Category Archives: Thermometers

Stick it in: Health Canada gets X-rated explicit about thermometers

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Health Canada has finally – finally – made an explicit, evidence-based public statement about ensuring the safety of cooked food, with no piping hot or juices run clear nonsense:

“The only reliable way to ensure that your food has reached a safe internal cooking temperature is by using a digital food thermometer.”

I’d add tip-sensitive.

Despite many different types of food thermometers currently available on the Canadian market, digital ones are considered the most accurate because they provide instant and exact temperature readings.

While we often look for other signs that our food is cooked properly (for example, the color of the meat and its juices), these methods can’t accurately confirm that harmful bacteria have been eliminated from our foods. Bacteria, such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria, which can cause foodborne illness, can’t survive at certain high temperatures.

Verified: cooking the poop out of pepperoni pizza

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I had grilled whole grouper during my Dubai dinner with Bobby the other night. Amy and Sorenne had frozen pizza in Brisbane.

Ever the safe food partner, Amy sent me the cooking instructions from the Emilia pizza mediterranea frozen pizza box which included:

“For food safety, bake to an internal temperature of 75 C as measured with a food thermometer.”

Such labels have become commonplace, at least in the U.S., after numerous outbreaks involving frozen, not-ready-to-eat foods.

In Nov. 2007, frozen pizza made headlines as all Totinos and Jenos pizzas with pepperoni were recalled due to contamination of E. coli O157:H7. The recall affected nearly 5 million pizzas and was linked as the cause of 21 confirmed illnesses throughout Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Five of the 21 ill required hospitalization.

The recall hit the Pillsbury USA ranges particularly hard, as net sales for the division fell two per cent.

At the time, I speculated, “People were probably cooking these in their toaster ovens or microwaves.” The manufacturer has a note on the cooking instructions discouraging the idea of cooking the pizza in a microwave. The advice, located next to the instructions was the smallest print on the box and might be easily ignored by consumers.

And just because something is written on a label doesn’t mean anyone follows the advice; research shows that labels are sorta lousy as a risk communication vehicle, but it’s there for those who care.

If some frozen pizza provider can recommend thermometers, why is it the best taxpayer-funded agencies like the UK Food Standards Agencies is to cook things until they’re piping hot?

Cook and reheat the damn ham; don’t hire unlicensed caterers; Clostridium perfringens strikes Las Vegas lunch

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 On Dec. 8, 2011, a biz in Las Vegas had a catered lunch.

Less than a day later, a bunch of them were barfing.

The Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) began an investigation the next day after receiving numerous reports of barfing among attendees; excerpts from their report are below.

Approximately 150 people work at Business A. Of the 63 employees who replied to the electronic survey, 50 reported they consumed food and/or drinks at the luncheon. Of the 50 luncheon attendees, 21 (42%) people met the case definition. An additional 29 people who ate at the luncheon but did not become ill served as non-case study participants. No ill person sought medical attention from a healthcare provider.

The caterer had a health card that is issued by the SNHD to food handlers. However, the caterer did not hold a catering permit issued by the SNHD, so health types don’t know if the same caterer sickened others at others meals because SNDH only tracks complaints against licensed businesses.

Both the caterer and a representative from Business A reported that the caterer
arrived at 9:00 am on December 8, and lunch service started at approximately 1230 hrs
(meal start time among ill persons ranged from 1130 to 1900 hrs) (Fig. 1). The duration
of the luncheon was unknown.

The caterer reported that all foods served were pre-cooked and ready-to-eat. The ham and turkey breasts were transported to Business A in a cooler with ice. Both meats were further sliced onsite, placed in bowls and re-heated in 5-6 batches per meat in two small non-commercial microwave ovens that were provided by Business A at the catering site. The caterer reported that food batches were stirred during heating. The caterer alleged the temperature of the meat was 170°F (76.7°C) after heating, but it was unclear where the temperature was taken in the meat. Heated ham slices were pooled in one chafing pan and canned pineapple with its juice was added.

Heated turkey meat was pooled in another pan and heated canned gravy was added. The
chafing dishes containing the ham and turkey were warmed by pans of hot water that was heated with Sterno heaters. Both meats were stored in their respective chafing dishes for about 0.5 hr prior to eating, but the duration of time foods were stored in the chafing dishes was not known.

