text: For those in the food industry, the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak of 1993 is known as the single event that convinced burger joints across the country to raise their internal cooking temperature by 15 degrees. 
   
   In that outbreak, hamburgers sold at Jack in the Box franchises predominantly in Washington state sickened more than 600 people and led to the deaths of four children. The chain’s beef supplier had been delivering E. coli-contaminated patties, which the restaurants were only cooking to an internal temperature of 140 degrees F, the federal requirement at the time. 
   
   Prior to the outbreak, the state of Washington had updated its minimum internal temperature requirements to 155 degrees based on new evidence that 140 degrees was not hot enough to kill some pathogens, including a little-known danger called E. coli O157:H7. However, many restaurants in the state failed to update their cooking procedures. 
   
   As the Jack in the Box outbreak unfortunately highlighted, cooking burgers to just 140 degrees F didn’t kill E. coli. If Jack in the Box had just cooked their burgers 15 degrees hotter, the outbreak wouldn’t have happened. 
   
   In the aftermath, restaurants across the country updated their cooking protocols. Many acknowledged that, with the wrong supplier, it could have been their brand making headlines and paying out millions of dollars from personal injury lawsuits. 
   
   But with the exploding popularity of gourmet burger restaurants and gastropubs in recent years, the lessons learned from Jack in the Box in 1993 appear to be fading from collective memory. Thanks in part to safety improvements in the beef supply, restaurants are warming up to rarer burgers in larger numbers, despite the warnings from food safety experts. 
   
   Food code requirements 
   
   
   
   In May 2014, Detroit-based beef supplier Wolverine Packing Co. recalled 1.8 million pounds of ground beef after the product was linked to 12 E. coli infections in Michigan, Ohio, Missouri and Massachusetts. Seven people were hospitalized. 
   
   The illnesses in that outbreak were traced back to restaurants where the ground beef was served, although health officials have refused to reveal any of the restaurants involved. They have said they believe undercooked burgers played a role in at least some of those cases, and they issued a number of warnings about the risks of consuming undercooked hamburger meat following the outbreak. 
   
   Serving and advertising medium-rare burgers has been a growing trend in the restaurant and “gastropub” industry, said Roy Costa, owner of Environ Health Associates, a food safety consulting firm for restaurants. 
   
   One of Costa’s clients is a gourmet burger chain with a handful of locations in California and a few other states. They recommend ordering their burgers medium-rare, which means the center remains pink, and, if there are any potential pathogens in the center of the meat, they would likely remain alive. 
   
   Costa would only work with the chain if they found a beef supplier that tested for E. coli O157:H7, which they did. But that’s still no guarantee that the meat won’t come with Salmonella or Campylobacter, he noted. 
   
   “It’s not a perfect situation, and there’s still a danger there,” Costa said. 
   
   But by finding a supplier who tests for E. coli, the chain is still going above and beyond the legal requirements in order to serve undercooked burgers. 
   
   The federal food code allows restaurants to serve undercooked burgers as long as they have a clear written warning, such as a statement on the menu, regarding the dangers of eating raw or undercooked meat. Servers also need to verbally inform the customer that a pink burger is potentially risky. It’s treated the same as other raw or rare meats such as sushi or raw oysters. 
   
   What counts as ‘undercooked’? 
   
   According to the food code, ground beef should be cooked at 155 degrees F internally and held there for 15 seconds, or 158 degrees for even a moment, in order to kill pathogens at the center of the meat. Unlike a rare steak, a rare burger is risky because the germs from the outside of the meat have been ground inside. 
   
   Lower temperatures require longer hold times. Lowering the burger’s temperature to 150 degrees F requires a full minute of holding at that temperature. At 145 degrees F, it should be three minutes. Any way you slice it, those temperatures and holding times probably won’t result in a pink center to your burger. 
   
   Numerous independent restaurants have sprouted up in recent years with a promise of delivering a true medium-rare burger. Even in Canada, where medium-rare burgers are illegal, a few daring restaurants — such as Vancouver’s now-closed ReFuel — staked their reputation on juicier, pinker patties. North Carolina recently amended its state food code to allow for medium-rare burgers, much to the rejoicing of aficionados. 
   
   In Ohio, the gastropub chain Bar145˚ takes its name from the internal temperature of 145 degrees F for a medium-rare burger, which its website claims makes for a perfectly cooked burger. 
   
   That sort of business angle “flies in the face of prudent food safety practices,” said Dave Theno, food safety consultant and former vice president of technical services at Jack in the Box, where he was hired on in 1993 to rewrite the company’s food safety protocols after the big outbreak. 
   
   “The basic reality is that, if you’re cooking products below 150 degrees and not carefully timing it, pathogens could survive,” Theno said. 
   
