Category Archives: Thermometers

Piping hot is not a cooking recommendation; temperature is

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 I like gray food. Sometimes.

Pot roast, gravy, mushy peas, mashed potatoes – it’s comfort food for the Brisbane winter (high 70F, low 48F).

It’s gray. And piping hot.

But I also like hamburgers that aren’t hockey pucks, pork that isn’t leather, poultry that melts rather than substitute as a rubber ball.

To cook many foods safely without overcooking requires a tip-sensitive digital meat thermometer.

But, the Brits are the Brits, and once again, the best government communications types can come up with is, cook food until it’s piping hot.

This time it’s the Health Protection Agency, which issued one of those completely ineffectual food safety reminders as part of the taxpayer-funded Food Safety Week – another way to blame consumers if they get sick.

Among the helpful tips:

“Ensure that you cook/BBQ meat until it is piping hot – particularly poultry, as this will kill off any bacteria.

Dr Bob Adak, an expert in gastrointestinal disease at the HPA, said: “Bacteria can survive in all kinds of environments and can grow and spread rapidly given the opportunity. But you can combat this by cooking meat correctly to kill any bacteria that may be present and using hot soap and water when washing up and wiping surfaces thoroughly to eliminate harmful bacteria and reduce the risk of infection.”

Where can I buy some of this hot soap?

Is your hamburger done? Color is a lousy indicator; K-State’s Hunt honored by American Meat Science Association

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The American Meat Science Association has announced that Melvin C. Hunt of Kansas State University is the recipient of the 2012 American Meat Science Association R. C. Pollock Award. He will be honored at the AMSA 65th Reciprocal Meat Conference on June 19 in Fargo, N.D.

Sponsored by the AMSA Educational Foundation, the award honors an AMSA member whose work through teaching, extension, research, or service represents an extraordinary and lasting contribution to the meat industry.

“Dr. Hunt’s reputation as a preeminent meat color researcher is well-known throughout the world,” said Thomas Powell, executive director of AMSA. “His service to the meat industry and the meat science discipline spans two decades of teaching, mentoring and research.”

Hunt, or ‘Hunter’ as he is known, began his career as a research chemist for Tennessee Eastman Company working on new applications of antioxidants, surfactants and meat packaging systems. He also developed a proprietary base for functional dietary fibers suitable for sequestering bile acids and lowering serum cholesterol and as a replacement for nitrite in cured meats.

He has been a part of the animal science faculty at Kansas State University since 1975, where his research focused on postmortem meat quality with particular interest in factors affecting meat color and myoglobin chemistry. He served as chair of the Food Science and Industry Undergraduate Program for 19 years.

Hunt is internationally recognized for his expertise in meat color measurement and was the primary author of the Guidelines for Meat Color Measurement published by AMSA. The guide is the only comprehensive document on meat color measurement available to meat scientists.

He has published widely on meat pigment chemistry, meat color and packaging systems. In the last six years, he has authored or co-authored 51 refereed journal articles and he has been a speaker at national and international conferences to discuss his research. He has received research funding from national and commodity sources and from more than 50 major packaging and ingredient companies to address pigment chemistry, shelf life, color life, cold chain management, product palatability and microbiology.

Hunt is considered to be among the top five meat color experts in the world. His former graduate students hold prominent positions in government, industry and academia. He has been recognized by several organizations for contributions to research, teaching and advising.

And he’s a nice guy. Gracious when I spoke at the local Rotary a couple of years ago, and always willing to help with questions. Here’s Hunter speaking with me while tailgating before a Kansas State football game four years ago. And some key references.

Hunt, M.C., O. Sørheim, E. Slinde. Color and Heat Denaturation of Myoglobin Forms in Ground Beef. Journal of Food Science Volume 64 Issue 5 Page 847-851, September 1999.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1999.tb15925.x?prevSearch=authorsfield%3A%28M.C.+Hunt%29

Ryan, Suzanne M., Mark Seyfert, Melvin C. Hunt, Richard A. Mancini. Influence of Cooking Rate, Endpoint Temperature, Post-cook Hold Time, and Myoglobin Redox State on Internal Color Development of Cooked Ground Beef Patties. Journal of Food Science. Volume 71 Issue 3 Page C216-C221, April 2006
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2006.tb15620.x?prevSearch=authorsfield%3A%28M.C.+Hunt%29

Seyfert, M., R.A. Mancini, M.C. Hunt. Internal Premature Browning in Cooked Ground Beef Patties from High-Oxygen Modified-Atmosphere Packaging. Journal of Food Science. Volume 69 Issue 9 Page C721-C725, December 2004
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2004.tb09923.x?prevSearch=authorsfield%3A%28M.C.+Hunt%29 

18 sickened; Reading College fined after liver pate causes food poisoning

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Do students at the thousands of culinary and catering programs learn any food safety?

