Rule to label risky mechanically tenderized beef goes into effect

Deadly meat industry secret is finally revealed

Margaret Lamkin will never forget the day she ordered a medium rare steak at an Applebee’s restaurant.

The 87-year-old Iowa woman was struck down a week later with acute diarrhea that wouldn’t let up. But what happened next will be with her for the rest of her life.

The steak she ate was contaminated with E. coli 0157, something that destroyed her colon resulting in surgery and a colostomy bag.

It would be sad enough if that was a fluke or just bad luck.

But the kind of meat that Margaret ate — called mechanically tenderized — is sold in stores and served in restaurants all over the country.

And it can make you just as sick as Margaret. It can even kill you.

But now there’s a quick check that will let you know if meat has gone through this potentially contaminating process.

It will only take a second, but it could save your life, or that of someone you love.

The meat of the matter

The meat industry had hoped that mechanically tenderized beef would stay a deep, dark secret. Meat doesn’t look any different, so unless you worked in the industry, there would be no way to know.

But too many people started getting sick to keep it hidden any longer. The CDC reports that there have been six major outbreaks because of this kind of beef, but a consumer interest group says that it’s more like 100.

And experts say that for every “lab confirmed” case of E. coli, there are 26 more that aren’t identified.

Mechanically tenderized beef undergoes a process that punctures raw meat with blades or needles to make it tenderer and to seem like a premium cut. But that can also take pathogens, like E.coli and push them deep into beef — a location that typically doesn’t harbor bacteria.

And unless you cook the heck out of that piece of meat, that bacteria will say alive and very capable of making you very sick.

Those needles can also pump into meat what’s called “digestive juices,” or what the industry would prefer you refer to as a marinade. That can make the cuts even more dangerous and prone to contamination.

Now, you wouldn’t think that putting two little words (in small print, no less) identifying what meat has been processed this way on packaging would be such a big deal.

The beef industry, however, has been fighting it tooth and nail. It’s taken years to even decide what those words would be!

And you’ll only get that two-word warning when you’re buying meat in the supermarket. Restaurants aren’t required to say a word about it.

But despite all the protests, the USDA went ahead and finally ruled that mechanically tenderized meat must be labeled. And not only that, but it moved up the deadline a full two years from 2018 to right now.

Will wonders never cease?

Costco, however, started voluntarily labeling its meat four years ago after a big E.coli outbreak. So obviously it could have been done nationwide a whole lot sooner.

Look, it’s not what I would call the best warning in the world, but it will at least tip us off about what to avoid.

So here’s what to watch out for on a raw meat label:

Mechanically tenderized,
Needle tenderized, or
Blade tenderized

The USDA also recommends that after cooking meat to the “proper” internal temperature (also listed on the label), you let it “rest” for at least three minutes to make sure any leftover pathogens are killed.

And when eating out, it’s a crapshoot. So if you’re going to order meat in a restaurant, the safest thing to do is to make sure that it’s thoroughly cooked. Which means that rare or even medium rare meat dishes should be a thing of the past!

Sources:
“Firing up the grill? Look for this on the label of your steak” Lydia Zuraw, May 30, 2016, CNN, cnn.com