5 ms·

A top food poisoning expert won’t ever eat these foods

25 points by mudil 11y ago

venomsnake 11y ago
TL:DР He won't eat anything with taste. The US system is absurdly safe for people with immune systems. If you are or cook for immune-compromised person - go on - incinerate the food. Read the data yourself and make informed decision.
- peteforde 11y ago
  1. You did not read the article, or you'd realize that your snarky response is actually intended for a BuzzFeed listicle — a completely different and far less interesting article. 2. Could you clarify which use of TL:RD that you're invoking? http://www.acronymfinder.com/TLRD.html http://www.acronymfinder.com/TLRD.html
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    The list includes raw oysters and other raw shellfish, raw or under-cooked eggs, meat that isn't well-done, unpasteurized milk and juice, and raw sprouts. Read it. And it is bullshit and paranoia. If you are a healthy person all of those are extremely safe even if treated with the worst possible practices. Except shellfish though - but I don't count it as food anyway.
    - elthran 11y ago
      >Except shellfish though - but I don't count it as food anyway. I think this is the first time I've ever seen an oyster being the subject of No True Scotsman
DiabloD3 11y ago
This is just a gigantic scare story. Jack in the Box was a food handling issue borne from corporate policy to cook food as fast as possible, leading to burgers cooked on the outside, and raw on the inside. And as for the Odwalla case, it was improper pasteurization, again, due to cost cutting corporate policies. What he should be saying? Stop eating improperly prepared and/or garbage food. Instead? Hes saying fear everything, fear is good, fear will save your life, fear is America and America is fear. Washington Post should really be ashamed by this story, and it doesn't belong on HN. We're better than this.
- peteforde 11y ago
  How do you qualify that this is a "scare story"? People quite literally died from eating Jack in the Box. You don't think that Odwalla refusing to do end-testing because it would create subpoena-able data goes a shade beyond corporate cost cutting? He doesn't say anything like what you're suggesting, unless you consider "From a safety standpoint, I don’t necessarily think that we’re the safest food system in the world, but neither do I think that we’re the worst food safety system in the world. We do have a fairly amazing ability to surveil foodborne illnesses." or "In 22 years of doing this, I’ve obviously seen things that are chilling. But I’ve also seen some great progress." or "Most of the work we did was E. coli cases linked to hamburgers, and those are now almost nonexistent, because the beef industry and the government finally figured out that it was a really bad idea to poison people, and that it was expensive, and they created systems that allowed to lower the level of E. coli in hamburger meat. Now there are fewer people getting sick, and Bill Marler isn’t making as much money, which is a great thing." to be sky-is-falling fear-mongering. I can't tell if you just didn't read the article, or you're angry about a completely different article.
  - DiabloD3 11y ago
    I read the article. I remember both Jack in the Box and Odwalla in the news. The problem is, I won't do business with either company because they are generally garbage products. Why isn't he raising the alarm about that? Instead, it is about extremely rare outbreaks that only occurred because of mishandling the product to pad someone's pocket. Yes, people died. What about all the people who continue to die because they eat these products, and it isn't because of E Coli? Odwalla is full of sugar, far more than what their fancy label and branding suggests, and Jack in the Box is just nasty greasy fast food. So yes, this article really is just fear mongering.
- kafkaesq 11y ago
  Why is it a scare story? Product safety is inseparable from the corporate policies which govern its production (in any industry). If you want to "bank" your own health (and that of your dependents, if you have any) on the idea that many of these food products he's describing can be safe in principle, if these companies do everything right -- that's your call. But that's not how I would call things. He's saying fear everything, fear is good, fear will save your life, ... No, he's not. He's saying that personally, he prefers to err on the side of caution. I'm not sure I'd agree with all the points he's making. But his analysis is pretty sober overall - and definitely not fear mongering.
tzs 11y ago
In the case of steak, the problem is with "mechanically tenderized" meat. Mechanical tenderization involves puncturing the meat with many tiny needles. That process can push bacteria from the surface of the meat deep into the interior. If a steak has not gone through this process then the dangerous bacteria is on the surface and so all you need to do is get the surface of the steak hot enough to kill the bacteria (160F/70C). You can leave the interior as rare as you like. Since even fans of the rarest steaks generally want a nice brown exterior, this will almost never be no problem. When mechanical tenderization has pushed the bacteria into the interior then you have to get the interior as far down as the bacteria have been pushed to 160F/70C if you want the steak to be as safe as one that had not been abused by mechanical tenderization. Unfortunately there is currently no requirement for mechanically tenderized steak to be labeled as such, and you cannot tell just by looking at it. The USDA has passed a regulation requiring labeling, but it does not go into effect until May 2016.
- zurn 11y ago
  The common food pathogens can survive surprisingly high temperatures, beyond 70C. Eg here they found that the most common food poisoning microbes on chicken fillets survived ~2 minutes in boiling water even though surface temperature reached 85C in 1 minute. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3282150/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3282150/ More resilient bugs and spores are another thing. Hospital autoclaves use 30 minutes at 120C/250F. Steak surface obviously heats to 100C pretty quick on a hot pan, but it's going to be pretty hard to consistently ensure that all spots on the sides etc have been hot enough for long enough.
scarface74 11y ago
So the lesson is -- don't eat raw and under cooked food.
angmarsbane 11y ago
This feels like an advertisement for Bill Marler.