   Informed consumer choice 
   
   One factor that further complicates the medium-rare burger issue is the fact that serving undercooked meat contaminated with E. coli is technically illegal under federal law. Even if a consumer orders their burger medium-rare, the restaurant is breaking the law if that burger happens to have E. coli in it. 
   
   But assuming no one is breaking the law, consumers should be given a choice regarding how their burgers are cooked, said Benjamin Chapman, assistant professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University. 
   
   The problem is that many consumers might not be given the information necessary to make that informed choice, he noted. NC State is currently conducting a nationwide study in which secret shoppers patronize restaurants and order medium-rare burgers to see if the server informs them of the risks associated with undercooked beef, as stipulated in the food code. 
   
   The study is still underway, and Chapman’s team is not yet releasing any data, but he did say he is not convinced the food code stipulation is very effective. 
   
   “Risk communication from a server-to-patron standpoint in certain cases is not well done,” he said, adding, “No pun intended.” 
   
   Another problem is that terms such as “medium-rare” and “well-done” have no temperature correlation. 
   
   “As a consumer, the only thing I can do to guarantee a fully cooked burger is to order it cooked to 155 degrees for 15 seconds,” Chapman said. 
   
   “I like the fact that people get to make their own decision,” he added, “but I’m not convinced that there are a lot of really good, informed choices happening.” 
   
   © Food Safety News ||||| There was this one time, about 1979, when me and my high school buddies fell into some tickets for Can-Am car racing, which none of us cared about. 
   
   So we stayed up all night as high school students do, and then I was the designated driver to Mosport, Ontario, a few hours away. 
   
   On the way we stopped at a truck stop off the 401 near Bowmanville, Ontario, and my friends, who were quite stoned, couldn’t stop laughing about the moo-moo cow creamer on every table. 
   
   It was pasteurized. 
   
   The stuff from Willunga Hill’s Moo View Dairy is not, and the dairy will be prohibited from selling and distributing raw cow’s milk after it was linked to at least five cases of gastroenteritis. 
   
   Brad Crouch, medical reporter at The Advertiser, writes, SA Health has taken the action under the Food Act 2001 and the South Australian Public Health Act 2011, after the sicknesses were linked to drinking unpasteurised (raw) cow’s milk. 
   
   SA Health Director of Public Health Associate Professor Kevin Buckett said the sale of raw cow’s milk for human consumption is illegal in Australia due to its high risk of contamination. 
   
   “We’ve confirmed at least five cases where people aged between three and 70 contracted gastrointestinal illness caused by the Cryptosporidium parasite after consuming raw cow’s milk products purchased from Moo View Dairy, and this number is likely to be higher,” he said. 
   
   “Luckily, these people did not require hospitalisation, but it is important to remember that raw cow’s milk products should not be consumed as they can contain harmful bacteria such as E.coli, salmonella, campylobacter, and listeria, as well as cryptosporidium. 
   
   “In June we noticed higher than expected numbers of cryptosporidiosis cases and following interviews and investigations, we identified Moo View Dairy’s raw cow’s milk as a common factor between five cases,” Assoc Prof Buckett said. 
   
   “We’ve also identified another two potential cases that implicate raw cow’s milk as the cause of illness. 
   
   And the next year, Mosport had this (and yes, that’s John (J.D.) Roberts doing some of the interviews for Much Music. He can be now found as chief White House correspondent for Fox News (gag me). Oh, and I arranged Teenage Head to play our high school in 1979. 
   
   Raw is risky. ||||| A man grills hamburgers and sausages in Decatur, Ga. (Photo: Michael A. Schwarz, USA TODAY) 
   
   Doug Powell doesn't bring wine when he's invited to dinner. 
   
   He brings a food thermometer. 
   
   As a food safety scientist and creator of barfblog.com, Powell knows way too much about the dangers of undercooked meat to take chances on the barbecue. 
   
   So he brings a food thermometer to every summer cookout. "I don't get invited to dinner much," he says. 
   
   With the Fourth of July approaching, Powell and other food safety experts talked to USA TODAY about ways to make sure people leave their summer barbecues as healthy as they arrived. 
   
   Pork loin with raspberry chipotle glaze is smoked on a grill in this May 27, 2007, photo. (Photo: Larry Crowe, AP) 
   
   • Always use a meat thermometer, Powell says. With practice, people can learn to stick them in burgers without slicing the patties in half. "Pick the meat up with tongs and insert the thermometer sideways, or through the top," Powell suggests. Beef hamburgers should reach 160 degrees to kill germs, says Benjamin Chapman, assistant professor of food safety at North Carolina State University and a food safety specialist at the North Carolina Cooperative Extension. Temperature matters far more than color when it comes to meat, Chapman says; even thoroughly browned burgers can harbor bugs. "I was not a popular person at a family cookout a few years back when I insisted we 'temp' the chicken as we grilled in the rain," says Donald Schaffner, a professor and extension specialist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "But nobody got sick." 
   
