Are diners getting a raw deal?
Telly chefs hail pink meat as a treat... but food safety experts say home cooks must beware dangers of bugs
IT IS the mantra of most celebrity chefs – undercooking meat so it stays pink is the only way to serve it.
But the advice from TV cooks such as Gordon Ram say and Hugh F earn leyW hitting st all could be leading more of us to get ill from food poisoning.
Safety campaigners are now urging home chefs to be more aware of what they eat and how they cook – especially during summer barbecues.
More than two-fifths of Scots – a new high – reported they had suffered severe stomach upsets after eating undercooked food, a study has found.
Undercooked meat puts diners at risk of campylobacter and salmonella poisoning.
The research – the fifth biannual Food in Scotland Consumer Tracking Survey by Food Standards Scotland (FSS) – also noted an increase in the number of people washing raw meat, including chicken, and a decline in the number who wash utensils during food preparation. Both can cause dangerous bacteria to spread.
Yesterday, Aberdeen University bacteriologist Professor Hugh Pennington said: ‘The public is not all that aware of safety. Foods vary enormously in their risk.
‘How meat is handled before and during cooking in the kitchen is very important, down to not washing a chicken and making sure juices do not touch uncooked food. Fifty per cent-plus of chicken carcasses carry campylobacter on the outside.
‘A very brief blast of heat will kill off the bacteria – it is reasonably heat sensitive.’
Professor Pennington added: ‘Cookery programmes don’t really emphasise food safety very much – a lot of it is about the presentation, speed and competition.’
Campylobacter – which lives in the gut of many farm animals – is the most common cause of food poisoning in the UK, with four in five cases the result of contaminated poultry, especially chicken. The bacteria is also found in red meat, and unpasteurised milk.
Harmful bugs such as E.coli O157 can contaminate the surface of beef cuts and are mixed throughout the meat after it is minced and formed into burgers.
Thorough cooking is the only way to eliminate such bugs.
In the survey, FSS recommends: ‘Always cook food until it is steaming hot throughout; never eat chicken or turkey if the meat is pink or has pink or red juices; never eat burgers or sausages if
the meat is pink or has pink or red juices; and never eat whole cuts of pork or pork chops if the meat is pink or has pink or red juices.’
The agency advises that ‘it is acceptable to eat whole cuts of beef and lamb that are pink, eg, a steak’.
Yet the number of Scots who claim to never eat poultry with pink or red juices has fallen from 83 per cent in 2015 to 81 per cent in the latest study.
The number never eating pink pork has dropped from 72 per cent in 2015 to 68 per cent now.
Those never eating red meat if pink or with red juices has gone from 47 per cent to 44 per cent.
Some 6 per cent said they had suffered food poisoning in the past 12 months – up from 4 per cent in 2015.
And more people – 41 per cent – admitted to having ‘ever’ suffered from food poisoning, with campylobacter and salmonella the most common causes.
There was also an increase in people always washing raw meat, other than poultry, up from 12 per cent in 2015 to 14 per cent.
The number of Scots who always wash poultry is up from 22 per cent in 2015 to 23 per cent.
The report said there has been a ‘significant decline in the awareness of health risks posed by an unhealthy diet’ in the past six months.
Steve Brown, a senior chef at the award-winning, independent Edinburgh School of Food & Wine, said: ‘It is so impor- tant to ensure poultry and pork are cooked thoroughly to avoid the risk of illness.
‘Chicken needs to be cooked to 75C (167F), the temperature at which bacteria dies.
‘I recommend a food probe as invaluable piece of kit – not only for meat, but also for fish, custards and jams, all sorts of things.’
Professor Norval Strachan, FSS’s chief scientific adviser, said: ‘As summer comes around we tend to see more people getting food poisoning.
‘People enjoy the occasional barbecue so knowing how different meats should be cooked is really important.
‘Sausages, burgers and poultry should be cooked all the way through, until the juices run clear and to 75C.
‘Keep raw and cooked meats separate and use different kitchen utensils to stop the spread of bacteria.’
‘Poultry and pork must be cooked’