Fresh, well packaged, ready to cook. The hamburger we put in the cart always seems safe, and technically it is, in fact it complies with all the regulations. But there is something that escapes the eye and even standard checks.
The Lifesaver wanted to look deeper, analyzing an aspect that no one ever checks along the supply chain: the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in meat. And what he found should give us pause.
The test
The results, published in the latest issue of the magazine, confirm that from a regulatory point of view there are no irregularities: salmonella and listeria are absent, the hygiene parameters are within the expected standards. Yet, digging deeper, something else emerges. Bacteria capable of resisting antibiotics were found in 4 out of 12 burgers. In short, a third of the samples host microorganisms that have learned to defend themselves from the drugs we use to treat infections.
And there is a basic problem: no law obliges producers to check whether the bacteria present in meat are resistant to antibiotics. This type of analysis, called an antibiogram, is carried out on farms and slaughterhouses, but it stops there. When the meat is processed, packaged and put on sale, those controls disappear.
It means that the final product, the one that ends up in our cart, is never tested for this aspect. A worrying regulatory gap, especially if we consider that in Italy antibiotic resistance causes around 12 thousand deaths a year, according to the Italian Medicines Agency.
And antibiotic resistance is not a random phenomenon. This is the result of years of excessive use of these drugs: excessive prescriptions in the pediatric field, increasing hospital consumption, but above all the massive use in intensive farming. Here antibiotics are often also administered to healthy animals as a preventative measure. Low doses, repeated over time, which do not kill the bacteria but “train” them, selecting only the most resistant ones. These microorganisms survive, multiply, develop increasingly effective defenses and can reach the meat we buy.
A vicious circle that starts from farming and ends on our table, passing through a system of controls that limits itself to verifying the absence of known pathogens, completely ignoring the problem of antibiotic resistance.
The four burgers that contain resistant bacteria
According to data released by Lifesaverthe most critical situations concern the following 4 products which were found to contain bacteria resistant to antibiotics:
To find out in detail about all the products analyzed, discover the complete results of the test and also which are the best burgers, consult the latest issue of Lifesaver.
How the test was conducted
The test of Lifesaver examined 12 burgers, mostly vacuum-packed and sold in the refrigerated counter. The objective was to evaluate not only the hygiene and quality of the meat, but also the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
To reach the final judgement, the laboratories considered three main factors:
The weight of the criteria on the final vote was: hygiene 50%, quality of meat 30%, quantity of meat 20%. Exceeding hygiene limits downgrades the rating, while the presence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics leads to a further reduction in the score.
The guidelines followed for microbiological analyzes were:
How to reduce risks at home
The main advice that emerges from the test is simple but often underestimated: the meat must be cooked well, even on the inside.
The very popular “rare” hamburger becomes a choice to reconsider when talking about minced meat, because insufficient cooking may not completely eliminate the microorganisms present.
The good news is that, beyond the antibiotic-resistance issue, the overall hygiene level of the burgers analyzed was on average good, as was the nutritional quality, in fact no product exceeds the critical threshold of 15% in the ratio between collagen and proteins.
The work of Lifesaver However, it raises an important and broader question: does it make sense to continue to ignore antibiotic resistance in food when it represents one of the global health emergencies?
A question that concerns not only producers, but also public policies and the way we choose – and cook – what we bring to the table.