   A produce manager holds a cut cantaloupe at a Denver supermarket on Friday, July 13, 2012. (Photo: Ed Andrieski, AP) 
   
   • Slice your own cantaloupes. Although cantaloupes are loaded with vitamins, they've also caused some of the biggest outbreaks of food-borne illness in recent years. More than 260 people were sickened in a salmonella outbreak in 2012; nearly 100 were hospitalized and three died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cantaloupes spread disease more easily than watermelon or honeydew because their soft, bumpy skins soak up bacteria like a sponge, Powell says. Washing doesn't help, and cutting through the outer rind allows bacteria to infect the edible portion of the melon. While people don't have to stop eating cantaloupes, they should keep sliced portions refrigerated, because cold temperatures slow bacterial growth. But stores are asking for trouble when they slice melons in half, wrap them in plastic and leave them at room temperature in the produce aisle, Powell says: "This is microbiological disaster waiting to happen." 
   
   • Use a cooler — for cantaloupe, potato salad or other picnic foods. "Bacteria will grow if left out at warm temperatures long enough," Powell says. 
   
   • But don't be afraid of mayonnaise. The egg-based spread has gotten a bad rap, and some people have been afraid to take it on summer picnics. But "commercial mayo uses pasteurized eggs and has high levels of vinegar," whose acid content helps control bacteria, Powell says. Homemade mayo, on the other hand, could be riskier. 
   
   Commercially prepared mayonnaise used in potato salad carries little health risk. (Photo: Renee Comet) 
   
   • Don't wash poultry and other meat. "It just spreads bugs," Powell says. 
   
   So are there any foods these three food experts won't touch? 
   
   • Sprouts. Seeds and beans need warm, humid conditions to sprout and grow. So do bacteria, such as salmonella, listeria and E. coli. Raw or lightly cooked sprouts have caused at least 30 reported outbreaks of food-borne illness since 1996, according to FoodSafety.gov. Home-grown sprouts are no safer, because the bacteria can be found in the seeds themselves. So no matter how clean your house, bacteria can grow to dangerous levels. "Some providers test seed and provide sufficient controls, but consumers have no way of knowing which sprouts are good or not," Powell says. 
   
   In this June 5, 2011 file picture bean sprouts are photographed in Berlin, Germany. (Photo: Gero Breloer, AP) 
   
   • Raw shellfish. Even a fancy dish such as raw oysters, served in high-end restaurants, can pose a huge risk, Powell says, because they can be exposed to raw waste while under water. "The bacteria Vibrio found on raw oysters produces a toxin that attacks vulnerable livers," Powell says. "Raw shellfish is risky." 
   
   In this Monday, Sept. 12, 2013 file photo, an oyster cultivator holds oyster seed before spreading it into the waters of Duxbury Bay in Duxbury, Mass. (Photo: Stephan Savoia, AP) 
   
   • Raw milk. Some advocates of unpasteurized milk say it's healthier because it contains natural microorganisms that strengthen the immune system. Unfortunately, raw milk also can also contain dangerous bacteria, including salmonella, listeria, campylobacter and brucella, according to the CDC. Younger children, old people and those with weak immune systems are most at risk. "Getting sick from raw milk can mean many days of diarrhea, stomach cramping, and vomiting," the CDC says. "Less commonly, it can mean kidney failure, paralysis, chronic disorders and even death." 
   
   By selling shares in his Jerseys, Brian Harville produces raw milk for his customers at his Wilson County dairy farm in Tennessee. (Photo: Larry McCormack, Gannett) 
   
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target: – Nothing can put a damper on your July 4th barbecue like rain—except maybe food safety experts, some of whom give USA Today pointers on how to avoid celebrations that end with you running for the bathroom. Doug Powell of the aptly-named barfblog.com starts with a few foods he would never eat: Sprouts: They can carry salmonella, listeria, and E. coli, and require warm moisture to grow—just like bacteria. Raw shellfish: No matter how fancy the restaurant, don’t risk it. Why? Raw waste is in the water they call home. Raw milk: Sure, people say unpasteurized milk is healthy and boosts the immune system. But the CDC says it also contains salmonella, listeria, campylobacter, and brucella. And a few general tips: Take your meat’s temperature: The trick is to insert the thermometer in sideways, and you’ll want to hit a balmy 160 degrees. For fans of medium-rare burgers, Food Safety News has a not-so-gentle reminder about the dangers of salmonella. Don’t trust sliced cantaloupes: The melon’s soft, rough skin love bacteria and washing doesn’t improve matters. And bacteria on the rind can get on the yummy interior when the melon is cut. The solution? Store sliced melon in the fridge. Stay cool: Keep your picnic foods in a cooler, not in the summer sun. Be friends with mayo: It contains pasteurized eggs and lots of vinegar to keep bacteria at bay. The homemade version is riskier. For the full article, click here.