Secrets of the City

I lost my appetite for hamburger after reading that story. I’ll still eat ground beef from the Thousand Hills Cattle Company, but if I don’t where the meat is coming from, forget it.

And people scoff at the lowly hot dog and its “mystery meat?!”

How does Cargill cover itself against an FTC investigation into false labeling, i.e. marketing Angus beef that might be Angus but really is mostly who-knows-what?

You’re greatly reduce your risk by adequately cooking the hamburger.

Talk about bad timing: Company issues 2nd recall for tainted beef.

For the second time this year, a Fresno beef company is recalling thousands of pounds of ground beef contaminated with a drug-resistant strain of salmonella.

Beef Packers Inc., owned by Cargill, announced the recall Friday. It covers 22,723 pounds of ground beef products that were sent to stores in Arizona and New Mexico.

Here’s a solution: Believe that EVERY FOOD you buy in a grocery is tainted (with something if not salmonella, etc.).

Wash your fruits and veggies. Cook meat to the proper temperature.

God, this is scary. I pretty much blindly trust most of the food I eat, and I’m a terrible cook, so … yikes.

On the other hand, maybe it’s just meat we need to worry about. Veggies in the dumpster don’t appear to collect the same bacteria:

‘Freegans,’ deploring waste, dine well on discarded food

Golomb says she became interested in freeganism when, for no particular reason, she lifted the lid on a dumpster behind a Whole Foods Market.

“There were all of these organic bananas, and I felt a lot of sadness to think that this food was grown and then shipped across the world only to end up in a dumpster and, eventually, a landfill.”

Just when you think you’d heard it all…..

I really wish I hadn’t read this.

If for some reason I was cooking a shady Cargill burger patty – which I wouldn’t be – I’d cook the hell out of it. When you have proper meat a burger should be cooked medium rare.

Not that this shouldn’t be a huge red flag and they shouldn’t be sued to holy hell, of course.

When you have proper meat a burger should be cooked medium rare.

If there is any pink in the burger, it hasn’t been cooked to the proper temperature.

Medium-rare doesn’t mean it’s been cooked somewhere between medium and rare. Rare is rare.

You’re right that it hasn’t been cooked to the proper temperature to kill e. coli. On the other hand, if you do that you’re cooking it past the best point to eat it. My grill isn’t McDonald’s. If I buy quality meat, I’m willing to take the one-in-a-million risk for E. Coli to have a burger that’s best prepared for eating. If I wanted a dry black piece of dust I’d just eat the charcoal.

This whole story is tragic. I keep hearingthat food is actually more safe now than it was n years ago, but these high-profile meat issues are always disturbing.

Ground meat products are generally more dangerous than ordinary meat products.

Undercooked meat products are generally more dangerous than cooked meat products.

Consumers may want to reconsider how various products are manufactured. For example, do people really think a “93% Lean Ground Beef Patty” is made by grinding up meat from a cow that had 7% body fat?

Consumers may want to consider meat products that are irradiated or tested for E. coli at more points during the manufacturing process.

Meat eaters may want to reconsider dietary choices that require them to treat much of their food as if it is poisonous.

“You’re greatly reduce your risk by adequately cooking the hamburger.”

If you read the NYTs’ article Zimmern quoted (the quote looks like the one I think it is), they describe some experiments that they had a food science lab do for them.

This E. coli strain that poisoned Stephanie is much more resistant to heat inactivation. Even after cooking to the recommended temperature, there were still significant numbers of live bacteria in the food.

Yes, but you still nonetheless reduce the risk by quite a bit if you cook the hamburger to adequate temperature.

I really doubt this has anything to do with Cargill’s profits. Can you name one Cargill product? How would something effect a company that doesn’t really sell anything under it’s own name.

Stop eating beef like I did about 20 years ago and the issue kind of goes away. Ground turkey and chicken substitute for ground beef in nearly every case. Also get yourself an instant read temp probe and use it.

“Can you name one Cargill product?”

Ethanol?

Oh and if you like ground beef in things like burgers go to your local butcher (Ready Meats on Johnson St in NE for example) and have them grind the meat for you fresh.

I haven’t seen this Cargill branded ethanol. Is there someplace I could buy it?

@Dougie_D: Do all of the local butchers still butcher all of their own meat? Or does something like ground beef come to them already minced and bulk-packaged from one of the large meat packers?

Btw, anyone who is using 93% lean ground beef for burgers is missing out on the whole meat thing. Might as well be eating styrofoam, as far as taste is concerned.

Also, I get around the problem of overcooking beef (ground or steak) by searing first over high heat; then covering the fry pan, reducing heat to low and letting the convective effect finish up the cooking (similar to putting it in an oven for finishing).

Noods you would have to ask them. I’ll bet they do get some prepackaged but would also grind you some fresh if you ask.

I[’m going to Fogo de Chao tomorrow for lunch. All this info applies to hamburger, right? Or should I be worried about the medium or medium rare steak I plan to order.

Rare steak is relatively safe. The problem with ground beef is that it is — well — ground. The contaminates get mixed in where in steaks and non-ground meats they would remain on the outside. Thus, if the steak is done on the outside and raw in the middle it should not matter.

“Can you name one Cargill product?”

My dad’s Cargil sweatshirt.

Really, though, don’t buy pre-made hamburger patties. Look at the nutrition label for pete’s sake, it’s horrid. Buy regular ground beef and make it into patties.

And this one does not qualify for a “Butt out, New York Times!”

“Yes, but you still nonetheless reduce the risk by quite a bit if you cook the hamburger to adequate temperature.”

@rat: But not eliminate the risk. Which is one thing that makes so many of the Strib comments so infuriating, when they attack this woman and her family, saying it’s all her fault, etc. for not cooking properly.

