Meat Hygeine

[nailit]

just watching BBC2 programme 'eat to live forever' with Giles Coren. He's just interviewed a man who eats raw meat. (the palio diet taken to extremes)
My question is why are we taught to wash our hands after handling raw meat and yet this guy not only handles raw meat but eats it with no apparent side effects?

[Jackdaw33]

I presume that it is because if he is handling raw meat and then eating it himself there is no danger of cross-infection.

[sandyRoe]

I'd guess it's all in the preparation. Steak tartar is raw meat and, to increase the risk, include raw egg.

[ummmm]

What kind of raw meat? Raw beef or bacon...yes...anything else...NO.

[Jackdaw33]

Whenever I was in Paris I longed to try steak tartare but didn't have the bottle. Others would eat it with gusto. If foreigners asked for it, not knowing what it was, the waiters would always take pains to explain before taking the order.

[Jackdaw33]

Raw bacon is popular in Russia.

[ummmm]

I eat raw steak often....and bacon. I wouldn't touch anything else though. That's probably mind set...

[shaneystar2]

I've been eating this for years and have never had any side effects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett

[Buenchico]

Meat processing can, in itself, introduce bacteria into meat (either from the environment or, more likely, from the animal's skin or alimentary canal). So eating, for example, raw beefburgers is probably not a very good idea.

However the muscle tissue of an animal (which is what we eat as 'steak', etc) actually contains very few bacteria. So eating raw steak shouldn't present any problems, as anyone who's eaten in a decent restaurant in France will know!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/steaktartare_88981

Try thinking about yourself. You'll probably be aware that your skin is covered in bacteria and I doubt that you'd want to eat anything which has been in contact with the contents of your rectum. However your muscle tissue is protected from infection by your immune system, so any cannibal tucking into a bit of your 'rump steak' (= muscle tissue from a buttock) would be unlikely to get food poisoning from it!

[venator]

I'd have thought raw fish should be more likely to be infected, but I've never come across sushi poisoning. The trick would seem to be very careful cleaning of everything that comes into contact?

[venator]

You nailed it Buenchico - that should be a best answer

[sandyRoe]

And oysters, not only raw but alive, does the lemon juice offer a bit of protection?

[pastafreak]

As long as you use safe practices...clean hands,clean chopping boars,clean knives, proper storage,etc....then the risk of cross contamination is reduced. I didn't see the programming(will do on catch up),was this man doing anything that could have compromised his health?

[sandyRoe]

Following a true hunter-gatherer diet you'd be at risk of scurvy in the winter

[gollob]

Remember in this world only man cooks their food. Everything else eats it raw and it does not seem to affect anybody else

[wolf63]

I got ill once by eating 250g of raw mince, next time I should probably wait until it is fully defrosted.

I wouldn't eat raw Chicken because I don't like the texture, raw bacon and beef is okay - black pudding too.

I never eat lamb or rabbit.

[237SJ]

It`s all well and good eating raw food but it`s not so good when you get a tape worm. I`d never eat raw meat.

[Old_Geezer]

Mince is a questionable thing to eat raw. That is a lot of surface area for colonies of bacteria to grow on.