That is part of the problem. But the biggest factor is simply that the carcasses are treated carelessly and washed commonly. So ruptured guts are common and any instance contaminates all carcasses processed for the next umpteen hours.
Cattle carcasses are treated much more carefully and are hosed clean rather than bath washed. Little chance of contamination and little chance for multiple carcasses to be contaminated.
Contamination can easily spread throughout the muscles via the blood an lymph vessels even without any “beating”. The vertebrate body comes with a system of pipes that is purpose built to *ensure *that cells are able to move freely throughout the flesh.
Quote:
THE DETAILS: Researchers sampled ground and whole cut pieces of beef from the same original lot and contaminated it with Salmonella, a type of bacteria found in the digestive tracts of humans and animals. Because it lives in animals, the bacterium can contaminate the meat during the slaughtering process, explains Marks. Workers who don’t wash their hands, or use contaminated surfaces, can also spread the bacteria. When people eat food contaminated with Salmonella, they develop fever, abdominal cramps, and diarrhea, which can last for up to a week. Victims usually recover without treatment, though a person with a weak immune system can develop more serious problems. The interior portions of whole cuts of beef like steaks or roasts have long been assumed to be sterile, but contamination and survival of pathogens have been reported. This study found Salmonella hiding deep inside whole cuts of meat.
The bolded part is what I was unaware of and what really scares me.
Aren’t chicken eggs also contaminated with salmonella?
I never eat anything containing raw egg. There must be something about the ecology of chickens that allows the salmonella bacterium to flourish in them.
Speaking as someone who got a campylobacter infection from undercooked chicken, I’d rather have eaten napalm. I just about managed to avoid going to hospital but it was a close-run thing for a while.
I have no doubt that salmonella can contaminate whole cuts of beef, so when the research deliberately contaminate a cut to prove it, I’m not certain what the value is. It does take a certain number of bacteria to get sick. I’ve eaten rare steak for 30 years without a problem. I still think the probability of getting sick is extremely low.
I used to watch Sara Moulton on the food network all the time. She was a freak about this issue and it has caused me to be rather squicked out about working with chicken. Of course, I now own a deli and have to work with it every damn day. I wish I had a hazmat suit.
The inside of the egg is not, but the outside is. Since chickens only have one vent/cloaca, eggs are necessarily being contaminated with feces as they are laid. Commercial eggs are washed before they go to the store, but nothing is perfect. There are brands of eggs that are even heat treated to further reduce the risk of bacteria surviving.
If you read further, it states that salmonella is still unable to penetrate undisturbed tissue ,consisten with what was previously known. An infection vector can be present through “jaccard” tenderized meat where tiny needles are pushed through the meat to increase tenderness which is already a known infection vector. The solution is to never buy store jaccarded meat which, unfortunately, has no label requirement and can be hard to visually spot. The solution is to buy a home jaccarding blade and to jaccard immediately before cooking. You’ll still be pushing minute amounts of salmonella into the interior muscle but they won’t have time to grow before consumption so levels should remain low.
The interior of the egg can be contaminated if the ovaries were contaminated when the egg was formed. The CDC claims only 1 in 20,000 eggs are contaminated so it’s a reasonably risk free disease vector. If you’re extra paranoid, use pasteurized eggs which behave similar to raw eggs but are guaranteed not to contain salmonella.
Wait till you have a few bad raw oysters. A bad shellfish sick is like no other sick in the world. I honestly thought I would die on my bathroom floor.
What? Do you have a cite for an e.coli outbreak that’s happened from whole muscle beef happening “all the time”? So far, I’ve found one recall case in 2009 from “non-intact” beef in which several people got sick and one case in 2012 which there were no reported illnesses. I’ve found no cases in which non-non-intact beef was recalled due to e.coli. It’s certainly inaccurate to say that it’s just as risky as chicken, which is recalled all the time due to contamination.
OK - this is what I always thought; whole undisturbed muscle = safe.
Of course using a jaccard is going to infect the meat, that’s a no-brainer.
So what’s the clear answer?
I usually go to the local butcher shop, for ribeye (for myself), and NY strip (for Sat^Gal.)
I imagine they don’t jaccard either of these, as neither is known as a cut needing tenderizing. Incidentally, I like mine Medium, while she likes hers Medium-Well.
