New E.Coli Outbreak - Ground beef

[2dream]

Hope no one here has any of this on hand. Just checked my email for the 1st time today and this was on my news page.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20091102/US.Beef.Recall/

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Oh gee.. another food borne illness from a CAFO. What a shocker...

Thanks for the head's up. I don't think we have any of those stores here, but they did say on the website that some of those stores may have re-packaged and sold to other states.

http://www.fairbankfarms.com/

**Plans on cooking any ground beef she eats to death**

 

[big brown horse]

I have been using ground bison, tastes just the same. I get it frozen at Fred Meyer. Bison=no CAFOs
(Thanks Freemotion for that tip!!)

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Can't find any!

Farmer's round these part tend to pasture their animals, so I'm trying to get someone to go in with me on a whole cow. 3 different farms & they all only want to sell whole cows. Heck, I'd buy it on the hoof & butcher it myself if I had the cash for a whole one.

May have to take that next batch of overtime & just break down and get one.
Yep, learned about bison=pastured from Free too That class was awesome!

 

[FarmerChick]

Question

as much as I hear about E coli and all----does cooking food REAL hot and long and all the way thru--etc----kill this virus or bacteria? whatever it is!
just wondering if cooking can kill it?

heck I don't know.

 

[patandchickens]

as much as I hear about E coli and all----does cooking food REAL hot and long and all the way thru--etc----kill this virus or bacteria? whatever it is!

It is a bacterium - and only a few strains of it will make you sick, most are harmless. (When they talk about an E coli outbreak in the news, they are talking about a strain that will make you sick, of course)

The bacterium is killed by cooking, and the toxins are (mostly) inactivated by cooking.

However the problem is twofold: a) not everybody cooks their food to a sufficient temperature, e.g. if you are eating burgers pink in the middle then the e coli there ain't been cooked enough; and b) even if you cook the bejeebers out of the food before eating it, if a pathogenic strain of e coli was in the meat, you can very easily have crosscontaminated other things that do NOT get cooked before they go into your mouth, e.g. your hands, utensils, plates, other things cut on the same cutting board, things on the fridge shelf after the hamburger package leaked a little, etc.

And of course a lot of E coli outbreaks are not directly food-based, e.g contaminated water supply.

Pat

 

[FarmerChick]

thanks for the info Pat
I always heard of it--never if cooking fixed it. well, within reason of course.


always something though isn't it? out to get us!

 

[Big Daddy]

Did any one ever read that book where these guys that collect dead cow carcasses for processing take a fresh one to a hamburger processor. There is a specific name for those guys if anybody can give it I would appreciate it. At any rate some brain matter gets into the hamburger patties and goes to the local burger shop. It gets in to a lot of detail about dying from E-coli. Scary book. Probably by Robin Cook.

I always wipe everything down with spray bleach. Reading that book made me a believer. I always use a cooking thermometer too. Except with bacon.

 

[FarmerChick]

BD

I know in this state they will not process a dead animal.

All animals must arrive alive. No exceptions. Of course that is state inspected slaughterhouses. No idea what "backyard" ones might do!

I did hear of what you are saying, but I know a NC state inspected processor could never accept them. I think was before, not current practice now.

Barb's dairy---any dead cows have to be buried. No hauling off "for anything"

 

[Big Daddy]

BD

I know in this state they will not process a dead animal.

All animals must arrive alive. No exceptions. Of course that is state inspected slaughterhouses. No idea what "backyard" ones might do!

I did hear of what you are saying, but I know a NC state inspected processor could never accept them. I think was before, not current practice now.

Barb's dairy---any dead cows have to be buried. No hauling off "for anything"

Yeah I know it was all fiction, but of course those were the regs in the book too. They of course sold it for cash to the night guy or some such thing. I've heard that inspectors aren't on hand 100% of the time. The big thing is I'm careful with food prep because E-coli is scary.

No milk from dead cows either.