@DougieD: Ground turkey/chicken isn’t going to solve too much. You’re pretty much just substituting Salmonella and Listeria for the E. coli in beef.

Your best bet is to do like you suggest: get your beef ground from whole cuts of meat at a local shop.

@DouglasG: You’re right wrt steak vs. ground meat proclivity for picking up teh e. A good searing will usually solve to contamination problem with steaks but not so with ground meats.

So, yes, one can eat a rare or medium-rare steak without much worry of illness. I still like to use my fry pan method for cooking steaks, though, if only because I can reduce the au jus, add a bit of Port, and caramelize the steak before serving.

Good luck getting a rare stead at Fago de Chao. Everything I had there was medium to well done, including the lamb, which is a sin.

Oh, and dude, you should probably not eat breakfast tomorrow, and take the afternoon off and lay on the couch.

Here’s yer Cargill ethanol, Doug:

http://www.cargill.com/products/energy-fuels/biofuels/na/index.jsp

thanks for the info. I’ll try to get at least medium. In spirit I’m not opposed to sending stuff back to the kitchen if it is not to my specs but this will be a work lunch and not my dime, so I’ll have less at steak than if I were payin.

My point was more that Cargill doesn’t brand products with their name so if they have a massive beef recall it doesn’t really impede sales of its other products since the public doesn’t really know if they had a hand in manufacturing it or not.

I never doubted that Cargill makes a boatload of ethanol. Just that you would never see the Cargill name on the pump when you are filling up with E85.

I don’t think a meat recall would affect the sale of fuel even if the Cargill name was branded to both.

And just when you thought it was safe to buy meat again:

Why Doesn’t The USDA Follow Its Own Rules?

… Consumer Reports, which for decades has been testing supermarket chickens for microbial contaminants, has just tested chickens again. Sigh. Two-thirds were contaminated with Salmonella or Campylobacter. You will be relieved to know that this is an improvement. It was 80 percent the last time Consumer Reports did the testing.

Me neither. I doubt people will go, “OMFG I can’t drink Cargill brand ethanol because their hamburger patties have ecoli!”

People drink ethanol?

Sure they do, wondering. Unless you are a teatotaler, so do you, too. It’s the alcohol in alcoholic beverages.

We Minnesotans drive with gasoline with a 10% ethanol blend. Up to eighty-five percent in the E85 pumps (we got 350+ of those, includung the new on WAY up north in Warroad).

I wasn’t the one that put that forth. Read the last intro paragraph again.

The last company that tried to put its brand on its ethanol fuel at the retail level is the now bankrupt VeraSun. So…

Speaking of VeraSun, the huge former VeraSun plant in Janesville, MN that was closed before it could open — becoming the poster child for the FAIL of biofuels, is now owned by local farmers and investors and has been open since October. It is on track to become the town’s largest private employer.

What a boring day on mnspeak.

This is not boring, however:
http://www.startribune.com/local/north/78660892.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUss

Cargill should just stick to being the world’s largest high fructose corn syrup peddler.

@baker: Cougars produce methane, not (m)ethanol.

I already tweeted about the Champain Cougar. With the expected replies…

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR!

I’m still having tacos for supper. 96 percent lean ground beef, baby. FROM CUB.

@kwatt: Cub brand ground beef, or one of those 3-5 lb. tubes of ground beef from Cargill, etc.?

Tortilla Soup with Chicken and Lime here. Why does the regular chicken breast cost $6.99 lb and the marinated cost $2.99 lb?

I’ve never seen marinated chicken breast that cheap, unless they’re on sale. What I usually see is the package for that price, but it’s only a 1/2 to 1/3 pound or so.

Me neither. It’s probably reconstituted McDonald’s chicken nuggets with sweet-n-sour sauce, mixed with filler.

Here’s Ronald McDonald running away from the scene of the crime.

wondering- there is no ordering. they come around with the meat and cut it on to your plate. you get what they have. It is pretty much a total waste of money if you like meat cooked properly. but the salad bar is nice.

Rainbow has some awesome deals right now. Progresso Stock in the 32 oz box for 99 cents.

Well, there goes the recovery. Dougie_D says his stock has fallen.

Sarah Palin, save us! Use your Super Rogue Powers! Oh noes! TOMATOES!!!

It’s sick that Strib commenters would blame this on her. The product was clearly falsely advertised; as people here have pointed out, only cooking it wouldn’t do the trick; and finally, it’s common to cook burgers less than well done – people don’t think of that, and shouldn’t have to think of that, as risking their health.

You could make the argument that it’s unreasonable to ask that a food company can have zero bacteria in their product – and since you can’t always cook it all out, there’s an inherit risk. But it’s pretty clear that there was a systematic disregard for safe practices by Cargill that has lead to bacteria concentrations much higher than they could easily be kept. That’s what gives this woman a case.

I’m taking a class on FDA law, and JeffK you’re pretty much right on the money when it comes to the law.

@yep: The FDA has to allow a very small percentage of “taint” in our food. It’s physically impossible to get every mouse dropping out of our food supply. Does the FDA keep track of how much of the beef being used by Cargill, and other meat packers, is imported and is not butchered in the US? Or are US meat packers entirely to blame for the contaminations?

a small amount of taint? I heard hormel hot dogs are up to 25% taint, with the rest being lips and asshole.

“Taint” being mouse droppings, bugs, etc. Bona fide animal body parts are not considered “taint.”

I won’t explain the unsubtle differences between taint, taint and taint to you, but only because if I have to explain it to you then it’s no longer funny.

No, that’s Homel’s management, g_rote.

I read this article a month or so back, and it made me swear off factory-raised animal products. Gross.