Ground beef and ground chicken cause more hospitalizations than other meats in the American food supply, a new report finds.
An analysis by the consumer advocacy group the Center for Science in Public Interest that looked at more than 33,000 cases of foodborne illness also showed that
chicken nuggets, ham and sausage pose the lowest risk of foodborne illness for Americans.
The nonprofit used U.S. government data on 1,700 outbreaks over 12 years to analyze salmonella, E. coli, listeria and other pathogens that were definitively linked to a certain meat.
"Outbreaks from ground beef and chicken are reported frequently, and all too often cause debilitating illnesses--illnesses that lead to hospitalization," CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal, said in a
written statement.
To calculate which meats were riskiest, CSPI ranked the foods in which contamination was most likely to cause hospitalizations.
For example, about one quarter of people sickened with the salmonella bacteria are hospitalized, according to DeWaal. Most people recover without treatment after four to seven days.
Some meats in the CSPI's study may have caused more foodborne illnesses than ground beef and chicken, but were less likely to cause severe illness.
After ground beef and chicken, CSPI categorized turkey and steak and other forms of beef as "high risk" and deli meat, pork, roast beef and barbequed meats as "medium risk."
Salmonella and E. coli, pathogens that contaminate meat and poultry during slaughter and processing, accounted for about one third of the total illnesses surveyed. Clostridium perfringens, a lesser-known pathogen that usually grows after processing when foods are left at improper temperatures for too long by consumers or food establishments, accounted for another third.
While a large number of chicken illnesses were due to clostridium perfringens, chicken led to many hospitalizations partly because of the high incidence of salmonella in chicken that isn't properly cooked.
Ground beef, chicken more likely to cause severe foodborne illnesses in U.S. - CBS News