Organic Is NO Guarantee!!

If the meat is very fresh and if it was handled very carefully during slaughter and butchery, there may be very few bad bacteria if any. Scientists call this the "load" and that is also an important factor in food safety. The more bugs there are, it takes longer and/or more heat to kill them all. But there is no way for most of us to know precisely how fresh a steak is and how the carcass was handled.

Now I know a number of you are going to tell me how safe you feel eating pastured chicken and their eggs, or rare burger from the grass fed organic steers you bought at the farmer's market, but the fact is that pastured chickens wander on grass contaminated by droppings from birds, field mice, rabbits, and deer, and they can be just risky. Organic pastured chickens can be just as dangerous as factory chicken. Ditto for other fruits and vegetables. Everyone must be informed and careful about food safety, no matter who their supplier is.

According to food safety experts, the most dangerous food around is probably sprouts! The seeds are often grown in fields contaminated by critters and sewage, often overseas in unregulated farms, sit in burlap bags in warehouses with rodents, and then they are soaked in warm water until they pop open. Well guess what else is sprouting in this warm moist incubation climate? The FDA website is teeming with tales of sprout recalls. And growing them at home is just as dangerous.

Sous vide doesn't play by USDA rules

Heat kills bacteria, but bacteria don't all die at once when the meat hits 145°F. They start croaking at about 130°F, and in theory, if you hold a piece of beef at 130°F internal temp for about two hours, you can kill all the bugs.

This is the whole theory behind the latest and most exciting emerging concept in cookery, sous vide. Yes, I know it is not new, but is is newly affordable. Sous-vide is French for "under vacuum", so named because the cook puts a steak in a plastic bag, add seasoning, perhaps a marinade, and suck out all the air with a vacuum sealer. The bagged meat is then put in a water bath and held at 130°F for hours until it is an even 130F throughout for two hours making it perfectly sterile, and amazingly tender because at that temp enzymes kick in that make the meat extra tender. The problem is that the meat lacks the rich flavor and crisp texture from the Maillard chemical reactions that happen to amino acids and sugars on the surface when you grill a steak, so sous vide chefs often sear the exterior in a pan, under a broiler, or on a grill for a few minutes before serving.

Sous vide can even be used on burgers and poultry, making it safe at much lower temps.

Until recently sous vide systems were bulky and expensive, suitable only for restaurants, but in the past couple of years they have gotten smaller and cheaper.

Check these sous vide systems and books on Amazon.com.

The best way to keep safe: Get a good digital thermometer

You will also notice that the whole system is based on internal temperatures of meats at their thickest part. Good cooks use a thermometer as their guide, not a clock. A recipe that says "cook at 325°F for 2 hours" is a recipe for disaster because you oven is probably way off. Even new ovens are often not calibrated properly. There is no substitute for a good digital oven thermometer coupled with a good digital instant read meat thermometer. This is especially true for outdoor cooks. The dial thermometers on most grills, even the expensive ones, are worthless, often off by 50°F or more.

The internet and a lot of cookbooks tell you that you can tell when a steak is ready by poking it and comparing its resistance to the flesh on your hand. THIS IS NONSENSE!!!! Unless you are an experienced pro, you cannot tell the doneness of a steak by poking it! The resistence of the steak is going to depend on what cut of meat you are poking, the grade of meat, how thick it is, the age of the steer, the breed of steer, the age of the meat, and what the steer was fed, among other things. A prime grade filet Mignon feels a lot more tender than a choice grade sirloin. A 3" rib-eye feels different than a 1" rib-eye.

In addition, the resilience of our hands differs from young to old, from thin to fat, from exerciser to couch potato. OK. It is true that top steakhouse chefs can tell a steak's internal temp just by poking it. But they have poked thousands of steaks, all from the same supplier, all the same thickness, all cooked at the same temp.

The rest of us need a food thermometer. Food is expensive. It is costly and embarrassing to overcook it. Friends and family are priceless. It is not nice to sicken or kill them.

Doneness and color are controlled by one thing and one thing only, the temperature of the food. For home cooks, there simply is no substitute for a good digital instant thermometer like the ones I recommend in my Buying Guide to Thermometers.

Here's what USDA says, and I heartily agree: "The color of cooked meat and poultry is not always a sure sign of its degree of doneness. Only by using a food thermometer can one accurately determine that a meat has reached a safe temperature. Turkey, fresh pork, ground beef or veal can remain pink even after cooking to temperatures of 160°F and higher. The meat of smoked turkey is always pink." In addition, smoked meats are often pink due to a chemical reaction with the smoke, rare hamburgers can be brown, and chicken cooked well above the safe temp can still have bloody splotches.

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