Recent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses linked to contaminated meat — followed by massive recalls and pledges of cleaner processing — have proved eye-opening for many consumers.
Dangerous pathogens cause 76 million cases of illness and 300,000 hospitalizations a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ground beef, usually made by combining meat products from many sources, is identified as a culprit in many cases.
The problem has sparked new debate over how best to make beef and poultry safe and prompted the government to pledge stepped-up inspections and enforcement.
Leading food scientists, safety advocates and manufacturers have implemented various measures for making meat safer, including some that ring of science fiction and others that sound positively janitorial. Still, the outbreaks and recalls continue.
As a result, consumers have become more and more interested in what manufacturers do to meat and poultry, to keep it safe, to make it appear more appetizing or simply to make it taste better. For each, supporters and opponents debate whether the benefits outweigh the potential risks.
It sounds like science fiction, but using high-energy rays to kill pathogens dates to the early 1920s. That is when scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture began using radiation to kill the organisms in pork that cause trichinosis. Since then, irradiation has been approved for treating fruits and vegetables, poultry and other meat.
Irradiated meat makes up a small percentage — in the single digits — of meat on store shelves, and the label must state that the meat has been treated. The process involves three different though closely related technologies: powerful gamma rays, high-energy electrons or a combination of the two. Each is used to eradicate the living organisms in meat that can make consumers sick.
Critics of irradiation say not enough research has been done on whether the process alters the meat and that it causes a modest decline of some vitamins. They also are concerned that widespread use of irradiation would encourage processors to let safety standards slip, believing irradiation will eradicate any pathogen.
Supporters say the process is effective at reducing illnesses and deaths linked to food-borne infections. They also point to numerous government and industry studies that indicate irradiation is safe.
Surveys of consumers show a growing acceptance of irradiated food, particularly when they are told it kills pathogens and can lower the risk of food-borne illness. The CDC says it "welcomes the use of food irradiation."
The practice of spraying ground beef with a combination of ammonia and water to try to kill bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella was little known outside of government and industry circles before The New York Times reported last month that the method has proved less reliable than its developers, Beef Products Inc., had promised.
In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was so sure the ammonia treatment could wipe out pathogens — based on industry testing — that it exempted ammonia-treated beef from inspection until Dec. 8, according to the USDA.
Government and industry documents cited by the Times showed that, since 2005, E. coli has been found three times and salmonella 48 times in ammonia-treated beef from Beef Products Inc. The paper said complaints from some consumers that the product smelled like ammonia had led producers to reduce its use of the chemical to a less effective level.
The company, which supplies ammonia-treated beef products to the nation's largest fast-food chains as well as U.S. prisons and schools, attributed the pathogens to an operations glitch.
But the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service says it has revoked BPI's exemption from inspection because "the process no longer is designed to purposefully eliminate E. coli O157:H7 from the beef products the establishment produces." The agency said an inspection showed that BPI was not using the same process the company suggested it was using in 2007.
The most widely used sanitizer in the U.S. chicken industry, chlorine is added to chilling baths where carcasses are cooled after slaughter. The chlorine is supposed to kill pathogens such as salmonella and campylobacter that can spread when hundreds of freshly slaughtered chickens share the same tank.
But a recent Consumer Reports study of supermarket chickens found that two-thirds of them were contaminated with salmonella or campylobacter and that water-chilled chickens fared the worst. Air-chilled chickens, the European norm, and organic chickens showed lower levels of pathogen contamination.