: How do food shows and gourmet menu serve semi cooked sea food and meat without risking diseases?
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Chef of 15 years here.
We’ve kind of figured it out over time. There are rules and regulations put into place to reduce the risk of disease. These are monitored by government organizations like the CDC and local health and safety departments. People did the research to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
When it comes to bacteria, we know what makes it grow and what makes it die. In food safety, we use the acronym “FAT TOM:” Food, acidity, time, temperature, oxygen, moisture.
If you control those six elements properly, you can effectively eliminate the risk of food born illness.
Not all food needs to be completely cooked to be considered safe to eat. An example would be beef, particularly steak. Steak is a “whole muscle” product. The harmful bacteria lives on the outside of the cut of meat. It doesn’t sink down into the center. So if you want to eat a rare steak, you sear the outside quickly to kill that bacteria (and add brilliant flavor through seasoning). The pink, rawish meat in the center is generally bacteria free and safe to consume and the bacteria on the outside has been killed with heat.
It also depends on the individual person’s immune system. Ground beef is not a “whole muscle” product because the muscle has been ground up, and that bacteria from the outside is now mixed in. Technically speaking, the “safest” way to eat a burger is well done. However, most people’s immune systems can handle a little bit of bacteria and therefore they don’t get sick from eating undercooked ground beef. I prefer my burgers medium rare because my gut flora can handle it. Some people on the other hand may be immunocompromised for various reasons and so they should not consume undercooked ground beef. An example of a person who cannot consume rare ground beef would be pregnant women, children, and anyone else who might have a compromised immune system through acquired diseases.
Forget about beef, though. What if you want chicken? Chicken can have harmful bacteria all the way through. The rule for chicken is that it must be cooked to 165° fahrenheit in order to kill the bacteria and make it safe to eat. Interestingly enough, chicken may still have a slightly pink hue to it even at that temperature. I don’t mean that chicken that is totally pink and cold in the middle is safe. Not at all. The point is, as long as it temps to 165, it doesn’t matter what it looks like.
When it comes to seafood (my specialty), the major risk is parasites. As long as you handle seafood properly, a lot of it can be eaten completely raw, like sushi. In order to prevent parasites in raw fish, we typically flash freeze the fish at an extremely low temperature. Although these days in the restaurant business, the fish is typically flash frozen for us before it’s delivered so we don’t have to worry about it. We use a local fish distributor who is carefully monitored by the FDA to ensure that all of the product we receive is already good to go. We keep a certificate in our office to prove this. There are also other ways to prevent parasites other than freezing. One method is farm raising. Farm raised salmon, for example. Farm raised salmon is fed with anti parasitic medication to eliminate the risk of parasites. If your salmon is farm raised, no freezing is necessary. Another interesting example is tuna, which is a deepwater fish. The parasites in tuna live strictly in the guts. So as long as you’re not eating raw tuna guts, parasites aren’t an issue. You can eat raw tuna fresh off the boat.
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