Food Poisoning From Carbon Monoxide?

How is this Possible?

Most everyone has heard about Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Every winter there are accidental, as well as deliberate, carbon monoxide poisonings and deaths, mostly from un-vented or defective heating units. Sometime you hear about someone running their barbecue indoors for heating purposes.

So, if inhalation of this toxic gas is the source of illness and death, how does food come into the picture? Very simply, it is not the carbon monoxide gas directly that causes the food poisoning. It’s the effects of carbon monoxide used with red meats that many believe increases the chances of contracting a food poisoning from the more typical pathogenic microorganisms.

To clarify, in 2004 the U.S. Food & Drug Administration approved a technique of injecting or incasing harmless levels of carbon monoxide (CO) gas for modified atmosphere packaging systems. This basically means replacing the air or oxygen in “case-ready”(prepackaged) fresh red meats, including pork and ground meats, with CO which gives the meats a deceptively bright red or pink color that can last up to 2 weeks. The CO reacts with the myoglobin protein in the meats producing an artificially fresher looking product. Also, some experts are stating that CO prevents the growth of normal aerobic bacteria which produce the spoilage discoloration signs.

Coloration is one very significant indicator consumers use to determine freshness when purchasing fresh meats and seafoods. CO “spiked” meats takes this away from the consumer, as well as the meat market. The market also uses color as one factor when determining whether to pull or dispose of meat and seafood products.

The result, of what is really a deceptive practice, is that the consumer may be purchasing older meats that may very likely have more spoilage and possibly greater numbers of pathogenic microorganisms present. As I mention throughout this site, the more actual bacteria growth or cells present on the food, the more likely you or the cook are to spread these cells around while processing, and the greater likelihood of consuming enough of these cells to produce food poisoning symptoms.

Also, they argue that color alone is not a good indicator of spoilage and that studies show that meat packaged with CO will show the other normal signs of spoilage such as odor, gas formation and slime build up. Also color is not an indicator of pathogenic microorganisms presence and that the normal color changes “triggered by exposure to oxygen (i.e. the transformation of oxymyoglobin to metmyoglobin) typically predate the end of the microbial shelf life Of meat.” (1)

All these arguments are for the most part legitimate or accurate. They ignore though the reality that, right or wrong, both consumers and the retail meat markets place a very high level of importance on the product color as an indicator of freshness over other signs, or the dates on the packages.

Also I can tell you that other forms of deception that are similar, are illegal. These include adding blood or other coloring agents to ground red meats or putting red, or pink lighting in display cases.

In my opinion, at minimum this practice should by noted on the label. Other groups have been petitioning the U.S. FDA to discontinue this practice for the last few years. Consumer groups such as the Consumer Federation of America (a non-profit association of 300 consumer groups, representing more than 50 million Americans) and Safe Tables Our Priority (a national, non-profit volunteer health organization dedicated to preventing suffering, illness and death due to foodborne illness) have written arguments and continue to work to have the FDA rescind their approval.

In the meantime, consumers are advised to not use color as the primary indicator of freshness or wholesomeness for prepackaged case-ready meats, i.e. those meats not packaged by the local market. For unpackaged fresh meat and seafoods in display cases, color is still a good indicator. To read more details on how to identify other signs of spoilage or dangers on meats and seafoods, please click on the link to my article on this subject at Meat_Seafood_Markets.htm

REFERENCES

1.  United States Food and Drug Administration http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/05p0459/05p-0459-c000002-01-vol3.pdf