Would you like some E. coli with that?

I came across this New York Times article yesterday that revolves around a young dance instructor whose life was ruined by lower-body paralysis as a result of an infection. The source of the infection? Tainted ground beef. The article goes on to detail the dangers of ground beef and exposes the lack of oversight on E. coli O157:H7 inspections. Part of the problem is that ground beef is made up of not just actual meat, but also trimmings and other scrap from different parts of the cow, including the areas that are likely to come into contact with feces. And the process for getting rid of the feces is far from thorough. Add to that the unwillingness of suppliers and corporations to adequately test their products for E. coi O157:H7 and the lack of government regulation. The story is truly chilling. As much as I love beef, I had pretty much sworn off burgers since watching Food, Inc. (see my post on this here), and this article only strengthened my convictions about ground beef. I find these large corporations' greed and negligence beyond maddening.

According to the article, there is a potentially safer way of enjoying beef burgers - buy a piece of steak and have your grocer ground it for you. That way, you'll know that your ground beef comes from 100% muscle and not some random, possibly E. coli-laden, feces-smeared parts of the cow. Of course, cow muscles can be unsafe, too, if prepared improperly, so this isn't a hard-and-fast fix. The BUBBA Burger brand supposedly "boasts on its labeling, '100% whole muscle means no trimmings,'" which seems promising, but I can't seem to find any information online confirming that BUBBA Burgers are safer than other brands. In fact, what I found was a recall notice of BUBBA Burgers in 2000 due to potential contamination of E. coli O157:H7 (check it out here). Food, Inc. also talks about grass-fed beef being generally safer than corn-fed beef, because a corn-fed diet greatly promotes E. coli breeding.

In the meantime, I don't know if I will ever be able to shake the image of millions of E. coli O157:H7 bacteria crawling all over my beef patty every time I think about getting a burger. Maybe it's time to cultivate a taste for veggie burgers.