Persistent problems with norovirus has lead Danish authorities to recommend that frozen berries be cooked before consuming.
Food Administration recommends caterers and institutions which prepare food for children, elderly and sick, to heat treat all kinds of frozen berries. The recommendation applies only to frozen berries and not the fresh berries.
Microbiologists at the Health Protection Agency’s Centre for Infections (CFI) in Colindale have confirmed the link between contaminated bean sprouts and 141 cases of Salmonella Bareilly in .jpg)
the U.K. (The Daily Mail reports the number sickened as of today at 169).
Specialists in the CFI’s Salmonella Reference Unit report that the strain of Salmonella Bareilly isolated from a bean sprout sample is indistinguishable from the strain of S. Bareilly isolated from human samples.
Bean sprouts had already featured strongly in a case control study in which people who had suffered from S. Bareilly infection and controls (people who did not become ill) were questioned about what they had eaten prior to the onset of illness.
However, both the HPA and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) stress that bean sprouts are safe to eat provided that they are washed and cooked until piping hot before consumption or are clearly labelled as ready-to-eat.
Such advice fails to account for potential cross-contamination in home or food service kitchens during preparation.
Food porn was on the menu last night as the new season of Top Chef kicked off. That’s me watching for about 30 seconds (right, not exactly .jpg)
as shown).
Earlier in the day I got a press release about the Grilled Australian Lamb Burger with Brie Cheese, Cranberry Compote and Roasted Jalapeno Aioli, “America’s new favorite upscale burger” created by Anthony Jacquet, executive chef of The Whisper Lounge in L.A. (left, exactly as shown).
The burger won the “Make Australian Lamb America’s New Favorite Burger” contest, sponsored by Plate Magazine and Meat & Livestock Australia.
The cooking constructions state:
To prepare burgers, place patties on hot grill. Cook for 2 minutes and then turn a quarter turn and cook for another 2 minutes. Flip burger and cook another 2 minutes. Turn a quarter turn and cook another 2 minutes. Add brie cheese and cover with a stainless steel mixing bowl for another minute. Pull burgers off of grill and let rest. They should be medium rare.
I don’t know what medium rare is. If Australia wants to increase consumption of lamb burgers, require clear cooking instructions, like using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to ensure the burger reaches 160F so people won’t barf and consumption of lamb doesn’t plummet.
Susan Burton of Slate Magazine required almost 2,000 words yesterday to say she likes meat – well-done – and that she hates the food thermometer.
I honed in on the modern American history of doneness, in large part because it can be tracked precisely—thanks to the meat thermometer. 
This early-20th-century invention brought about a giant cultural shift: the reliance on a gadget—rather than instinct, or experience—to assess our meat. The thermometer was promoted to home cooks as a tool of scientific precision. It was also an instrument of relaxation, something that freed you from worrying about misjudging the meat: "A roast thermometer makes for carefree roasting," advised the 1959 edition of Fannie Farmer’s famous tome. By midcentury, temperature measurements were a common feature of cookbooks.
Our standards for doneness changed rapidly when, thanks to Claiborne, Julia Child, and others, we discovered, and began to venerate, cooking methods that originated abroad. Once American palates adjusted to the European style of underdone meat, guidelines fell even further. (Child’s leg of lamb: rare at 140 in 1961; 125 in 1979.) Times writer Florence Fabricant took note of this development in a 1982 article called "A Trend Toward ‘Less Well Done.’ " Fabricant called overcooking "a tradition in this country" and attributed the change to the influence of "Oriental" and "French nouvelle" cuisines. She also connected the trend to the then-new vogues for crisp-tender vegetables and for raw foods, like sushi. But eating rare meat wasn’t simply a matter of evolving taste. It was a means of signaling something about yourself, an ethos. When Fabricant’s article was published, serving your guests rare meat showed you were sophisticated.
These days, it shows you’re cool. (Look no further than the title of Bourdain’s forthcoming bad-ass memoir: Medium Raw: A Bloody .jpg)
Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook.)
Somehow, author Burton manages to simultaneously trash the precision of a meat thermometer and propagate food safety myths about so-called factory farming.
She’s so cool, she likes food well-done and doesn’t need a thermometer.
I’ll continue to stick it in.
NBC Miami reports the Miami-Dade Health Department said Wednesday a cook at the Bayside Chili’s has a confirmed case of typhoid fever and likely 
prepared food for some time before it was finally diagnosed.
Every employee at the Chili’s is being examined to see if the disease was spread to them, but there may not be any way to get to the hundreds of people who may have consumed food prepared by the contaminated cook.
The restaurant is still open for business.
Typhoid fever is caused by Salmonella Typhi, a bacteria that can be passed on by eating or drinking something prepared by someone with the illness. It’s usually treatable by antibiotics.
Don’t fire the messenger. Improve and enforce the message.
A Country Springs Hotel line cook claims he was wrongly terminated for “sanitation reasons” after dozens of people were sickened at a banquet at the Waukesha, Wis., hotel last week, adding,
"I’m the fall guy. I’m the scapegoat. There’s been no proof that I was responsible for bringing a virus to work."
The cook told WTMJ he was getting over the flu and wasn’t feeling 100 per cent the day he helped prepare the food for the banquet but he doesn’t think he should have lost his job.
"The managers, they knew I was ill, they knew there were other people that were ill. They didn’t send me home Sunday and Monday. They sent me home Tuesday. Sunday and Monday they needed me really bad. Tuesday it was not a busy day.”
The Wisconsin Food Code says kitchen employees must report if they have flu like 
symptoms. The Country Springs manager told Today’s TMJ4 that’s why they "fired one employee for failure to comply with the reporting requirement policies."