Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

By the way, the latest recall was Jan 3. Here is the info on the FDA site http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm238636.htm

The lead paragraph says "Sprouters Northwest, Inc. of Kent, WA, is recalling all of its clover and clover mix products because they have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis."

Sounds great for kids!

You say "you should decide for yourself how comfortable you are with the potential risks". Permit me to explain those risks. I know a high ranking food safety scientist at the FDA who is also the editor of a magazine on food microbiology. She tells me that sprouts "may be the most risky food on the market. Even riskier than hamburger."

There have been NUMEROUS illnesses, deaths, and recalls.

Here's the problem: Most sprouts are grown overseas with little or no oversight. Even in the US they are grown in fields where they are exposed to bird droppings, rodent droppings, rabbits, deer, hogs, you get the picture. They are harvested and dried and usually bagged and stored in rooms where they are accessible to rodents and insects.

Then you take them home and place them in warm water so they will grow. The problem is, that the microbes on them love warm moist environments just as much as the sprouts. Food borne illness bugs grow just as rapidly as the sprouts. Or more so. Washing them will not remove the contaminants.

Sprouts should be cooked, just like ground meat. They should not be fed raw to children, elderly, or immune compromised. Maybe nobody should eat them raw.

He recommends pulling turkey at 150F. I have a quality thermocouple so I can do that. I know the reward, what is the risk? What is his favorite method for turkey? Coking temp?

Arrgghh! I'm going in Oct and staying at Mandalay. Thanks for the tip!

Kenji: A thought about the patty size. On this page on their website they give the nutrition info. http://www.in-n-out.com/nutritional_info.asp

Note that the INO Hamburger w/Onion is shown as 243 g. That's 8.6 ounces total. A cheeseburger with onion is 268 g. So the cheese is 25 g unless something else is added. A double double (two patties and two slices of cheese) with onion is 330 g. If the cheese is 25 g, the double double, with two cheeses has 50 g cheese. Remove the cheese and a sandwich with two patties would be 280 g. That means the extra patty is 280 - 243 = 37 g or 1.4 ounces. Can that be?

The key is temp, not fuel. The new "infrared" gassers can get up to steakhouse temps and can match charcoal for flavor, especially if the radiant heat plates are close to the meat. Ask yourself this: Remember the best steak you ever had? Steakhouse right? Why do most steakhouses use gas? It's the heat. Read this article:

http://amazingribs.com/BBQ_buyers_guide/grills/charcoal_grills_vs_gas_grills.html

Kenji & Robert:

OK, so I've done some digging in the scientific lit with the help of a PhD microbiologist friend at FDA who is the editor of a food microbiology journal, and has worked extensively with 0157, and here is what I have learned:

You may be right but you may be wrong. There are many variables and no one rule of thumb. Among them, what strain(s) of ecoli is involved, how good is the vacuum in the bag (and how tightly is the ground beef packed), how accurate is the thermometer on a $150 sous vide, and most important, how many bugs in the beef? Apparently, the "microbial load" is a big factor, and, if it is small, the meat might be sterile after 2 hours, but if the load is large, or if there is a pocket of heavy concentration, then that time and temp might not be enough to produce safe meat.

My friend would like to know what is the source of your assertion. Can you point us to the publication?

BTW, the 40-140F guideline is USDA, not FDA.

Here's my list of barbecue accessories
http://amazingribs.com/BBQ_buyers_guide/barbecue_accessories.html

Knowing the butcher is no guarantee of safety. As correctly stated above, there is e-coli on many steaks. Cooking a steak kills it. Grinding it distributes it inside and serving it rare is risky.

McGee suggests a process I have tested and it works. I buy chuck, dip it for 30 secs in boiling water, and then pat dry and home grind. Should be perfectly safe at any temp.

I'm stuck in Chicago. So tell me, what's their system? What's the blend? Weight? Griddle, broil, grill? Formed or smashed? Do they oil the patty? How's it seasoned, in or out? Hot and fast or slow?

Kenji: I've been a lurker for a while and I think you contribute a lot to the subject. This was a good tasting, and I know you understand science so I guess we should probably consider this a single blind, not double. I suppose the definitive answer could be found in doing numerous repetitions, but why bother. This is good info, better than anecdotal info because of the expertise of the panel.

simon: Butter is a good thing to add when you feel like it. Makes a tasty burger. It is, after all, fat from cream from a cow, so it is not dissimilar from adding beef fat, it is just processed a bit bu the cow and the dairy.

ratbuddy: You are not allowed to redefine words like burger and meatloaf. They have a long history of popular usage and dictionary precedent. You may personally believe that addition of salt, pepper, butter, etc. makes it meatloaf, and one can make the aesthetic argument pro and con, but linguistics experts would slap you down in a moment. Cling to your philosophy and make your burgers the way you like, but be careful about pushing your fundamentalist religion on others.

For those who like such semantic arguments, here's my take on the debate between the folks who argue about what is barbecue and what is grilling.

http://amazingribs.com/blog/barbecue_defined.html