In yesterday's New York Times, front page, there was an unbelieveable article about a young woman who is paralyzed due to eating a bad burger ("E-Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection"). This is the most indepth writeup I've seen on the subject--if you go to nytimes.com, you can read it. No more burgers for us!
Don't panic...just make sure your burgers are well-done. Eating a burger rare, medium, or even medium-well should not be done if you want to be sure all the 'bad guys' are toast. I have never eaten anything but a gray through-and-through burger. However, one time I did eat 'jambon cru', which at the time I did not know was raw ham in French!
Thanks, briegull, being called 'ham', I figured it must have been 'treated' in some manner even if it wasn't smoked. I was in Geneva at the time, and when I ordered it from the waiter, I noticed several people around my table sort of looked at me, as if to say "what was that guy thinking?".
I couldn't help but comment here. As you all know, we are hunters and grind our own burger. Last year, DH just loved my burger and I had no complaints. This year, he will not eat it and has been buying beef with the little money that he earns. When I buchered his elk last fall, I was very careful with the meat and did everything right. It was really good meat. I have lived through a couple of really good rants about the s..t that I grind and try to make him eat.
My point is, this isn't like him at all. And, I would rather eat my burger than the store burger.
TJ, they were probably thinking who is that American who can afford to buy it! The really good air-dried meats are quite expensive. Once I was in Barcelona, eating alone at Quatros Gatos (sp?) which is a neat old restaurant that Picasso used to frequent when he was a student. They have a balcony ringing the center dining area, and I was alone so I sat where the 2-seater tables were; I looked down on the guy carving the Spanish dried ham oh so carefully and paper thin! It was VERY expensive; I had about two bites as part of an appetizer. If you want to read about the dried hams, look up HAM in Wikipedia.
Mary, I'd eat your elk or other ground meat! I've tried the ground bison you can get now and it's very good. It really is in how it's prepared, of course. Last year, did he shoot his own elk? In sentiment I'd be a vegetarian, but in reality I really like meat!!
TJ--whether you cook the meat well-done or not--read the article--there are things in there that just shouldn't be eaten. For example, sometimes ammonia is added to the meat to "cleanse" it. Also, some of the ingredients can come from outside the U. S.--the article mentioned Uruguay--where the standards are even lower than in this country.
Funny, Janet! Bama, I hope it was well done. Briegull, the ham was sliced very thin, but I don't remember how many swiss francs it cost. Was a place called Migros that sort of catered to Americans...they had hamburgers, which I got many times while I was there. They tried, but they just didn't measure up to Yankee burgers.
There is a very easy and effective way to be sure our food is safe - radiate it. This does not change the food in any way, does not make it radioactive, and would be a good use of spent nuclear power plant fuel. This should be done not only on meat, but also vegetables (remember the spinnach problem?) and fruits. Unfortunately, too many people have a fear of anything with the term radiation.
The Facts about Food Irradiation A big advantage of irradiated food, is that it is a cold process: the food is still essentially “raw”, because it hasn't undergone any thermal process. ...
If any of you saw "Food, Inc" you will probably consider being vegetarian. I pay more and buy organic chicken and beef at Costco or Whole Foods or Farmer's Markets.
Continuing story about ground meat in our house. three weeks ago, DH had me order 1/2 a beef. He had money from a job to buy it with. He was so tired of always eating game burger. two weeks ago, he had me set up a date with his brother and sister in law to grind game burger. He was worried that we were running low on burger. We did almost 60 pounds for just us. one week ago, we picked up our beef and received almost 200 pounds of burger.
a couple of days after we got the beef, DH asked when we were going to eat some of the game burger that we made. He said that we made such good burger that we should use it.