Eating Dangerously Page 12

  Whole cuts of beef, lamb, pork, and veal should be cooked to at least 145 degrees internal temperature, measured with a thermometer. Consumer preference may go higher than that, to well-well done, but 145 degrees is the minimum safety threshold.

  Ground meats, whether beef, lamb, or pork, should be cooked to at least 160 degrees. Ground meats can be more dangerous because the grinder has taken surface bacteria into the middle, harder to reach with heat, and because grinders can mix in batches of meat from multiple sources.

  Poultry products should be cooked to a minimum of 165 degrees, with the thermometer piercing the thickest portion of the breast or the innermost section of the thigh and wing.

  This also may seem obvious, but many a picnic goer has watched in horror as their host took cooked chicken off the grill and stacked it on the same unwashed plate that carried the raw chicken out to the barbecue. That’s a recipe for disaster, and a good justification for sending your teenagers out to get well-cooked replacement tacos. Change or wash all cooking utensils and plates between the raw-meat stage and handling of the final product.

  The heat standard also applies, surprisingly, to meats you thought someone else has already cooked for you. Deli meat packages can say “precooked,” but Listeria in particular loves to hitchhike from the deli processor to those sliding drawers in your fridge. The sliced deli meat can suffer a multiplication of bacteria in the Listeria-friendly chill of the refrigerator. Sliced ham, beef, and turkey should ideally be heated in the oven to the recommended minimums for meats before serving in sandwiches, especially for the elderly, pregnant women, and anyone with a compromised immune system from a previous illness. More simple: zap them in the microwave until steaming. If that seems unlikely to make its way into your kitchen routine, consider buying sliced meat made with an antibacterial in the packaging.

  If it’s cookie dough or cake batter you’re whipping up, do not dip a finger in and taste while the eggs are still raw. Yes, your children think it’s a crime to let cookie dough go unsampled before it hits the oven. Tell them that the bathrooms and sick beds of many a Toll House were overrun by extremely unhappy customers who downed some bacteria with their tasty, raw dough. If you must, simply must have some egg-based foods in their uncooked state, you’ll have to do some extra legwork ahead of time. Pasteurized egg-replacement products in milk-carton-like containers sit in all grocery store coolers near the dairy, and they taste fine when mixed with other ingredients. And there are supplies of eggs pasteurized in the shell if you look hard enough, starting with the customer service desk at your local grocery store. They can place special orders when they see some demand.

  While your kitchen becomes a symphony of good smells, keep an eye on how long this is all taking. If something’s not getting used for a long time, either as meal prep or as a leftover, get it back in the fridge or freezer. Consumer advocates say food can sit out safely about two hours at room temperature before excessive bacteria growth begins; at ninety degrees on a hot day or an outdoor party, food should be stored after an hour. “Outbreaks are often from temperature abuse,” said one food scientist.

  Cleanup and Leftovers

  Here is a recipe so simple you can memorize it right now: add one tablespoon of bleach to one gallon of water. Done.

  Mix up a spray bottle of this solution from time to time and keep it under your sink. Use it on your countertops, cabinet handles, and the shelves of your refrigerator every once in a while to disinfect what was left behind by leaky to-go containers, last week’s leftovers you forgot to throw away, and the chocolate milk carton your kid insisted on saving and then forgot within ten minutes.

  The bleach solution works well, too, for cleaning out your sink. Just fill your sink with water and add the right number of tablespoons, depending on how many gallons it holds. Of course, if you’d rather not bother with making your own cleaning solution, a store-bought one also works.

  No reason to act hysterically with the bleach. Most of the time, a simple wipedown of the countertops with a clean, wet cloth after you’ve finished cooking will do the trick. Best to make a daily habit of tossing yesterday’s washcloth into the laundry basket and grabbing a fresh one. If you’ve splashed chicken juice on the counter, though, or set eggshells down after you’ve cracked them into your pancake mix, reach for the disinfectant. That way, when you put your fresh pear on the counter later, it’s not going to sit on Salmonella.

  Another good habit: put cutting boards, sink sponges, and lunch boxes in the dishwasher occasionally on the “sanitize” or “antibacterial” cycle. And as we’ve said before, if your cutting board is deeply rutted or damaged, offering pathogens a safe place to hang out and grow, throw it away.

  A 2013 “swab study” uncovered some forgotten corners of the kitchen that cleanliness aficionados might want to adopt for their next weekend project. The National Science Foundation (NSF) International Household Germ Study asked twenty families to swab fourteen common items in their kitchens, and then turn in the samples to see what would grow in a petri dish. They sought growth of E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria, among other undesirables.

  The worst five locations turned out to be the fruit and vegetable drawers in refrigerators, the rubber gasket where your blender jar meets the base motor, can openers, and rubber spatulas. The study recommended a few fixes most cooks wouldn’t think of: remove the produce and meat drawers from the fridge entirely, and wash with mild detergent, or a solution of one tablespoon baking soda in a quart of warm water. For blenders, disassemble as much as the design allows, down to separating the gasket on both sides if possible. Then toss it in the dishwasher if made for that, or rinse in hot, soapy water and allow to dry before reassembling. Can openers—imagine how many times the rollers have hit and absorbed tuna juices—should be tossed in the dishwasher; and if your spatula comes apart, break it up and clean both ends, with extra scrubbing for the nooks where the handle fits into the rubber or metal blade.

