Tag Archives: berkeley

How safe is chicken tartare; how not to ask a question

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If you like steak tartare, you’ll love chicken tartare, a salmonella-laden crap-fest of raw chicken and egg.

Jonathan Kauffman of San Francisco Weekly writes readers were disgusted after his review of (raw) chicken tartare served at Ippuku, a Japanese restaurant in Berkeley.

Proving once again that most chefs know shit about food safety, chef Christian Geideman said that “since salmonella only lives in the digestive tracts of chickens, and since Geideman dipped strips of raw chicken breast meat in boiling water for 30 seconds before cutting it up and seasoning it, he’d eliminated the threat of salmonella contamination.”

Good thing Kauffman finally got in touch with friend of the barfblog, Harshavardhan Thippareddi, an associate professor of food science at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln (left, sorta as shown).

Dr. Thippareddi – also known as Reddi – told Kaufmann that, no, a 30-second plunge in boiling water would do little to kill pathogens.

When asked how chicken tartare would compare to steak tartare, Reddi said,

"Actually, the risk is lower in beef. The normal percentage of beef carcasses contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 is 0.1 to 0.3 percent. In poultry, the prevalence of salmonella is higher — the legal limit for poultry processors is that less than 20 percent of the birds may be contaminated. In some processors, they may have lower rates — like 5 or 7 percent."

Kauffman said,

"But those rates are probably for confined chickens. These chickens are pasture raised, and probably organic. Does that make a difference?"

Reddi said,

"We’d like to think it does, but sadly, it doesn’t.”

Science in a San Fran blog. Awesome.

Reddi added in a subsequent e-mail to the author,

"We all take risks in life. I suppose this is one of those ‘acceptable’ risks for some of us. However, I don’t think you will ever find me eating steak tartare or sushi (knowing the risks)."
 

Barfing, Berkeley and Brisbane

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As director Kevin Smith would say, Brisbane, Australia, I’m inside you.
(Smith was inside Sydney last week as part of his touring standup Q&A sessions that get turned into fairly entertaining movies.)

Other than torturing Sorenne for 36 hours of transportation from Manhattan to Brisbane, the only excitement was the ‘Do Not Spit Here’ sign on the garbage can in the Auckland airport, also available in what looked like Chinese and Korean.

But there was a good food-related barf story out of Berkeley, Calif.
Julie R. Smith writes in The Berkeley Independent that she used to sneer at germs, but is now plagued with the “social food” problem, when you’re faced with food that has not been prepared in a state-licensed restaurant with a sanitation rating of A+. Unless I’ve actually watched you crack the eggs or cook the meat (and preferably inserted the thermometer myself), forget it. I’m a nervous wreck.

In 2007 I started throwing up at work, which led to throwing up in the parking lot, which became throwing up in my car (a co-worker was driving, thank God), which segued into throwing up all over the ER admittance desk.

After barfing on a nurse and two gurneys, the fun began: I started literally foaming at the mouth. Every time I retched, foam flew far and wide. My co-worker, a staff photographer who served in Viet Nam, was convinced I had rabies.

Two hours later, after shots and IVs and heated blankets, the ER doc announced that I appeared to have norovirus. “Nora who?” I asked fuzzily. …

A year ago, I returned from a trip to North Carolina feeling fine. At 1 a.m. I woke drenched in sweat, fell out of bed and threw up on the dog. Then the other end of my digestive system decided to join the party.

Five hours later I was again in the ER with dry heaves and a nifty potassium drip. The doctor asked if I’d eaten anything “that didn’t taste right.”

“Not really, but I pigged out all weekend,” I admitted. “Chicken, deviled eggs, pasta salad, fried fish, pie, baked potato with sour cream. Too much rich food, I guess.”

He shook his head. “When you eat something that doesn’t agree with you, you throw it up and life goes on,” he said. “This is food poisoning. You ate something that was contaminated.”

So there you have it: Norovirus and food poisoning. Life’s too short to spend it throwing up. Pass me the meat thermometer.