An investigation by national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen into a possible beef steak E. coli outbreak associated with at least one national restaurant chain raises the issue once again of bacterial contamination in non-intact cuts of beef.
There are preliminary indications that the current restaurant steak E. coli outbreak — which may have peaked in November — involves meat injected with tenderizing ingredients, which would classify them as non-intact. Between 1999 and 2003, five of six steak E. coli outbreaks associated with non-intact beef involved moisture-enhanced steaks, according to a 2003 study at Colorado State University.
Injections and mechanical blade tenderizing techniques may enhance flavor of a steak, but it can be dangerous to consumers when brine is contaminated and when meat isn’t cooked well. That is why in 1999 the federal government lumped non-intact beef together with hamburger, meaning they are considered adulterated if they carry E. coli O157:H7 — a virulent pathogen that can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP)
The risks associated with non-intact beef were outlined nicely in a 1996 Masters Thesis by Kansas State University graduate student Sarah Sporing. She noted that many restaurant cooks mistakenly handle injected and blade-tenderized steaks as whole cuts that can be served rare or medium rare. When cooking whole cuts, surface contamination can be killed merely by cooking the meat until it changes color.
They often don’t realize that injections translocate surface E. coli into the muscle, where it can survive if the center is undercooked. Sporing’s study showed that a standard food industry blade tenderizer transferred 3- to 4 percent of surface E. coli to the center of the meat. Injections of cross-contaminated flavoring can do the same thing.
Sporing studied the thermal destruction of bacteria in the center of E. coli steaks and found that oven broiling was more effective (shorter cooking time) at killing the pathogens than grilling the meat on a commercial gas grill or cooking it in an electric skillet. But regardless of the cooking method, she determined that the population of E. coli O157:H7 in non-intact steak could be reduced to the same safety level as intact beef if cooked to at least 140 degrees.
“To reduce risks… it is in the best interest of the meat and food service industries to encourage the use of thermometers to determine degree of doneness in all meat products,” not just ground beef, Sporing wrote.
E. coli lawyers at Pritzker Olson have been contacted by survivors of this non-intact steak E. coli outbreak. If you believe you or a loved one have suffered damages from this potential outbreak or know anything about it, please contact us at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete our online contact and information form on the side of this web page.
Our firm is one of the few in the country that practices extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. We have the resources and experience to collect compensation from the parties responsible for this outbreak, including meat suppliers and restaurant corporations. If you contact us, we will provide a free case consultation. If we agree to take your case, you owe us nothing until you win.
This outbreak could have been prevented and our firm actively supports a variety of initiatives to strengthen the food safety system in America, which hasn’t undergone broad, meaningful change in 70 years. One of our clients testified this year before a Congressional food safety panel in Washington, D.C., and another client is featured in the current issue of Consumer Reports magazine that exposes widespread bacterial hazards in poultry.
