3-11 IAN E Coli Beef

 University of Idaho microbiologist Carolyn Hovde Bohach has done a great deal of research and published a considerable amount of scientific findings on the dreaded E. Coli O157:H7 that can contaminate meat and produce. I called her recently to ask her a very practical series of questions regarding how we can keep ourselves safe from this extremely toxic bacteria. She was gracious enough to take my call and here’s her response. “Healthy cattle carry O157 transiently and sporadically so that means an animal will be positive for a few days, to a month to a year the public knows it as the hamburger borne E. Coli and it only causes disease in people. The real issue is not the color of the meat it’s the internal temperature the ground beef comes to which is 165 degrees. Hamburger is different than steak so if you remember that 0157 is carried in the GI tract and not the muscle so when you have a steak or roast that may be contaminated it would only be the outer surface so if you cook a steak or roast just a little bit that surface will come to the temperature that kills the E Coli.”