Food safety...
... is a tricky business. The FDA and others always err on the most extreme end of possible outcomes. They think they have to, but their information is often a disservice, because it gives people scientifically false information. The average person thinks the FDA is presenting the results of scientific research. They are not. They are presenting their ideas of how the research should be implemented. And they are often very extreme and even nonsensical when they do so, particularly when they do not acknowledge the ambiguous or inconclusive nature of many of the studies they rely on. Guidelines on salt are a good example. Dietary cholesterol is another. Animal-produced, i.e. naturally occurring, trans-fats (which are not even the same as artificial trans-fats) are another. The list is long.
The only time I ever got food poisoning was a at a restaurant, and you can bet your last dollar that kitchen was filthy. I have NEVER gotten sick from food prepared in my own clean kitchen or that of any of my clean relatives and friends. And as someone pointed out, Edna never killed anybody. In fact, death from food-borne pathogens is almost exclusively a restaurant phenomenon. Doesn't that make you wonder 1) what's going on in those restaurants, and 2) whether the "safety" advice that everyone repeats isn't a bit exaggerated.
This short article gives some helpful insight into salmonella. You can see from their charts why Edna's turkey was fine. There are many more articles out there that deal with the SCIENCE, not hearsay, rumor, and innuendo.
A major concern of sous vide cooking is dealing with the growth of bacteria and salmonella during the cooking time. We explore the issue.
www.cookingsousvide.com
Food safety is critically important, no doubt about it. But keeping our kitchens safe has to involve an understanding of what is truly dangerous, as opposed to personal squeamishness or even fear brought on by the "food panic" industry (women's magazines, the 'Weekender' insert in the neighborhood newspaper, local news broadcasters, the FDA, NIH, American Heart Society, and on and on). Those people can make a lot of money by scaring people; but fear is the enemy of knowledge.