Upon collecting foods for testing, EH staff observed that leftover foods were stored in a refrigerator that displayed the temperatures of <40°F, with the bulk of the food stored in covered consumer-grade plastic containers. All remaining food in their original containers was collected for testing and included: Mashed potatoes, ham and pineapple topping, green beans, salad with fruits, and two mixed-food plates containing 1) Ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and 2) Stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans.

I’m getting hungry.

The EH staff sent a formal notice to the caterer requiring all food operations to immediately cease and desist. They also required that the website which advertises the catering business be modified to announce that a permitted food facility will be providing the food to future events that are planned by the catering company. Additionally, EH also issued a bill to the caterer charging for the time that EH staff had spent in investigating the outbreak.

The isolation of C. perfringens was strongly suggestive that ham was the vehicle of transmission, and an error likely occurred during its re-heating and hot holding during the luncheon service. The heat generated by a small microwave oven might be insufficient to bring all portions of the ham to above 165°F (74°C) to destroy the C. perfringens bacteria. When the heating process is not evenly accomplished, the surviving C. perfringens bacteria can multiply and undergo sporulation. During the holding period where food is kept warm in covered chafing pans for extended periods of time, the spores can germinate to produce vegetative cells and multiply rapidly to large numbers. Ingestion of the bacteria during the luncheon may have resulted in further multiplication and sporulation in the intestine. The release of enterotoxin when C. perfringens sporulates can cause acute diarrhea. To prevent the proliferation of pathogens in potential hazardous food, the US FDA Food Code 2009 recommends that food that are reheated in a microwave for hot holding shall be reheated so that all parts of the food reach a temperature of at least 74oC (165oF) and the food is rotated or stirred, covered, and allowed to stand covered for 2 minutes after reheating (Section
3-403.11.B). Also, hot holding of such foods should occur at 57oC (135oF) or above
(Section 3-501.16.A1).

The majority of C. perfringens outbreaks are often the results of improperly cooled food or food held at room temperature for extended periods. Coupled with concurring epidemiological findings that the contamination and proliferation of the bacteria may have occurred at the luncheon, no further food traceback or recall action of the ham was implemented by the FDA.

Feast of the seven temperature verified fish and Merry Christmas

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I’m not Italian, I’m not religious, but now that I’ve found a decent fish monger, the Feast of the Seven Fish is the kind of meal I can get behind in support of winter or summer soltisce, depending on your hemisphere.

Or even for Christmas Eve.

We did our own version on the barbie: snapper, ocean trout, farmed Tasmanian salmon, big prawns, little prawns, steamed oysters and Morton bay bugs from just up the road a bit, along with some sweet potato crisps and rustic bread (would have gone for Tassie mussels but everyone was sold out, so it was two kinds of shrimp).

It was a feast, and we were grateful. Everything was cooked to a tender but safe thermometer-verified temperature. The bowl on the right is remnants.

Mission thermometer: fervent converts, one sausage sizzle at a time

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With five daughters, I’ve put in my share of time at the fundraising-BBQ- cookout, or in Aussie-speak, sausage sizzle.

Last night was the Christmas concert for Sorenne’s pre-school, which was somewhat surreal the first time – outdoors, everyone in shorts and flip-flops or dressed up fancy-like. For a sub-tropical climate in summer, they go a little nuts about the Christmas thing, with surfin’ Santa’s and shrimp on the barbie by the beach.

I proudly wore my Kansas State hockey shirt (there is no K-State hockey) and waved around my Comark PDT 300 tip-sensitive digital thermometer – which wasn’t necessary because the staff had precooked the sausages. But as the hundreds of parents and kids poured in (dozens?) me and John Hodgman-lookalike, Clayton, resorted to cooking raw sausage, and the thermometer became a necessary aide.

No children were harmed in this sausage sizzle.

Tongue-testing dangerous: microwaves that heat unevenly can pose food safety problems

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I expect companies like ConAgra and government agencies like the department of agriculture to blame consumers when their 50 cent pot pies make hundreds of people barf – just follow the instructions.

I don’t expect Consumer Reports to blame the consumer when microwave cooking makes people sick. But I have low expectations, especially of so-called consumer groups.

