doubts about how much heat has penetrated a stuffed turkey. Cooks may have been misled by extensive discussions about E. coli in ground beef, thinking that large muscle meats like roasts or whole hams are safer because a lesser-cooked interior has not been exposed to dangerous pathogens in the way an enormous vat of ground beef pieces has. The principle may be true, Madeiros points out, but the safest method is to have all parts of the meat reach at least the minimum temperature. Just as in cantaloupe and other produce, carving and slicing brings any contaminants on the exterior of meat right through to the middle, and from the middle out the other side. Meeting the minimum temperature erases that concern. Use the thermometer in casserole dishes, too, the experts add. The interior of any mixture needs to meet the minimum for the most dangerous element in the mix.