  As for the leftovers in your refrigerator, do you wonder how long you can save the manicotti you brought home from your favorite Italian restaurant? How long is too long to keep the rest of the macaroni and cheese your kids had for lunch today? Should you even bother to put sushi in the refrigerator if you don’t finish it all at dinner—or should you just throw it away?

  Your grandmother might tell you to keep leftovers for a week. You’ve likely heard of families that have leftover night once a week, where everything that didn’t get eaten all week is set out for one final smorgasbord. But evolving wisdom on food safety says a week is too long to keep many kinds of leftovers. Advisers are becoming more conservative about how long food should hang around in the refrigerator. Two to four days is the limit—two days for more perishable foods, such as Hollandaise sauce; four days for pasta. Ohio State actually now tells consumers not to hold leftovers more than three days, after decades of public health inspector codes using seven days as the standard. “That’s controversial,” Ohio State’s Medeiros acknowledged. But she is unapologetic. “Plan to eat your food. Don’t plan to have it sitting around forever.”

  The sushi? Don’t even save it. “You enjoy it and you throw it away,” says Sarah Klein with the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

  As for cut fruit, don’t save it longer than a day.

  Never save anything in an open aluminum can, like soup or the refried beans from burrito night. Put leftovers in an airtight container to limit bacteria growth. And when putting away warm leftovers, use shallow containers, no more than two inches deep. If the container is any deeper, the food will not cool fast enough to slow growth of some forms of bacteria.

  Check your refrigerator every once in a while to make sure it is no warmer than forty degrees Fahrenheit. Your freezer should remain below zero. For the majority of foods, temperatures hotter than 135 degrees or colder than 41 degrees stop most bacteria growth.

  Remember, bad food doesn’t always
show signs it’s gone bad. In doubt? Throw it out.

  Quick Tips List

  At the grocery store:

  Shop for dry goods first, cold items and produce later. Try to keep your total time from grocery store to refrigerator close to two hours, and never more than four hours.

  Put packaged raw meat in a plastic bag.

  Don’t buy dented cans.

  Don’t buy bruised fruit, unless you’re planning to cut off the bruised part and well around it.

  Wash your reusable grocery bags every couple of weeks.

  Preparing the meal:

  Buy a produce scrubber and use it on fruits and veggies, especially the ones you are going to eat raw.

  Put the scrubber in the dishwasher every week or so.

  Wash melons, bananas, and other fruits with a peel if you are planning to slice through them with a knife.

  Wash produce right before you eat it, not when you unpack your groceries.

  Don’t wash prewashed lettuce.

  Don’t fill your sink with water and let lettuce float around in it to “clean it.”

  Don’t rinse meat before you cook it.

  Use separate cutting boards and other utensils for produce and meat. Wash and dry between uses.

  While cooking:

  Don’t prepare food when you are sick.

  Wash your hands frequently.

  Get a good meat thermometer, and learn how to use it.

  Heat packaged deli meat to steaming before eating. Listeria lurks in the packaging facilities and isn’t deterred by refrigeration.

  Don’t leave food out for longer than a couple of hours. To kill bacteria, food should be kept hotter than 135 degrees or cooler than 41 degrees.

  Don’t eat raw eggs. If a recipe calls for raw eggs, use either the pasteurized eggs in a carton or ask your grocer to special order eggs pasteurized in the shell.

  Don’t use the same platter for raw meat and cooked meat.

  Cleanup:

  Wipe down all used surfaces, including the refrigerator, with a clean cloth and, occasionally, a bleach solution.

  Put cutting boards, sink sponges, and scrub brushes in the dishwasher, and use the “sanitize” or “antibacterial” cycle.

  Discard deeply rutted or damaged cutting boards with hiding places for bacteria.

  Eat leftovers within three days and cut fruit within a day.

  At normal temperatures, cooked food can be left on counters about four hours. In temperatures above ninety degrees, put it away within two hours.

  7

  Killer Sprouts and Slimy Spinach: The Most Dangerous Foods May Surprise You

  Fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, eggs, and fish are the bulk of a healthy grocery list. They are also some of the foods most likely to make you sick. This list of riskiest foods doesn’t contain processed chicken nuggets, crackers, or cans of soup, although it’s not unheard of for those less-healthy foods to cause foodborne illness. It’s the foods that come fresh from animals, or the dirt, that are most likely to contain E. coli, Salmonella, and other potentially deadly pathogens.

  Several food safety institutes, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have published lists of foods considered most risky, foods to worry about but not necessarily stop serving for dinner. Some of these foods are only now emerging as problems, and it’s unlikely the casual grocery shopper, or eater, could name more than two or three. Food fads are evolving everywhere from the grocery store’s hot-food bar to the corner bakery to the Internet, where nearly any food or spice is “one click away.” Think back to when you were a kid: How often did you eat raw spinach? Now it anchors every salad bar. It’s no wonder the plodding machinery of government can’t keep up.

