"John Kuthe" > wrote in message
...
On Jun 22, 5:50 am, Rhonda Anderson > wrote:
> Omelet > wrote
> innews
>
> > In article >,
> > "Jean B." > wrote:
>
> >> I disagree to some extent. If you get a cut of meat, the exterior
> >> could be contaminated. Thus, if you grind your own meat, you
> >> could have some of that contamination in it. Steaks, yes. Cook
> >> the exterior (assuming you haven't pricked, beaten, etc. the
> >> meat), and the interior would be fine. Of course, then I start
> >> thinking of prions, but...
>
> > Well, if I prepare steak tartare, I prepare it fresh and eat it right
> > away so the contamination is minimized. :-)
>
> I think Jean is probably referring to contamination that has occurred
> prior
> to you purchasing the meat, rather than contamination that occurs in your
> own kitchen. Contamination of the meat surface can occur during the
> butchering process if proper procedures aren't followed.
>
> --
> Rhonda Anderson
> Cranebrook, NSW, Australia
>
> Core of my heart, my country! Land of the rainbow gold,
> For flood and fire and famine she pays us back threefold.
> My Country, Dorothea MacKellar, 1904
"Contamination" is always present, even if all food preparation safety
rules are followed. I took a college Microbiology class, and I can
never look at c\leaning up in my kitchen the same again!! IOW no
matter how many times I wash my dishrag in hot soapy water, I know I'm
just spreading the germs (bacteria) into a thinner more sparsely
populated sheet on my counters!!
All you can do is to minimize the growth and spread of bacteria. Keep
foods cold (or hot) as much as possible and keep food prep surfaces as
clean as possible. And eat particularly high risk foods as soon after
preparation as possible. Your stomach has a fantastic germ-killer in
it! HCl!!!
=============
That's not the issue... HCL aids in digestion, were it potent enough to kill
all the germs it would burn through your stomach. There are plenty of
bacteria in the intestines, nessesary bacteria for digestion (why do you
think farts and shit stinks). For the bacteria that can make one ill we
have an immune system. Normal folks don't need to obsess over keeping their
environment sterile... it's not possible to keep ones living quarters
sterile anyway. But all foods can be contaminated above safe levels when
purchased, hopefully you don't buy bulged cans, obviously moldy food, foods
reeking of a bad odor, slimy, etc. But most toxic food bacteria doesn't
emit an odor nor does that food even appear contaminated. It's usually only
cured meats, poultry, and ground meat which one needs to be concerned
because in those the offending bacteria multilies very rapidly. So even
when you grind your own meat you can't just storage it in the fridge, or by
the next day what you'll have is essentially mystery meat, okay, it won't
have the roach ground in but it will still become just as contamianted. As
soon as you grind meat at home cook it or freeze it. Another thing to
consider is that bacterior multiplies faster in the absence of air, so all
wrapped meat at the market becomes overly contaminated quickly but espcially
ground because of all that surface area. Freshly cut meat at the market has
little surface contamination, just watch those sell by dates... it's safer
to buy cuts of meat from a butcher that doesn't pre wrap but there aren't
many anymore and of those that exist they are expensive. I bet few of yoose
know that the plastic wrap used by meat departments is permeable, it allows
air to pass so that surface bacteria growth is slowed considerablty, doesn't
help much with ground meat. Still the only way to know what and who is in
ground meat is to grind your own... and then consume or freeze
immediately... there isn't much point in grinding your own meat if it's
gonna sit in your fridge over night. Leave the meat in your fridge whole
until just before you're ready to cook it, only takes like one minute to
grind three pounds of meat. And it's pretty simple to rid it of most
surface bacteria with a quick rinse and a good coating of salt and a half
hour in the fridge, rinse it off and grind... should also buy the largest
hunk of meat you can because it will have the least surface area to volume.
With poultry one should always salt, rinse, and then douche with fresh
lemon/lime juice. For many reasons it's far safer to only buy whole
poultry, never buy cut up poultry... don't even ask your butcher to cut up
your poultry, their surfaces are not very clean, they don't wash their hands
between chores, and they clean their knife by wiping it on their filthy coat
or with an even filthier schmatah. Stupidmarket meat departments are steam
cleaned by outside contractors once every 24 hours, usually in the middle of
the night... it's best to buy meat as early in the day as possible.