The dead of winter may not be the time when most people’s thoughts turn toward
the allure of a hamburger on the grill. But from a food safety standpoint, it’s
probably the safest time there is to eat ground beef.
“The theory is that animals are carrying higher levels of E. coli during the
summer months, and sometimes they may overwhelm the systems in place to control
pathogen contamination in (processing) plants,” says James Marsden, a professor
of food safety and security at Kansas State University.
Research has been focusing “on how to level out that curve,” says Marsden, also
senior science adviser to the North American Meat Processors Association.
So industry and researchers are turning their sights to new technologies being
deployed on the farm, the feedlot and at the slaughterhouse to knock E. coli
O157:H7 down to winter levels all year round.
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