Chet:
>>  I believe E.coli does not limit itself to living in ground
>> meat, though the Hudson recall did focus on that variety of flesh.
>> Are you suggesting E.coli only exists in ground flesh?

JL:
>I am not. I was just saying that the recent victims of E. Coli were from
>Hudson's gound meat. Of course, the bacteria live also in other kinds of meat.

My understanding is that e coli (like most other bacteria) breed on the
surfaces of meat. Thus ground meat (hamburger) increases the surface area
to include the interior as well (since hamburger is really a bunch of tiny
brokens "strings" of meat all messed around). The reason cooked steaks
(even very rare) are not as problematic as regards e.coli is that the
surface bacteria are killed by heat and there are no e.coli in the interior
of an intact steak. One the other hand if one were to eat rare hamburger,
the e.coli residing in the interior of the hamburger may not be killed by
heat.

As far as raw meat goes, it _seems_ that surface bacteria populations are
significantly decreased as the meat surface dries out since off-flavors
disappear as the outside dries. Probably many bacterial strains need
moisture to increase their population. None of which makes the aged raw
meat bacteria-free of course. ;)

JL:
>I even heard on TV the case of someone who got contaminated by drinking some
>unpasteurized fruit juice (if my memory serves me well).

And lets not forget botulism (most common in improperly sterilized canned
foods), one of the most potent natural toxins known. ;) Truth told, I'm
more grossed out watching a toddler eat Cheezitos than the idea of farm
animals eating fish meal and garbage. The whole idea of keeping farm
animals is to feed them foods which are inedible to humans, letting them
convert it into high-quality fats and protiens. Cattle (ideally) eat
grasses which are not digestible by humans. Pigs thrive on the chaff of
human foods and can forage their own from pasture. Too bad that idea is
perverted into feeds like sawdust, cement, and worse...

Hopefully articles like the one Chet shared will make people more willing
to pay more for meat from properly fed animals--as opposed to turning them
off of meat altogether which would be tragic IMO. Unfortunately, such
articles often have a  vegetarian bias and are more interested in promoting
meat abstenence than a revamp of the cattle industry...

Cheers.
Kirt


Cheers,
Kirt