Issued December 13, 2011
A campaign to remind chefs of the
danger of undercooking chicken livers used in pate making has won
the backing of Hambleton and Richmondshire environmental health
officers.
The Food Standards Agency initiative hopes to
reduce the risk of food poisoning from pate.
And Hambleton and Richmondshire officers say
they will take enforcement action to remove the item from the menus
of eating houses not producing safe pate.
Recent research showed that 90% of
campylobacter outbreaks at catering venues were linked to
undercooked chicken liver pate. Investigations showed that livers
used were incorrectly cooked – they were still pink in the centre
allowing campylobacter spores to still be live.
When pate is made any organisms on the surface
of the liver are spread throughout the pate so cooking must be
thorough throughout the product to ensure it is safe.
“This is a common infection and a common
problem but chefs are still producing unsafe pate,” said
Environmental Health Manager, Philip Mepham
“We will be asking chefs to demonstrate that
they can produce safe pate when we visit catering premises – if not
enforcement action will be taken to prevent the production of that
menu item.
He said the bacteria can be present throughout
the liver, not just on the surface as is the case for poultry meat,
and may remain a source of infection if they are not cooked
sufficiently. They should be cooked to a core temperature of 70°C
for at least two minutes or equivalent - and a meat thermometer
used to check the core temperature
· It’s estimated
that there were more than 370,000 cases of campylobacter infection
in 2009 in England. Symptoms include diarrhoea, stomach pains and
cramps, fever, and generally feeling unwell, though vomiting is
uncommon. Illness suffered by most cases start to clear up after
two to three days of diarrhoea and 80 to 90% recover within one
week. Severe long-term after-effects following infections are rare
but do occur.
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