Coming to Grips With Dual Identities
Daniel Rauch

In my first article [Foodservice Division newsletter, Spring 2007, "Hilario's Kitchen"], I mentioned that I had previously worked as a cook in a world-class restaurant in Spain. I use the term, "world class," not for bragging rights, but rather, to reinforce the fact that I come from a very rigorous and particular food background. Every plate had to be perfect before it could be served, and the head chef / owner was in the kitchen every night, ensuring that everything was up to his impeccable standards. He had a two-Michelin-Star reputation at stake, so you could imagine how fussy he could be.

One particularly angry moment I can recall is when a steak was returned for being too well done. The grill chef had allowed a three-inch-thick filet mignon steak to be plated-up medium, and our customer sent it back for being dry and tough. In my year’s stay in that kitchen, this was the only dish I can recall ever coming back, which is an incredible feat for any restaurant as busy as we were.

Sending a steak back to the kitchen because it is not cooked to the desired degree of doneness probably occurs somewhat often in this country. The difference, however, between what happened in Spain and what happens here in the U.S. is that the steak in Spain was returned for being cooked to what we call "medium." According to the USDA, all steaks in the U.S. should be cooked to 145ºF for 4 minutes, or to medium doneness with a light pink center and a grey-brown surrounding area.

I can just picture it now…The United States (through some strange twist of events) gains control of Europe and enforces that all steaks to be cooked to a "safe" temperature of 145ºF (we would also abolish the metric system, naturally), and my chef dies of a heart attack as steak after steak is returned to his kitchen.

As someone who loves food but is also taking food microbiology courses, I find myself in a bit of a lurch. Not too long ago, I needed to regurgitate the number, "145ºF," for my midterm exam, but following the test, I grilled up a beautiful lamb chop that was so bloody, I could practically hear the "baas" as I greedily ate the meat from the small T-bone. So, am I really supposed to change my palette and pretend to enjoy what I have long considered overdone meat, or can I somehow come to grips with my new identity as a food scientist who regularly eats sushi and seared steaks?

To answer this question, I decided to review the basis of our cooking regulations. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is the public health agency of the USDA and the ones responsible for educating industry and consumers on safe food-handling practices. According to their web site, beef cuts (not ground beef) should be heated to 145ºF for 4 minutes to give a 7-log 10 reduction of Salmonella. I was admittedly surprised that Salmonella was such a concern with red meat, having always associated it with poultry meat and poultry products. This got me thinking, "How common is it for beef to be infected with Salmonella?" In other words, how much of a risk am I actually taking by eating under-cooked meat?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 40,000 cases of salmonellosis are reported every year, and 600 people die from the disease. The elderly and young children are among the most likely to have severe complications from Salmonella. Since America has about 300 million residents, this gives, roughly, a 1-in-7,500 probability of contracting the disease. The CDC admits that the numbers are probably much higher than 40,000 cases a year, since many illnesses do not make it through the complex chain of events that must occur before a foodborne infection is reported. I am personally hoping that the ones that do not get reported are not that serious, and therefore, not serious enough to keep me from my rare steaks. Considering that the majority of the salmonellosis cases are from food products other than beef, my odds are really not that bad.

The next resource I used is a searchable online database hosted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). This database lists outbreaks – foodborne illnesses whereby 2 or more people have gotten sick from eating the same food. Searches can be made by food type, state, or pathogen. Looking under beef, I was only able to find 4 out of 118 outbreaks that were associated with steaks. Of the 4 outbreaks, only 1 mentions Salmonella. However, when searching under Salmonella, I find 1,221 total outbreaks, 8 of which are associated with BBQ beef and 3 with raw beef. This last find really grabbed my attention. One of the 3 raw beef outbreaks was associated with a party in California, January 1994, and 130 people got sick. That hits a little too close to home!

Just as I am almost ready to throw in the towel and hand in my chef's whites for a lab coat, a colleague directs me to Chapter 3 of the Food Code published by the U.S. Public Health Service / FDA [http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fc05-toc.html]. Here I stumble across section 3-401.11 Paragraph C, where it discusses the undercooking of beef. The FDA has three stipulations in this regard:

"(C) A raw or undercooked WHOLE - MUSCLE , INTACT BEEF steak may be served or offered for sale in a READY - TO - EAT form if:

(1) The FOOD ESTABLISHMENT serves a population that is not a HIGHLY SUSCEPTIBLE POPULATION,

(2) The steak is labeled to indicate that it meets the definition of "WHOLE-MUSCLE, INTACT BEEF" as specified under ¶ 3-201.11(E), and

(3) The steak is cooked on both the top and bottom to a surface temperature of 63ºC (145ºF) or above and a cooked color change is achieved on all external surfaces."

Ref: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~acrobat/fc05-3.pdf

Buried in this document is the blessing I have been looking for; the FDA acknowledging that some people will choose to eat undercooked steaks and a list of stipulations that should be followed when doing so. The Food Code does not mention what my chances are of contracting a foodborne illness, but if the FDA will even entertain the possibility of eating beef that has not been cooked to its regulatory time / temperature guidelines, I take this as a mild victory.

Reviewing what little information is available regarding beef steaks and foodborne illness leaves more questions than it does answers. For instance, how much do the conditions in which the steer is raised or slaughtered affect the meat? Is beef from a specialty shop, raised in a small farm, safer than beef from a huge industrial ranch? We have a shop on campus that sells beef, pork, lamb and eggs. The products are of unparalleled quality and come from our on-campus farm, which we believe to be one of the cleanest and best run farms in the state. I wonder if there is really a difference, aside from the noticeable marbling of the meat, between these steaks and the ones people buy at the local Safeway.

Part of being a food scientist is accepting that, with such a wide range of variation between individual food products, coming up with blanket statements can be futile. When we try to quantify food characteristics, we are sometimes attempting the impossible. We cannot say that each steak from a certain farm will always have the same characteristics, be they macro- or microscopic. Given these limitations, we are forced to treat the possibility of foodborne infection as if it exists in every case – not because it does, but because it can. So, while we cannot give exact probabilities of what risks one is being exposed to when someone eats an undercooked steak, we can say that there is a risk. Asking 100 people to quantify the exact risks will result in 100 different answers. If you ask me…well, you know what I would say, but then again, I am just a cook trying to find his way as a food scientist.