2 replies to this topic

[Newsgirl]

If people want to play Russian roulette with their hamburgers, let them do it at home. South Carolina, according to this editorial, doesn't need the legal battles that are certain to arise if the state allows restaurants to resume serving hamburgers cooked rare.

Since the mid-1990s, the state has required restaurants to cook hamburgers one way: Well done. But a bill recently passed by the General Assembly would allow patrons to order burgers cooked to less than 155 degrees.

The editorial says that the new rule, which still must be signed into law by the governor, comes weighted down with special provisions. For example, only those 18 or older could order a medium-rare burger. Restaurants would be permitted to choose whether they want to offer burgers cooked to lower temperatures, and those that do must provide written or verbal notice to let diners know the restaurant cannot be held responsible if someone gets sick.

It was only a year ago that the state faced the largest case of food-borne illness in recent history. Nearly 300 people were sickened from a salmonella outbreak at a restaurant. One patron died.

The salmonella bacteria originated in an undercooked turkey but quickly spread to other food. That helps explain how more than 40,000 people are poisoned by salmonella each year, about 600 of them dying from the illness. And that doesn't include other potentially fatal forms of bacteria such as e-coli.

Scientists note that the danger of food pathogens in raw hamburger is especially high. With hamburger, germs are blended in when the meat is ground, giving the disease-causing elements a chance to spread and multiply.

Cooking the meat to 155 degrees or more, however, practically eliminates the risk.

People are entitled to take the risk of eating pink hamburgers if they want to. But when restaurants are involved, the question of liability becomes more complicated. What if an underage patron is served a medium rare hamburger, gets sick and dies? Who should be held legally responsible?

Our question is why state legislators would invite legal conundrums like this. Why tinker with reasonable food safety precautions?

But the bigger question may be: Don't they have more important things to do?


http://www.extension...fm?newsid=13088

[Mr. Incognito]

Some people don't like their meat cooked well done. In NY, about 13 years ago, I knew someone who regularly ordered burgers more on the raw side than cooked. Every time they had him fill out a waver so that he could not sue them that stated that under cooked meat was potentially unsafe to eat. That is what business will have to do to protect themselves from people who order under cooked food and then turn around and sue when they get sick.

[Simon]

Eating burgers that aren't cooked properly is high risk,
The food joint should just say no we're no doing it. If they can't protect themselves...