  The list here is a compilation of research, brought up to date with the latest foodborne illness outbreaks that have changed the way Americans eat. It doesn’t include everything. Berries and peanut butter, which have been linked to several outbreaks, didn’t make the cut, for example.

  It’s not a list of foods people should never eat. It’s more like a list of foods that should come with a warning label about foodborne illness. Some of you might choose never to order them again—sprouts maybe, or raw milk, or oysters. Others you should eat with caution, and ideally, well done.

  Sprouts

  A little extra something on your sub sandwich to give it a refreshing crunch? Probably wise to just say “no thanks” to sprouts. Eating them isn’t worth the risk.

  Sprouts are inherently dirty, in fact. The way they are grown makes them prone to contamination, and cleaning them off before eating isn’t likely to get rid of those illness-causing germs. Sprout seeds can carry bacteria, typically Salmonella, which thrives in the warm, moist growing environment that sprouts crave. Most food-illness experts recommend skipping them altogether, no matter whether they are alfalfa, mung bean, or clover. Even lightly cooked sprouts have been linked to numerous illnesses in the last several years.

  “I wouldn’t touch sprouts. They are just too dangerous,” said Sarah Klein, an attorney in the food safety program at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.1

  The squiggly little veggies that add texture to sandwiches, salads, and many Asian foods have been banned from at least one famous American sub shop because of their multiple links to food outbreaks. Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwich corporate officials stopped serving sprouts on their sandwiches in 2012. The decision came after the popular chain was associated with an E. coli outbreak that spanned eleven states and sickened twenty-nine people2—the fifth outbreak involving Jimmy Johns’ sprouts since 2008. “Jimmy decided he was tired of the negative press from it and he thinks sprouts aren’t necessary for Jimmy John’s to rock,” franchise owner Will Aubuchon told the Daily Express in Kirksville, Missouri.3

  Other sandwich and salad chains, including Jason’s Deli and Erbert and Gerbert’s Sandwich Shops, also dropped sprouts, at least temporarily. Jimmy John’s had switched to clover sprouts from alfalfa sprouts a couple of years earlier, but the outbreaks continued.

  In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked raw clover sprouts from nine Jimmy John’s restaurants to twelve illnesses in five states. A year earlier, one of Jimmy John’s suppliers, Sprouters Northwest of Kent, Washington, recalled its clover sprouts because they had been linked to illness in the Pacific Northwest.4

  Also in 2010, the Illinois health department reported that 140 people were sickened in an outbreak connected to alfalfa sprouts contaminated with Salmonella. Many of the victims reported eating at Jimmy John’s. The FDA issued a public notice telling people to avoid Tiny Greens brand alfalfa sprouts and spicy sprouts (alfalfa, radish, and clover) from Tiny Greens Organic Farm in Illinois. Federal investigators found Salmonella in a water runoff sample collected at the farm.5

  In 2009, a sprout outbreak—also linked to Jimmy John’s—sickened 235.6 Nebraska health officials knew something was dangerously wrong when they found six cases of Salmonella Saintpaul in rapid succession. The sprouts were traced back to sprout-growing centers in a handful of states, all of which had purchased sprout seed from the same Kentucky seed producer. It was the seeds that were contaminated with Salmonella bacteria.

  Here’s one more cautionary story, in case you’re not yet convinced. In 2008, sprouts from a Jimmy John’s in Boulder, Colorado, contaminated with E. coli O157 sickened several University of Colorado students, giving them bloody diarrhea and cramping.7 In all, twenty-eight people were ill.

  Although Jimmy John’s saga with sprouts is one of the more high-profile stories, the sub chain clearly isn’t the only one that’s had trouble with them. Sprouts made the top ten “riskiest foods” list prepared by the Center for Science in the Public Interest because they were linked to thirty-one major outbreaks from 1990 to 2009.8 The vast majority of those o
utbreaks were caused by various types of Salmonella; a handful were E. coli.

  Federal officials have recommended since 1999 that children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems not eat raw sprouts.9 Whether or not you fit in that category, you might want to think twice before you reach for the salad bar tongs in the sprout bin.

  Ground Turkey and Poultry

  Which is better to feed your kids for lunch: processed chicken nuggets from the freezer section or a burger made from ground turkey? The answer depends on whether you are more worried about feeding the children nitrates, sodium, and saturated fat or reducing the risk of ingesting illness-inducing Salmonella or Campylobacter.

  Poultry was ranked the number-one deadliest food in a 2013 foodborne illness outbreak study by the CDC.10 Campylobacter and Salmonella bacteria in turkey and chicken were the number-one and number-four most worrisome causes of foodborne illness in the United States in terms of the seriousness of the disease; the long-term, debilitating effects; and the cost of treatment, according to an extensive analysis of CDC data by the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida.

  “There is a tendency today to assume that if it’s in a nice, sealed, wrapped package at the grocery store, it’s sterile,” said Dr. Glenn Morris, director of the institute.11 “It’s not. It’s covered in Campylobacter.”