BBC News reports Reading College has been fined £7,000 after admitting students breached food regulations by serving liver pate which had not been cooked to the required temperature and made a bunch of old folks sick.

It was ordered to pay a further £8,000 costs at the town’s magistrates’ court.

The problems were traced to liver pate prepared by students who were training for catering careers and were overseen by a chef.

Trainees had been given the wrong cooking temperature, which was too low to kill Campylobacter in the raw materials.

Edna Shepherd of the Pine Cones Retirement Club, whose members had eaten at the college restaurant as part of a group outing, said: "Some of the ladies living on their own were in a shocking state."

Principal Lesley Donoghue said the college "deeply regretted" causing food poisoning in 18 people in May 2011, adding, "We obviously recognize some of the problems that were caused and deeply regret any illness which was caused to people. Clearly we’ve taken a lot of remedial action – new premises, new facilities, a new start."

Based on this story, Reading College still don’t get it.

New facilities aren’t going to make food safe, unless they bought a bunch of tip-sensitive digital thermometers, and students were instructed on how to temp food – and no fingering.

Perhaps it’s difficult to train students in the U.K. with a government-sanctioned culture to cook things until they are piping hot.

Stop fingering burgers, use a thermometer, avoid spreading bugs and sprouts

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Spot the cross-contamination: Emeril on Good Morning America this morning, which is broadcast the next day in Australia at 3:30 a.m.; even used raw sprouts.

The video is at http://abcnews.go.com/watch/good-morning-america/SH5587637/VD55206537/gma-528-emerils-memorial-day-burgers.

But I can’t get it in Australia. Maybe Chapman will embed it.

This version works, poorly.

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Aussies: Meat thermometer ‘not a bad idea’

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Aussie food types are slightly warming to the use of thermometers, following the U.S. and now Canada.

The New South Wales Food Authority (that’s the state agency where Sydney is) says in a new advisory about unsafe cooking temperatures that, “it’s not a bad idea to invest in a meat thermometer probe.”

“Different meats require different cooking temperatures to destroy harmful bacteria.

“For example, a steak need only be seared on the outside and can be rare inside, while minced meat must be carefully cooked to destroy bacteria. That’s because minced meat has far greater surface area than steak and therefore greater risk of bacterial contamination.

“One way is to simply cook minced meat, sausages and poultry until well done, right through to the centre. No pink should be visible and juices should run clear.

“Using this method should ensure your meat and poultry is free from harmful bacteria, although people’s idea of what constitutes "pink" and "clear running juices" might differ from person to person, that’s why it’s not a bad idea to invest in a meat thermometer probe.

“A meat thermometer helps you make sure all potentially harmful bacteria have been destroyed through proper cooking. A thermometer probe shows you the exact temperature inside the meat or poultry so you can be sure it’s cooked all the way through.”

Color remains a lousy indicator of meat safety and tenderness. Use a thermometer and stick it in. It’ll make you a better cook.

More on pink and thermometers

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Surveys still suck.

Using I-own-a-thermometer as an indicator of thermometer use is as useful as I-own-a-sink therefore I wash my hands. Or, I own a toilet, so I always hit the bowl. Or … use your imagination.

Researchers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration report in the Journal of Food Protection that the use of a food thermometer is the best way to ensure that meat, poultry, and other foods reach an internal temperature sufficient to destroy foodborne pathogens.

The 1998, 2001, 2006, and 2010 Food Safety Surveys were used to analyze changes in food thermometer ownership and usage for roasts, chicken parts, and hamburgers in the United States.

But surveys still suck.

The paper notes that when E. coli O157:H7 was first associated with ground beef in the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommended that consumers cook hamburgers until the meat was ‘‘brown or pinkish brown in the center. However, as a result of research that showed that one out of four hamburgers may be brown in the center before reaching a safe internal temperature, the USDA changed its advice to consumers— instead of using color as an indicator of doneness in hamburgers, consumers should use a food thermometer to ensure that a safe temperature has been reached. In May 2000, the USDA launched the Thermy educational campaign to encourage consumers to use a food thermometer when cooking small cuts of meat, such as hamburgers and chicken parts. The USDA also provided guidance to consumers about the safe temperature for various cuts of meat and poultry.

Ho Phang and Christine Bruhn reported earlier in JFP that in video observation of 199 California consumers making hamburgers and salad in their own kitchens, handwashing was poor, only 4% used a thermometer to check if the burger was safely cooked, and there were an average of 43 cross-contamination events per household. They concluded Thermy had not been successful.

