Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technology to verify endpoint cooking temperatures of meat products

Recent outbreaks of Escherichia coli 0157:H7, associated mainly with the consumption of undercooked ground beef patties, have led to a critical review of methods used to ensure the safety of cooked-meat products. Although thorough cooking can help reduce the incidence of foodborne disease, there is still the problem of confirming adequate cooking after the product has been processed. Determination of the endpoint temperature to which a product has been cooked is a common way to verify compliance with government cooking regulations. Current methods used by the United States Department of Agriculture to verify proper heat processing of beef products are considered subjective and do not provide an adequate margin of safety. There is an urgent need for rapid and accurate assays to verify cooking temperatures. The use of enzyme or protein markers to assess the endpoint cooking temperature of meat products has been investigated. Several immunoassays, using antibodies that specifically recognize an indicator protein, have been developed to accurately verify endpoint processing temperatures in poultry and, more recently, beef products.