Cooking Up Trouble
Almost 90 percent of Americans make beef, chicken or turkey burgers, but most of us don’t know how to cook them correctly, according to a new survey commissioned by the American Meat Institute and conducted by Harris Interactive.
Most people rely on sight or cooking times to determine when their burgers are done. Only 19 percent of people who cook burgers use an instant read thermometer, the only way to determine if burgers are safely cooked, according to the survey. Of adults aged 18-34, even fewer use an instant read thermometer, only 13 percent.
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Cooking beef to a temperature of 160 degrees F or poultry to a temperature of 165 degrees F is the only way to kill dangerous pathogens including E. coli and Salmonella which can cause serious illness.
Symptoms of E. coli poisoning include stomach cramping, vomiting and bloody diarrhea. In severe cases, a complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) can develop.
E coli contamination prompted McNees Meats and Wholesale LLC. of North Branch, Michigan to recall about 360 pounds of ground beef, JB Meats of Avondale, Ohio to recall more than 70,000 pounds of ground beef, this summer. And Cargill issued a 36 million pound recall of ground turkey after a Salmonella outbreak killed one person and sickened 110 others in 31 states.