We did our own survey with 40 people brought in to cook a chicken meal in a Kansas State kitchen and videotaped their behaviors. Many participants reported owning a food thermometer (73%) and nearly half (42.5%) of participants reported knowing the suggested end temperature for cooking poultry to ensure doneness. When asked the final recommended internal temperature for chicken, the mean response was 214°F with a range of responses from 140°F to 450°F. (The correct answer is 165F)

Of those participants observed measuring the internal temperature of the product, only three used the thermometer correctly. During observation, two individuals who used the thermometers failed to remove protective casings prior to taking internal temperature readings, and therefore used the instruments incorrectly.

Surveys do not measure behaviors: they give an indication of what people think their behavior is, or what the survey person wants to hear, but that isn’t going to get people to use a thermometer (tip-sensitive, digital).

Piping hot not; UK thermometers’ maker see sales soar after 1988 salmonella scandal

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Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes. Even ironical.

In Dec. 1988, then junior minister UK Health Minister told a television reporter the majority of UK eggs were contaminated with salmonella. A lawsuit by UK egg producers led to Curie’s resignation and millions worth of compensation for egg producers.

For Peter Webb it was gold.

ETI – Electronic Temperature Instruments – was founded in Worthing, West Sussex, in 1983. The company makes digital and infrared thermometers, as well as pressure meters and other related instruments.

It supplies the catering industry and supermarkets, including Waitrose, for use on their hot-food counters. Other clients are pharmaceutical firms and hospitals, which need to keep drugs or blood at a certain temperature.

This is Money reports that when Currie made her comments in 1988, the firm saw turnover soar ‘virtually overnight’ from £1million to £3million. It now stands at more than £7million.

ETI is the biggest maker of digital thermometers in the country making 3,500 a week. Peter, 57, employs 120 staff and the firm makes 80 per cent of its products in Britain. The business continues to thrive despite the downturn.

And despite consumer recommendations to just cook things until they are piping hot. Good thing ETI targeted food service.

What does pink mean? It’s a lousy measure, so why does CDC use it to measure hamburger risk?

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(although imperfect)

Those words, in parentheses, are the most important in a paper by CDC-types about self-reported consumption of pink beef, and impair the conclusions.

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control used FoodNet data from a 2006-2007 survey of 8,543 respondents to conclude 75.3% reported consuming some type of ground beef in the home, and of those respondents who ate ground beef patties in the home, 18.0% reported consuming pink ground beef.

That’s a high number, but is pink hamburger correlated with cooking temperatures of less than 165F? Not always.

For purposes of the paper, pink hamburger is equated to undercooked and therefore potentially dangerous hamburger, except for the acknowledgement that color is an “imperfect” indicator for the consumption of undercooked ground beef.

The authors do mention in the paper that “color is not a reliable indicator of ground beef doneness, and thermometer use was not assessed so self-reported consumption of pink ground beef may not truly represent consumption of undercooked beef.

A series of studies beginning in the 1990s and led by Melvin “Hunter” Hunt of Kansas State University concluded that color is a lousy indicator of whether hamburger has reached a microbiologically safe internal temperature of 160F with something like 30 per cent of burgers browning prematurely, based on levels of different forms of myoglobin within hamburger. The U.S. Department of Agriculture agrees, and has a thorough summary of the problems with color at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/Color_of_Cooked_Ground_Beef/index.asp.

So why base a consumer study on color, which research concludes and U.S. and Canadian governments agree in the form of consumer advice, is unreliable? Guess it was easier.

The survey did further verify a long-standing observation that is apparently ignored by every local, state or federal agency that says rates of E. coli O157:H7 increase in summer months because more people barbeque: there’s no correlation with cooking. Instead, the correlation is with microbial loads in cattle, which increase in spring and summer.

“We noted a distinct lack of seasonality in the consumption of ground beef or pink ground beef patties in the home. This contrasts with the marked seasonality reported for E. coli O157:H7 infections in humans, which peaks in the summer months. These data suggest that factors other than seasonality in ground beef consumption, such as differences in food handling practices or increases in the amount of bacterial contamination on meat and other foods or environmental sources during warmer months, are responsible for the seasonal increase in E. coli O157:H7 infections. Shedding of E. coli O157:H7 by cattle peaks during the spring and summer months, corresponding to the period of the highest incidence of human infections. Others have suggested that fluctuations in E. coli O157:H7 prevalence in cattle may be linked to human infections. Our data support this hypothesis and suggest that further attention to pre-harvest food safety interventions may be warranted to decrease the numbers of organisms shed in cattle feces and, ultimately, decrease the number of human infections."

