You probably don’t realize it, but steaks and other cuts of beef that you buy in grocery stores or restaurants may have been run through a machine that punctures them with blades or needles to tenderize them.
Unfortunately, the process also can drive bacteria like the deadly pathogen E. coli O157:H7 from the surface deep into the center of the meat, where they are harder to kill. That can increase the risk of illness for people who eat that beef rare or medium rare.
Mechanically tenderized beef caused at least five E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks between 2003 and 2009, causing 174 illnesses, four of them fatal, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The first documented outbreak in 2003 was traced to blade-tenderized, marinade-injected frozen filet mignon steaks consumers cooked at home, resulting in 13 illnesses that landed seven people in the hospital and killed three. A 2009 outbreak sickened 25 people, killing one and hospitalizing nine who had eaten mechanically tenderized sirloin served in restaurants. (The process is also called "blading" or "needling." Costco, for instance, labels the mechanically tenderized beef it sells as "blade tenderized.")
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Consumer Reports