Consumer Reports latest tests of microwaves found fewer models that aced our evenness test.

When food isn’t cooked evenly to an internal temperature that kills harmful bacteria that might be present, illness can result, according to the USDA. So using a microwave that delivers even heating is important.

You’ll need to cook food longer if your microwave’s wattage is lower than the cooking instructions requires. Our Ratings indicate wattage, and you’ll find it on the serial number plate on the back of the microwave, inside the microwave door, or in the owner’s manual.

The USDA also recommends using a food thermometer to test food in several spots, but the survey found most people don’t, and nearly a third said nothing would change their mind. Using a food thermometer is a good idea, but at the very least, make sure there are no cold spots in your food.

How? With your tongue? Frozen foods that are going to be cooked in the microwave should contain pre-cooked ingredients.

Australia pushes thermometers for food safety; better than piping hot; makes better cooks

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 In Oct. 2004, I gave a keynote talk at the Food Standards Australia New Zealand food safety conference in the Gold Coast, Australia.

Before the talk, I did a live bit for one of the morning talk shows – like Good Morning America, but it was Good Morning Australia. Washing shopping carts was of particular interest.

The interview was done remotely, with me in the kitchen of a somewhat swanky hotel and casino where the meeting was being held. Before we got started, I chatted with the chef about some random food safety stuff. I asked if he served sprouts and he replied he’d worked in southeast Asia, new the risks with raw, and always gave them a quick saute or blanch.

I also noticed he had a tip-sensitive digital thermometer in the front pocket of his chef’s coat, and I asked if he used it, and he said all the time.

I asked if I could borrow the thermometer to use as a prop during the interview, and the media person accompanying me said something like, you can’t talk about thermometers, we can’t even get people to refrigerate their food; the fridge is for the beer.

Seven years later, and the consumer food safety types in Australia have started a push to use thermometers for food safety.

The Food Safety Information Council recommends meat thermometers be used to decrease the risk of food poisoning, but only 23% of Australian households own a meat thermometer and only a third of those with a one have used it in the last month, according to Council commissioned Newspoll research released today.

Food Safety Information Council Chair, Dr Michael Eyles said today, “A meat thermometer is a vital piece of kitchen equipment for both food safety and food quality reasons making it surprising that less than a quarter of households have one, and even more surprising that only about a third of those with one say they have used it in the past month.”

Following the lead of Elizabeth Weise of USA Today who last month wrote of the virtues of thermometers as gifts, Eyles said, “A meat thermometer makes a great Christmas present. … It is not only a small price to pay for the safety of your family and friends but is a minor cost to ensure food is consistently cooked to perfection.”

The national Newspoll study of more than 1200 respondents, 18 years and over found:

• Nearly 1 in 4 (23%) households claim to have a meat thermometer at home. This varies across the country, ranging from 27% in Victoria, to 17% in Queensland.

• Higher income households are significantly more likely to have a meat thermometer. 28% of households with an income of $80,000+ claim to have a meat thermometer, compared to just 17% of households with an income of less than $30,000.

• Among those who have a meat thermometer, only 1 in 3 (35%) claim to have used it in the last month, with half of these (18%) claiming to have used it in the last week.

Self-reported surveys like this one still suck – meaning people know the socially acceptable or desirable answer and lie. So the number of people actually using thermometers is overinflated.

But look at Amy. From learning how to temp a chicken breast in 2005, she’s now using our Comark PDT 300 on bread and cookies to ensure optimum quality (those cookies reached 190-200 F and were excellent). With moving around, different ovens, the humidity, and always trying different recipes, there is significant variability in actual oven temps, moisture levels and heating efficiency. So stick it in.

Instant-read thermometers make people better cooks; lowers risk of killing family and friends with food

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An instant-read thermometer is the best gift for the cook who has everything. Here’s what some folks told Elizabeth Weiss of USA Today.

William Keene, senior epidemiologist at Oregon’s Public Health Service, gives instant-read thermometers as wedding presents. "They save people’s lives."

The thermometer also makes Keene’s food taste a lot better. That’s because after spending a long day talking to people who’ve gotten sick from eating undercooked food, he found he had a tendency to overcook everything. Food "would get all dried out." But when he used the thermometer he actually stopped when it was done, rather than overdone. Though don’t forget to wash the tip with soapy water after you use it, "to avoid cross-contamination.”