For those who think consumers need to be better educated to reduce incidence of foodborne illness, the survey found yet another link to trash such a notion.

“Although persons with higher education and income reported consuming pink ground beef patties in the home more often, this group consumed ground beef overall less frequently. These findings do not explain these patterns, but we speculate that the increased level of risky behavior among more highly educated and higher income respondents may be due to several factors. These persons may not prepare food at home as often as other groups and
therefore may be less practiced in appropriate safe food handling and cooking practices or they may prefer pink ground beef. Higher income persons have been shown both to have more confidence in the safety of the national food supply and to be more likely to use unsafe food practices than lower income persons. Persons that are more educated may also perceive themselves to be at less risk for foodborne illness and consequently be more likely to engage in risky behaviors. The increased willingness among this population to engage in unsafe food-related behaviors has been suggested to rise from more prevalent beliefs that they understand and can control food safety risks.”

Or, smart people can be dumb. Certainly applies to me (the dumb part).

The abstract of the paper is below.

Ground beef consumption patterns in the United States, FoodNet, 2006 through 2007
Journal of Food Protection®, Volume 75, Number 2, February 2012 , pp. 341-346(6)
Taylor, Ethel V.; Holt, Kristin G.; Mahon, Barbara E.; Ayers, Tracy; Norton, Dawn; Gould, L. Hannah
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2012/00000075/00000002/art00016/
Infection resulting from foodborne pathogens, including Escherichia coli O157:H7, is often associated with consumption of raw or undercooked ground beef. However, little is known about the frequency of ground beef consumption in the general population. The objective of this study was to describe patterns of self-reported ground beef and pink ground beef consumption using data from the 2006 through 2007 FoodNet Population Survey. From 1 July 2006 until 30 June 2007, residents of 10 FoodNet sites were contacted by telephone and asked about foods consumed within the previous week. The survey included questions regarding consumption of ground beef patties both inside and outside the home, the consumption of pink ground beef patties and other types of ground beef inside the home, and consumption of ground beef outside the home. Of 8,543 survey respondents, 75.3% reported consuming some type of ground beef in the home. Of respondents who ate ground beef patties in the home, 18.0% reported consuming pink ground beef. Consumption of ground beef was reported most frequently among men, persons with incomes from $40,000 to $75,000 per year, and persons with a high school or college education. Ground beef consumption was least often reported in adults ≥65 years of age. Men and persons with a graduate level education most commonly reported eating pink ground beef in the home. Reported consumption of ground beef and pink ground beef did not differ by season. Ground beef is a frequently consumed food item in the United States, and rates of consumption of pink ground beef have changed little since previous studies. The high rate of consumption of beef that has not been cooked sufficiently to kill pathogens makes pasteurization of ground beef an important consideration, especially for those individuals at high risk of complications from foodborne illnesses such as hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Why? Use a thermometer; how to test oven temperature without a thermometer

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For some reason food.com ran this suggestion last year on checking oven temperature without a thermometer, and it showed up on the inter-tubes today.

Ingredients:

granulated sugar
aluminum foil (optional)

Directions:
1? To test if your oven is running cold:.
2? Preheat oven to 375°. (186° C.).
3? Place a small amount of granulated sugar in an oven-proof dish or on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil.
4? Place in oven for 15 minutes.
5 ?If your oven is calibrated correctly, the sugar will melt.
6? If your oven is running cold, the sugar will not melt.

7? To test if your oven is running hot:.
8 ?Preheat oven to 350°. (177° C.).
9? Follow the same procedure as above.
10 ?If your oven is calibrated correctly, the sugar will not melt (although it may brown a little).
11 ?If your oven is running hot, the sugar will melt.
12? Note: ovens do not maintain a constant temperature, but cycle above and below it, so it is possible that the sugar may melt at 350° if your oven is correctly calibrated but has an extreme cycle (15° F, 8° C.).

Use a thermometer.

Cook chicken to 165F; color a lousy indicator

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 A friend in Ontario (that’s in Canada) sent along this recipe from a can of Campbell’s Cream of Asparagus soup.

I have a soft spot for the asparagus soup, because that’s how my grandfather Homer, asparagus baron of Ontario, got his start in the fresh asparagus business, growing to 100 acres in the 1970s, selling almost all of it fresh at the door. What was left went to Campbell’s for cream of asparagus soup.

On the recipe for lemon asparagus chicken, the instructions state, cook chicken “… until chicken is no longer pink.”

Not good enough. If consumers are expected to be the critical control point, then food producers must at least provide clear and evidence-based instructions. Cook chicken until it reaches an internal temperature of 165 F as measured using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer.

Stick it in.