Purdue expert has bad news about your beef

A recent Consumer Reports investigation of ground beef might have you saying, “Holy crap.”

That’s because signs of fecal contamination were found in 458 pounds of ground beef purchased at 103 grocery, big-box and natural food stores.

Americans consume more beef on Labor Day than almost any other holiday, according to Purdue University’s College of Agriculture. Last year, 182.5 million pounds of beef were sold in stores the week leading up to the holiday, said Laura Landoll, a spokesperson for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

With that in mind, an expert on microbiology shared two tips on how to safely consume ground beef next week: cook it to an internal temperature of 165 degrees and avoid cross-contamination.

“Preparation and handling is the best practice,” said Arun Bhunia, a professor of food science at Purdue. “ ... So if you’re handling ground beef (or) raw meat, make sure you don’t touch any of the vegetables if they’re not going to get cooked.”

Between 2003 and 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented 78 E. coli outbreaks, 1,144 infections and 316 hospitalizations, including five deaths, related to tainted beef. Fifty-five outbreaks were attributed to ground beef in particular.

The report reveals an inconvenient truth about meat production today, Bhunia said. Methods some say are necessary to feed a growing global population — including the use of feedlot systems and massive slaughterhouses — make our food more likely to contain fecal bacteria such as enterococcus and/or E. coli, both of which were found in almost every sample tested by Consumer Reports.

Why?

Cows are fed a diet of grain and soy when they’re moved to feedlots. Research indicates such a diet causes cows to shed more bacteria in their manure, in which they’re forced to live, according to Consumer Reports. The bacteria builds up on their hides and sometimes infects the meat during slaughter, the story reports.

“We have to think of the reality. The population’s growing, and food security is going to be the major issue in the next 25 to 30 years,” Bhunia said. “So we have to find a way to grow (animals) in large quantities. And when you grow them in a confined environment in large numbers, obviously that’s going to run into some of the microbial problems.”

Steaks are safer to consume rare or medium-rare because contamination is limited to the surface, which is cooked. Ground beef, however, should always be cooked well-done, Bhunia said.

“Steak is a solid piece of meat,” he said. “But ground beef is actually pieces of meat, and the bacteria actually is present not only on the surface — you have it also inside the ground beef. That’s where you really need thorough cooking.”