Ground beef

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ground beef, beef mince or hamburger meat, is a meat product, made of beef finely chopped by a meat grinder. In the New England region, it is commonly called Hamburg.

1 Contents
2 Culinary use
3 Food safety
4 References

[edit] Contents

In many countries, food laws define specific categories of ground beef and what they can contain. For example in the US, beef fat may be added to hamburger, but not to ground beef if the meat is ground and packaged at a USDA-inspected plant<ref>A technicality here is that these rules only apply to meat being sold across state lines. Much ground beef in the US is actually produced at a local grocery store, and is not sold across state lines. In the these cases the laws of the local state apply; state laws can have the same or different requirements</ref>. A maximum of 30% fat by weight is allowed in either hamburger or ground beef. Both hamburger and ground beef can have seasonings, but no water, phosphates, extenders, or binders added. Ground beef is often marketed in a range of different fat contents, to match the preferences of different customers.

Ground beef is usually made from tougher meat and leftover meat created when the sides of beef are carved into steaks and roasts <ref>Food Safety and Inspection Service. 2002. Focus on Ground Beef. Fact Sheet, July 2002. [1]</ref>. About 17-18% of US ground beef comes from dairy cows <ref>Espinoza,Mauricio. 2005. Choice of Dairy-Cow Bedding Impacts E. coli Survival, Food Safety. Ohio State University Extension, News Archive, 3/18/2005. [2]</ref><ref>Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. 1996. Economic Opportunities for Dairy Cow Culling Management Options. Info Sheet, May 1996 [3].</ref>.

[edit] Culinary use

Ground beef is popular as a relatively cheap and quick-cooking form of beef. One of its most well known uses is in American hamburgers. It is an important ingredient in meatloaf, sloppy joe, and Midwestern cuisine. Italians use it to make meat sauces for, for example, lasagna and spaghetti bolognese. In the Middle East it is used to make spicy kofta and meatballs. The Scottish dish mince and tatties uses it along with mashed or boiled potatoes.

Many other meats are prepared ground in a similar fasion, including pork, lamb, chicken, and turkey. In South Asia both lamb (mutton) and goat meat are also minced to produce keema, though the process of mincing is manual. Turkey burgers are relatively popular in the US, especially among dieters.

[edit] Food safety

Ground beef and other ground meats have food safety issues not associated with whole cuts of meat. In a whole cut from a healthy animal, the interior of the meat is essentially sterile, even before cooking; any bacterial contamination is on the outer surface of the meat. When meat is ground, bacterial contamination from the surface can be distributed throughout the meat. If ground beef is not well cooked all the way to the center, there is a significant chance that enough pathogenic bacteria will survive to cause illness<ref>Committee on the Review of the USDA E. coli O157:H7, Farm-to-Table Process Risk Assessment. 2002. Slaughter Module in Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Ground Beef: Review of a Draft Risk Assessment. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC.</ref><ref>Honikel, K. O. 2004. Minced Meats in Encyclopedia of Meat Sciences, Jensen, W. K., et al., eds. Elsevier, New York.</ref>. Undercooked Jack in the Box hamburgers contaminated in this manner were responsible for four deaths and the illness of hundreds of people in 1993.<ref>http://www.ou.edu/deptcomm/dodjcc/groups/02C2/Jack%20in%20the%20Box.htm Case Study: Jack in the Box E. coli crisis</ref>

Due to these concerns, some ground beef is now irradiated. This practice has received mixed reactions from consumers.