Rare steak row resurrects spectre of problem meats

The Daily Mail faced the FSA complaint rejecting food critic Charles Campion’s claims in the newspaper and its website​ that it had issued guidance that would whip ‘rare’ steaks off restaurant menus.

He, in turn, was referring to a previous Daily Mail article citing fellow food critic Prue Leith​, claiming over-zealous environmental health officers (EHOs) were imposing FSA guidelines meant for manufacturers and fast-food chains on restaurants.

However, Jenny Morris, principal policy officer at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, told FoodManufacture.co.uk the real issue was posh burgers.

Like the FSA, Morris stressed rare steaks, which are composed of a single muscle, posed minimal food safety risks. But she said EHOs were cracking down on the riskier practise of serving rare burgers.

“Contamination is likely to be on the outside of rare muscle meat. Therefore, it doesn’t matter too much about the middle​ [of rare steaks].

High class burger chains​

“A burger has been minced, so any outside bits can be in the middle. We seem to have growth in high class burger chains, which are offering their burger steaks not fully cooked.​

“Making a risk judgment is extremely difficult for a member of the public; if you don’t have a burger cooked fully, how can they make a reasonable judgment? I think it’s almost impossible.”​

A major danger was E.coli O157​ contamination, outbreaks of which had proved lethal in the past few years, she said. They included the infamous 2005 mass outbreak in Wales​, which led to the death of five-year-old Mason Jones.

Morris admitted there were grey areas. One example was steak tartare, which contained raw minced beef and other ingredients. Here, the rules were unclear and could be variously applied.

EHOs acted on the basis of scientific evidence, she said. As steak tartare was not as widely consumed as burgers and standard steaks, there was no evidence of contamination causing mass outbreaks of food poisoning. As a result it was not a primary focus.

“This is a huge thing we have to unpick. Risk assessment tries to pick on the highest risk and the greatest exposure.”​

‘Only way to guarantee safety’​

Meat processors sometimes argued their supplies were safe because they had proper controls in place. But she said: “The only way to guarantee safety is to cook the meat at 70⁰C for at least two minutes.”​

In a Daily Mail and Mail Online article, published on August 20, food critic and Daily Mail contributor Charles Campion lamented​ that the FSA had “issued ‘guidance’ that meat in restaurants should be cooked until no pink remains”.​

“Already some London chefs are reporting that they are under pressure to stop cooking meat rare, and no less a figure than the cookery writer Prue Leith has raised the possibility that soon we may have to sneak off to France if we want to eat a rare steak.”​

However, he recognised there were issues with partially cooked burgers and stressed food poisoning should never be taken lightly.

FSA communications director Stephen Humphreys wrote to Campion, stating his claim that the FSA had issued guidance for restaurants to thoroughly cook meat was “simply untrue”.​

“We have issued no guidance that would prevent steaks being served rare, we have no plans to do so and why would we?​

“Steak is safe to eat ‘rare’. Whole cuts of beef or lamb, steaks, cutlets and joints only have germs on the outside, so as long as the outside is cooked any potentially harmful germs that could cause food poisoning will be killed.”​