Food safety gets complicated as Fourth nears
Nanny government is at it again, trying to keep us from getting sick from undercooked meat at Fourth of July cookouts.
This year she has topped herself, with a warning also against eating raw cookie dough.
The Food and Drug Administration this week advised people against eating uncooked dough or batter, in response to a report of E. coli bacteria in flour from a Kansas City mill. These items also can be risky if made with unpasteurized eggs.
So go ahead and bake the cookies for your holiday feast, even if it gets you in trouble with another part of government that’s fighting global warming.
The FDA warning does not apply to cookie-dough ice cream, including the version made by Crystal Creamery in Modesto. Good to know, for our health and the local economy.
The advice about meat comes out every grilling season. Reports of salmonella and other pathogens rise as people spend more time cooking outdoors, possibly over an uneven flame that does not get the meat to a safe temperature.
It’s at least 165 degrees for chicken; 160 for ground beef; and 145 for steaks, chops and roasts. That from the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which also urges us to keep raw meat cool before cooking and to wash up after handling it.
Some of that chicken comes from Foster Farms of Livingston, which dealt with a salmonella outbreak in 2013. The company has since reduced the incidence to well below industry thresholds and is big on educating consumers about safe handling and cooking.
By the way, the Foster family owns the poultry operation and Crystal Creamery. Both are major employers in the area and suppliers of some of our Fourth fare.
Your columnist has a food-safety tip of his own: Don’t try to grill cookie dough to a safe temperature. Doesn’t end well.
John Holland: 209-578-2385, jholland@modbee.com
Meat handling tips
- Use one cutting board for meat, preferably one that can be sanitized in the dishwasher, and another for vegetables and other foods.
- Clean surfaces where meat is handled with soap and warm water followed by disinfectant.
- Wash hands for 20 seconds after touching raw meat.
- Don’t wash raw chicken, which some experts had advised in the past. This can leave contaminated droplets as far as 2 feet from the sink.
- Keep the refrigerator at 40 degrees or colder.
- Keep meat cold until grilling it.
This story was originally published July 1, 2016 at 3:49 PM with the headline "Food safety gets complicated as Fourth nears."