25 points by mudil 11y ago

TL:DР He won't eat anything with taste. The US system is absurdly safe for people with immune systems. If you are or cook for immune-compromised person - go on - incinerate the food. Read the data yourself and make informed decision.

peteforde 11y ago
1. You did not read the article, or you'd realize that your snarky response is actually intended for a BuzzFeed listicle — a completely different and far less interesting article. 2. Could you clarify which use of TL:RD that you're invoking? http://www.acronymfinder.com/TLRD.html http://www.acronymfinder.com/TLRD.html
- venomsnake 11y ago
  The list includes raw oysters and other raw shellfish, raw or under-cooked eggs, meat that isn't well-done, unpasteurized milk and juice, and raw sprouts. Read it. And it is bullshit and paranoia. If you are a healthy person all of those are extremely safe even if treated with the worst possible practices. Except shellfish though - but I don't count it as food anyway.
  - elthran 11y ago
    >Except shellfish though - but I don't count it as food anyway. I think this is the first time I've ever seen an oyster being the subject of No True Scotsman

DiabloD3 11y ago

This is just a gigantic scare story. Jack in the Box was a food handling issue borne from corporate policy to cook food as fast as possible, leading to burgers cooked on the outside, and raw on the inside. And as for the Odwalla case, it was improper pasteurization, again, due to cost cutting corporate policies. What he should be saying? Stop eating improperly prepared and/or garbage food. Instead? Hes saying fear everything, fear is good, fear will save your life, fear is America and America is fear. Washington Post should really be ashamed by this story, and it doesn't belong on HN. We're better than this.

peteforde 11y ago
How do you qualify that this is a "scare story"? People quite literally died from eating Jack in the Box. You don't think that Odwalla refusing to do end-testing because it would create subpoena-able data goes a shade beyond corporate cost cutting? He doesn't say anything like what you're suggesting, unless you consider "From a safety standpoint, I don’t necessarily think that we’re the safest food system in the world, but neither do I think that we’re the worst food safety system in the world. We do have a fairly amazing ability to surveil foodborne illnesses." or "In 22 years of doing this, I’ve obviously seen things that are chilling. But I’ve also seen some great progress." or "Most of the work we did was E. coli cases linked to hamburgers, and those are now almost nonexistent, because the beef industry and the government finally figured out that it was a really bad idea to poison people, and that it was expensive, and they created systems that allowed to lower the level of E. coli in hamburger meat. Now there are fewer people getting sick, and Bill Marler isn’t making as much money, which is a great thing." to be sky-is-falling fear-mongering. I can't tell if you just didn't read the article, or you're angry about a completely different article.
- DiabloD3 11y ago
  I read the article. I remember both Jack in the Box and Odwalla in the news. The problem is, I won't do business with either company because they are generally garbage products. Why isn't he raising the alarm about that? Instead, it is about extremely rare outbreaks that only occurred because of mishandling the product to pad someone's pocket. Yes, people died. What about all the people who continue to die because they eat these products, and it isn't because of E Coli? Odwalla is full of sugar, far more than what their fancy label and branding suggests, and Jack in the Box is just nasty greasy fast food. So yes, this article really is just fear mongering.
kafkaesq 11y ago
Why is it a scare story? Product safety is inseparable from the corporate policies which govern its production (in any industry). If you want to "bank" your own health (and that of your dependents, if you have any) on the idea that many of these food products he's describing can be safe in principle, if these companies do everything right -- that's your call. But that's not how I would call things. He's saying fear everything, fear is good, fear will save your life, ... No, he's not. He's saying that personally, he prefers to err on the side of caution. I'm not sure I'd agree with all the points he's making. But his analysis is pretty sober overall - and definitely not fear mongering.

tzs 11y ago

In the case of steak, the problem is with "mechanically tenderized" meat. Mechanical tenderization involves puncturing the meat with many tiny needles. That process can push bacteria from the surface of the meat deep into the interior. If a steak has not gone through this process then the dangerous bacteria is on the surface and so all you need to do is get the surface of the steak hot enough to kill the bacteria (160F/70C). You can leave the interior as rare as you like. Since even fans of the rarest steaks generally want a nice brown exterior, this will almost never be no problem. When mechanical tenderization has pushed the bacteria into the interior then you have to get the interior as far down as the bacteria have been pushed to 160F/70C if you want the steak to be as safe as one that had not been abused by mechanical tenderization. Unfortunately there is currently no requirement for mechanically tenderized steak to be labeled as such, and you cannot tell just by looking at it. The USDA has passed a regulation requiring labeling, but it does not go into effect until May 2016.

zurn 11y ago
The common food pathogens can survive surprisingly high temperatures, beyond 70C. Eg here they found that the most common food poisoning microbes on chicken fillets survived ~2 minutes in boiling water even though surface temperature reached 85C in 1 minute. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3282150/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3282150/ More resilient bugs and spores are another thing. Hospital autoclaves use 30 minutes at 120C/250F. Steak surface obviously heats to 100C pretty quick on a hot pan, but it's going to be pretty hard to consistently ensure that all spots on the sides etc have been hot enough for long enough.

scarface74 11y ago

So the lesson is -- don't eat raw and under cooked food.

angmarsbane 11y ago

This feels like an advertisement for Bill Marler.