Kathy Bernard of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Meat and Poultry Hotline gives them out as bridal shower presents. At the holidays they’re especially useful when people pull out recipes they don’t often make, like eggnog. "Since it contains raw eggs, if you’re going to make it from scratch you start cooking the egg base, stirring it over low heat until the mixture reaches 160," to kill any possible salmonella.

Jack Bishop of America’s Test Kitchen, a popular cooking show on PBS, said, "It’s something you can be pretty sure most people don’t own, or if they do own one, they don’t own a very good one.”

And they’re not just for meat, says Bishop. The old-fashioned method of knocking on the bottom of the loaf pan to see if the bread’s done only works if you’ve spent enough years baking bread that you know what you’re listening for. With a thermometer there’s no guessing. Plain bread is done at between 200 and 210, a sweet loaf between 190 and 200.

And for cheesecake, a thermometer is the key to avoiding cracks across the top. "The magic temperature is 150," Bishop says

Old-fashioned meat thermometers rely on metal actually expanding and turning the temperature dial. Digital instant-read thermometers use electronics and are faster and generally more accurate. The instant-read digitals use slightly different technology than a regular digital thermometer, so be sure to look for ones that say they are instant-read.

Our favorite is the Comark PDT 300 (right, exactly as shown, about $30).

I started using my thermometer on homemade bread a couple of years ago; big improvement.

At Thanksgiving, kill pathogens not guests

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In her somewhat annual Thanksgiving message to barfblog.com, Michéle Samarya-Timm of the Somerset County Department of Health, NJ, gets stuffed.

At Thanksgiving, if conversation isn’t about the bird, it’s about the stuffing: in the bird, or outside the bird? I teach food safety to a variety of folks, so my stance on this stays consistent…outside and 165 F.

Attendees at my food safety class last week brought up a refreshingly different question….does it matter what the stuffing is made of?

I know the barfblog guys are particular about stuffing; Doug wrote about it last Thanksgiving. His refrigerator potpourri technique sounds tasty…a gourmet mélange of basic ingredients. Call it barfblog’s Best Thanksgiving Stuffing, if you will. But this recipe has competition.

Cookbooks and websites are chock-full of the best-ever stuffing recipes with subtle twists on traditional ingredients. Using bread? Options are endless: Cornbread, multi-grain whole-wheat, sourdough, rye, bagels, and the ever-popular squishy white Wonder Bread.

Not a bread person? How about a rice stuffing? You can choose from white, wild, saffron, risotto, or last night’s leftover steamed. It’s easy to see how basic substitutions have expanded the variations for grandma’s recipe.

The advent of processed foods managed to usher in some more kitschy offerings, that surprisingly have cult followings: Corn Flakes stuffing (featured this morning on NPR), Ritz Cracker stuffing, or even White Castle hamburger stuffing.

I began to wonder about alternate approaches to this traditional side dish. I’ve heard of stuffing made with items such as sausage, lobster, clams, chestnuts, pine nuts, zucchini, or bacon.

These can all be personalized marks of a creative cook. In addition, I recall many times in my own kitchen when I needed to get inventive for lack of an essential ingredient. So I might be able to understand why there is a recipe for popcorn stuffing. What surprised me were the more unique renditions of this holiday classic that could make a Thanksgiving one to remember:

Didn’t have time for breakfast this morning? No problem – you can make stuffing from oatmeal, grits, grape nuts or captain crunch.

Don’t like the taste of turkey? Pair it with stuffing made college-style with pizza…or Italian style with prosciutto, salami and pepperoni …or man-style with steak and bacon.

For a multi-cultural twist, try tortilla chip stuffing, lasagna stuffing, or a mofongo mix – a Puerto Rican specialty of fried green plantains mashed up with bacon, sofrito and olive oil.

You could consider the epicurean dish turducken (a chicken stuffed into a duck, which itself is stuffed into a turkey) as the ultimate in stuffing options…or is it?

I pondered…is there anything edible that can’t be cooked as stuffing?

I tried searching for the strangest options, and uncovered stuffing recipes containing alligator, applesauce, chocolate (now that may be onto something), peanut butter, Twinkies and donuts.

