Please confirm or deny my understanding of the situation…
It is wise to assume any beef has come in contact with e-coli bacteria. Cooking until all the meat is at 160 degrees Fahrenheit will kill any bacteria on the meat. However, once the e-coli has reached a certain high concentration in the meat, they will have produced toxins that are not killed by cooking, rendering the meat unsafe for anyone to eat.
That’s my understanding, but my 'net research has produced no cites. I’ll continue looking, but I’m confident there are those here who are wise in the ways of Microbiology who are capable of helping me out. What do you say, O brilliant ones?
You are pretty correct. The Aflotoxins created by bacteria are dangerous sometimes. Not all aflotoxins hurt us though, they are also the defense system of the "friendly"bacteria that live in us. Some of these aflotoxins are good for us, ones we have evolved to utilize in our bodies. Some bad aflotoxins can be neutralized with Caffeic Acid, others by propanol like compounds. There are many neutralizers but some also neutralize the beneficial bacteria from processing things we need in our gut. Many of these aflotoxins can be neutralized by different antioxidents but reactions to these toxins also help us fight cancer. The body can’t identify cancer easily because it is our own cells that have mutated. I have more research to do on these things, after hundreds of articles on these chemicals I am still a novice but understand more than the average person does. I am also limited by access to others research here on the net.
I was under the impression that aflatoxins were produced by molds that grew on grains, not bacteria in meat, and are only found in meat if the animal ate contaminated feed. FWIW, aflatoxins are also potent carcinogens (said the be among the most carcinogenic substances known), not substances that help your body fight cancer.
As for bacterial toxins, some are destroyed by cooking but others aren’t, or only at high temperatures; for example, botulinum toxin is destroyed at 60-80C, per the discussion here (sources seem vague about the exact temperature, I’d say better to be safe and throw it out). I’m also assuming that you are asking because you left meat out for too long, as in the previous link.
It kind of depends on the meat your talking about doesn’t it.
For example ground meat that’s gone bad is just plain old dangerous.
Whole cuts though are routinely left to age and in fact will start to go bad. The difference is that with a whole cut you can trim away the parts that have gone over and what’s left on the inside is usually safe if cooked soon after trimming. Lot’s of high end steak houses do just that.
I’m not one of the brilliant ones (at least not in microbiology), but I did find this:
The heat-stable toxins can tolerate temps up to 212F, so cooking a burger to 160F will not eliminate them (even though it does kill the bacteria). Having said that, the fact that health officials say a burger cooked to 160F is safe to eat suggests that either the Wikipedia page is wrong, or there’s more to the story.
It also depends on how much toxin is present; if properly handled (quickly processed and frozen, then cooked; if defrosted, preferably in the microwave or another fast method), there shouldn’t be more than a trace present, assuming that it was contaminated in the first place. Also, when you hear of e. coli outbreaks, it usually involves the actual bacteria causing sickness, not their toxins, hence it is more common with foods like vegetables that aren’t cooked (interestingly enough, some bacteria like salmonella are also plant pathogens).
Not all E. coli are equal, different strains produce different toxins. And then a lot depends on the potency of the toxin, and the dose you ingest. There are a handful of toxins that are very dangerous in small doses (e.g. botulinum, shiga toxins). Those can make you very sick even if you eat carefully prepared food, but thankfully they are very rare. The O157:H7 strain of E. coli is the seriously dangerous variety that makes the news, it produces shiga toxin and it can infect you and kill you dead.
But most E. coli is completely harmless. Some relatively common strains will produce toxins that are much less potent and not very dangerous, i.e. heat stable enterotoxins. A small amount of these less-dangerous strains in your undercooked meat won’t harm you at all. (Remember, every human is already infected by E. coli). If you let the meat spoil the E. coli can grow and produce considerable quantities of toxin. With a low dose, you might end up with a mild case of diarrhea. Or if the dose is extremely high (e.g. eating rotting meat out of the dumpster), or you’re not very healthy, you could end up with a life-threatening case of diarrhea.
The same is generally true for other bacteria that cause food spoilage. There are very rare strains that can cause life threatening infections, and common strains that produce less potent toxins that build up in spoiled food. Cooking will kill most of the live bacteria and prevent infections, but it can’t remove all toxins.
(Thus, sloppy food handling might just give a healthy person some occasional indigestion, but in a nursing home kitchen it’ll kill someone.)
For the record, this has been spurred by a recent discussion in Canada. There has been a large scale problem with the beef supply because of a meat processing plant in the province of Alberta. The leader of the opposition Wildrose party in Alberta retweeted a suggestion that the large stocks of tainted meat should be fed to the homeless rather than being sent to a landfill.
I didn’t want to draw us into the debate about the appropriateness of her remarks; rather, I’m mostly interested in the facts behind what can or can’t be done with tainted meat. As per my original post, my impression is that there is a point beyond which the meat is unsafe for consumption, regardless of the care taken in its preparation. I’m seeking confirmation or refutation of my impression.
I can back up lazybratsche’s post. It’s exactly correct.
-Aflatoxins are made my molds, not bacteria.
-Most bacteria, generally speaking, do not secrete heat-stable toxins, but some do.
-Most E. coli is nonpathogenic; a few strains will make you sick.
-Of the pathogenic E. coli strains, some secrete heat-stable toxins, some do not.
Generally, speaking, if you cook beef thoroughly, you’ll be fine, even if E. coli has been having a little party in it. However, if you’re talking about taking a big supply of tainted meat, cooking it, and feeding it to a large number of people, some of whom will be, by chance, immunosuppressed, old, or otherwise susceptible, I think that’s a rather bad idea. Most people will be fine; some will not.
If the meat is literally spoiled and rotting, it’s not safe to feed anyone. Even if you stew it in an autoclave for days, heat-stable toxins will remain and make people sick. A bad case of diarrhea would be life-threatening for the homeless.
If very dangerous strains like O157:H7 were detected even in small quantities, it’s not safe to feed anyone. I think you might be able to kill that particular strain by thorough cooking. But given how deadly it is, using that meat isn’t worth the chance of killing someone if a cook is a little sloppy with their food handling.
If one of the routine bacteria measurements was 2% higher than government limits, perhaps most of the meat is probably safe. Assuming it’s was properly refrigerated in the mean time.
Clostridium botulinum actually isn’t that rare; it is found in soil around the world and you probably have spores of it in the air right now (the spores themselves are usually harmless, but some foods like honey can poison infants because their stomach isn’t acidic enough to destroy them), although it needs anaerobic conditions to grow, but such conditions can exist inside of meat.
In any case botulism poisoning is rare. The CDC reports that are 145 cases each year; ~20 are foodborne cases that affect adults and most of those are caused by sloppy home canning (~95 are infant poisoning cases, and the remaining ~30 cases come from infected wounds). You’re much more likely to be struck by lightning than get botulism poisoning from spoiled meat.
I was under the impression that botulism was more common, especially from meat. After all, the word comes from the Latin word for sausage and it is a big enough of a concern that they use nitrites/ates or other additives to prevent it.
With regards to doing something with the meat, is there nothing that can be done with this meat except dumping it in the landfill? As far as I know, the meat was frozen, not just a big ole pile of rotting meat. Feeding it to humans sounds too dangerous (although getting in your car and driving every day is a hell of a lot more dangerous), but as I suggested in another thread, could it not be processed into dog food or something?
It is only used in processed meat however (sausage, cold cuts and stuff like that); including meat that has been precooked like hot dogs (shouldn’t the cooking destroy any bacteria?). It also brings a whole new set of health issues.