Dangerous meat: Chicken, ground beef, more likely to contain bacteria
A new study has concluded that chicken and ground beef are the most dangerous meats in terms of food-borne illness.
The most popular meats in US, chicken and ground beef, are also the most likely to give you food poisoning.
An advocacy group called the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) looked over 12 years of government data.
They found that both kinds of meat were the most risky and were reponsible for more cases of food poisoning than other meats.
Contamination like E. coli and salmonella were just a few of the bacteria they were found to contain.
"These are both items likely to be contaminated with dangerous pathogens that can make you ill," said Sarah Klein, a lawyer at the Food Safety Program at CSPI.
More from GlobalPost: Leafy greens leading cause of food-borne illness, CDC says
"There are illnesses linked to problems at slaughter and problems in processing. But then there are also illnesses either linked to restaurants or home handling of food."
Chicken was at the top of the risk pyramid the group created.
Roasted, grilled and ground chicken accounted for most of the illnesses over the more-than-a-decade study.
Indeed, chicken caused 452 outbreaks during the study period while ground beef was responsible for 336.
Turkey was responsible for 130 outbreaks.
Steak was not completely safe either with 82 food-borne illness outbreaks.
The story you just read is available for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
Make a gift today, and you’ll get us one step closer to our goal of raising $25,000 by June 14. We need your help now more than ever!