Devil Dogs, cookies, pop tarts, matzos, malted milk balls — you can pretty much put anything in; if it’s edible it can be made into stuffing.

The key is not the ingredients so much as the food safety. You can make stuffing from homemade cornbread, marshmallow peeps, bologna or rutabaga, so long as you cook it thoroughly and check it with a probe thermometer. 165 F kills a whole host of common pathogens. Kill the pathogens, not your guests.

Stuffing isn’t evil; cooking it incorrectly is.

Thankful for all those who keep our families, our food supply, and our country safe.

Cook that frozen turkey, it’ll take longer, try not to kill relatives

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Roasting a frozen bird can produce a better turkey.

And many food safety types agree.

Elizabeth Weise of USA Today writes the technique involves a hot oven, an icy bird and six hours to hang out with your relatives.

While the technique turns out not to be new, it’s gaining traction because of a Web publication outlining how to do it by Pete Snyder of the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management, which does safety training for food companies.

"The breast is still moist and the dark meat is still tender," Snyder says from his office in St. Paul. It’s also excellent for food safety "because you didn’t drip that nasty turkey juice on everything in the refrigerator for four days."

Donald Schaffner, a food microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., says from a safety perspective Snyder’s right. "A frozen turkey is going to spread less contamination around your kitchen than a thawed turkey."

Snyder tested the technique because "I had been one of those people that had woken up at 7:30 in the morning and the turkey was still frozen." But being a food-safety professional, he decided to throw in a few temperature-measuring thermocouplers.

He placed them at various points on multiple frozen turkeys as they roasted. What was happening in the oven, he found, was "the first half of the cooking period thaws the turkey and then the second half roasts it," he says.

His technique is simple:
Take one frozen turkey, 12 to 13 pounds.
Place a low wire rack on a cookie sheet with low sides.
Remove the plastic cover from the turkey.
Put the turkey on the rack.
Put it in a 325-degree oven.
Wait 4½ to five hours.
Eat.

Snyder recommends using a cookie sheet or another baking sheet with a low rim, not a high-sided roasting pan. "You want the hot oven air to evenly circulate all around the turkey," he says.

He also recommends putting the turkey on a rack on the pan so that the hot air can circulate underneath, as well.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food-safety experts agree with Snyder. Kathy Bernard of USDA’s Meat and Poultry Hotline says "you can cook a turkey from a frozen state, the only thing you need to know is that it takes one and a half times longer to cook" than a thawed bird.

The technique is well known to the folks on the Butterball Turkey Talk-line. They get "lots" of calls on the topic Thanksgiving morning, says Carol Miller. She has been answering frantic questions for 27 years out of the Naperville, Ill., office.

The ideal final temperatures for the turkey is 160 degrees at the breast and 185 for the legs. But Snyder doesn’t think a thermometer is necessary because you can tell when the leg has reached 185 because "it will wiggle back and forth really easily" because the connective tissues will have begun to dissolve at that temperature, he says.

USDA isn’t so keen on the "wigging the leg" method of testing for doneness. "You need to use your food thermometer, you need to make sure the turkey should register 165 in the innermost part of thigh and the thickest part of the breast," Bernard says.

Butterball’s Miller says this is the time to canvass the neighborhood. "You really need a meat thermometer. If you don’t have one, give a guest a call and see if they can bring one. Or go to a convenience store. Or knock on a neighbor’s door."

The one area where Snyder and other turkey experts differ is on the matter of the neck and giblets, which in most commercially prepared turkeys will be placed in the neck and body cavity.

Snyder says that after about 2½ to three hours the turkey will have thawed enough that you can "carefully" pull them out of the warming bird to start to make stock. "You can leave them in, but then you don’t have them for the gravy," he says.

Butterball’s Miller disagrees. The bag they come is "designed to go through that heating process, so that’s not a problem." Trying to remove a slippery bag tucked deep in a turkey straight out of a hot oven — especially when everyone’s stressed about getting things done on time — just isn’t necessary. "They’re just as happy staying right where they are. That’s our recommendation and we’ve been doing this for 30 years."

The one thing you can’t do with a frozen turkey is deep fry it, because the frozen liquid can cause the oil to boil over, Snyder says. "That would be very, very dangerous."