deer hunters like to know everything about their prey. But what
most don’t know is that deer can hurt them long after the hunt
is over.
University of Georgia scientists say deer, like cattle, carry
E. coli.
And many popular ways of preparing venison won’t kill the
potentially deadly
bacteria.
“We know E. coli 0157:H7 can be carried by deer,” said
University of
Georgia food scientist Mike Doyle. “We don’t know yet how
prevalent it
is in the deer population. But we know they carry it.”
The season for hunting deer with firearms begins Oct. 25 in
Georgia.
The archery deer season began Sept. 20. According to the Georgia
Department
of Natural Resources, more than 300,000 Georgians hunt the
state’s estimated
1 million white-tailed deer each fall.
Doyle, a microbiologist with the UGA College of Agricultural
and Environmental
Sciences, is director of the Center for Food Safety and Quality
Enhancement
in Griffin, Ga.
He and other scientists published a report on E. coli in
venison in
the April 16, 1997, Journal of the American Medical Association.
The report
traced a 1995 Oregon outbreak of E. coli-related illnesses to
jerky made
from venison.
The study showed clearly, he said, that deer meat can become
contaminated
with E. coli. It showed, too, that the popular practice of
making venison
jerky isn’t always safe.
To kill the E. coli 0157:H7 bacteria, Doyle said, meat must
be heated
to 160 degrees. “The home dehydrators we’ve tested don’t even
come close
to that,” he said.
Judy Harrison, an Extension Service food scientist with the
UGA College
of Family and Consumer Sciences, said many home dehydrators
don’t have
adjustable temperature controls.
“Many are preset at the factory, usually at 130 to 140
degrees,” she
said. “Even those that can be adjusted usually can’t be set that
high.”
The safety problem with jerky, she said, is complicated.
“If you dehydrate meat at too high a temperature, you can
have something
called `case hardening,’” she said. “That’s when the outside of
the meat
forms a crust. When that happens, the moisture inside can’t get
out, and
the jerky will spoil.”
Doyle said the only safe way to prepare jerky is to precook
it to 160
degrees.
But when you do that, Harrison said, most jerky lovers don’t
like it.
“We haven’t done a formal taste-panel study yet,” she said. “But
the consensus
among jerky connoisseurs seems to be that it’s not acceptable,
or at least
not what they’re used to.”
Harrison, CAES microbiologist Mark Harrison and Oregon State
University
scientist Carolyn Raab have been studying the jerky riddle.
“We’ve been trying to find a method to prepare jerky that can
eliminate
pathogens and still produce a product similar to the traditional
jerky
people like,” she said. “So far, we haven’t been able to do
that. But we
will continue to look at other options.”
People who make jerky do it two main ways, she said. Some dry
strips
of meat. Others start by grinding the meat. “Then they use a
gizmo like
a cookie press,” she said, “that squeezes out a ribbon of meat.”
The dehydrated ribbons have a texture many people like, she
said. But
because it’s ground meat, the contamination risk is higher.
The risk is always higher with ground meat, Doyle said. Many
deer hunters
have at least part of their meat prepared as ground venison or
sausage.
“With a roast, if the organism is there, it’s on the surface
and is
more easily killed,” Doyle said. “With ground meat, the organism
can be
in the very center.”
Anyone making a fermented sausage with venison, he said, must
make sure
to do it by U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines for making
sausage
containing beef.
“You have to have a step in the process that will kill
100,000 E. coli
0157:H7 bacteria,” he said. “It’s not like it used to be. You
can’t just
let it naturally ferment.”
