Posted on 10/12/2009 9:35:06 AM PDT by Chet 99
Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.
Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.
Ms. Smith, 22, was found to have a severe form of food-borne illness caused by E. coli, which Minnesota officials traced to the hamburger that her mother had grilled for their Sunday dinner in early fall 2007.
-snip-
Ms. Smith’s reaction to the virulent strain of E. coli was extreme, but tracing the story of her burger, through interviews and government and corporate records obtained by The New York Times, shows why eating ground beef is still a gamble. Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe.
Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.
The frozen hamburgers that the Smiths ate, which were made by the food giant Cargill, were labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.” Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
How come these articles always want to examine the virulence of the E. coli's rather than the weakness of the Ms. Smiths.
ML/NJ
The FDA can’t handle protecting our food supply from contamination, why do we expect more bureaucrats to handle our health care any better?
‘At a chain like Publix Super Markets, customers who want hamburger made from whole cuts of meat have to buy a steak and have it specially ground, said a Publix spokeswoman, Maria Brous, or buy a product like Bubba Burgers, which boasts on its labeling, “100% whole muscle means no trimmings.”’
I recently had one of these Bubba Burgers, they were delicious, and the patty came in the shape of Texas. I used to think I was safe buying ground sirloin, but after reading this I think I will switch to Bubba Burgers.
Well truth be told two things are evident
1) cook your ground beef thoroughly
2)I do not buy that pre mixed ground whatever. I always buy a cut of beef and grind it myself -—tastes better; better for you
And schools are at the behest of the Obama Administration, now having Meatless Mondays for lunch!
How long til government TRIES to tell us we can’t have beef?
There is a reason the United States has INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.
Not a collective mass.
I have the right to eat beef. You have a right to refuse if you so choose. The government does not have the right, to tell us to or not to, period.
I’m not saying don’t buy ground meat at the supermarket, but I don’t. I buy it from the butcher who grinds the meat himself. One supplier, one grinder. This is not a guarantee, but I think you increase the odds of not getting contaminated meat.
I do not buy hamburger, I look for the cheapest cuts of whole meat pieces and eat that instead. E. coli can only affect the surface of the meat, it can’t grown on the inside. When you grind up meat, all of it becomes surface and thus can be contaminated.
I have the right to eat beef. You have a right to refuse if you so choose. The government does not have the right, to tell us to or not to, period.
The problem isn’t with beef, it is with ground beef.
E-Coli is found in the intestinal tract (OK, let’s be blunt, it’s found in the cow’s dung.)
On whole cuts of meat, it is only found on the surface. With ground beef, the contamination that was only on the surface is mixed throughout the meat as it is ground.
Even a rare steak is cooked enough on the surface to kill and e-coli (which is the only place it is found on a whole cut of beef.) A rare hamburger is a different story. The center doesn’t get hot enough to kill the e-coli that exists in the center of hamburger meat.
Buying a whole cut of meat and having it ground into hamburger doesn’t protect you. If the whole cut of meat had e-coli on the surface, it will be ground into the hambruger meat.
As much as I like rare beef, when it comes to hamburger the only safe solution is to cook it all the way through (well done.)
Last spring we purchased half of a locally grown Black Angus, grass fed, and had it processed at a local meat locker. It’s wonderful meat, and when I see articles like this, I promise myself to do it again next year, every year.
Uruguay?? I don’t want anything from the other side of the world. At Safeway, product origin has recently been stated as “Canada, USA, OR Mexico.” No thank you.
Food preparation has a lot to do with it, also. E. Coli can get into the hamburger from the hands of the cook.
Are we being just a bit alarmist? Been eating burgers - rare - for better than half a century without a single problem.
She was a 22 year old dance instructor. That would indicate that she was fairly healthy before she was made ill by someone else’s negligence.
I believe tat most people pass of an e-coli infection without much trouble. A day or two of feeling queezy with diarhea and then you're fine. But there are plenty of exceptions. I won't eat anything but well done hambrgers from now on.
Are we being just a bit alarmist? Been eating burgers - rare - for better than half a century without a single problem.
For whatever reason e-coli has become more widespread in our food supply over the last decade. It’s a similar problem to salmonella. 30 years ago I’d have no problem eating a raw egg. Today I would avoid it.
Why we haven’t been able to prevent these diseases from being rare to being all too commonplace in our food supply, I don’t know. Are they signs of the end times, inevitable problems with mass production, or as the Star Trek hippie episode claimed “modern technology creates its own set of diseases”?
Regardless, they are here and we have to deal with them.
Personally, I’m more concerned about “mad cow” disease as it can’t be killed by cooking. I know we are taking precautions, but I believe neural material (brains, spinal chords, etc...) can still be ground into feed for cattle if the animal is less than 3 years old (could be wrong, someone needs to fact check me on that.) Since this disease is spread to cattle primarily by the use of cattle neural material used as feed for other cattle, it seems foolish to allow it at all given the potential problem.
“For whatever reason e-coli has become more widespread in our food supply over the last decade.”
Maybe we just hear about it more.
Maybe we just hear about it more.
Perhaps so. That’s why I think people believe there has been an increase in eathquatkes and other natural disasters the last few years. Not that there has been an actual increase, we’re just hearing about them more.
Oh, please!
Otherwise apparently healthy people die all the time. Most e coli is beneficial, and those that are not are probably found in many foods in amounts that most people can tolerate. Maybe we should kill all the honey bees because their stings can kill some otherwise healthy people? Or how 'bout banning football since every other year or so, some football player (an athlete!) just passes out and dies on the practice field?
ML/NJ
b) don't leave foods out at room temperature for any longer than four hours cumulative; after that throw it away. This includes raw uncooked foods before cooking.
c) wash one's hands after a trip to the restroom for any reason.
Almost every foodborne illness I investigated when I worked with infection epidemiology came down to a breakdown of one of these three items.
Mmmm, right this moment I’m eating my own hamburger raised by us, taken to a butcher to kill who only had our beef at the time.
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