Costco blade tenderizes its steaks, so cook them to 145°F
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Flip over a Costco steak and the label says "blade tenderized," with a cooking temperature printed right next to it.
A machine pushes blades through the meat
Before many steaks reach the case, they run through a machine that presses rows of thin blades or needles into the meat. The blades cut the tough muscle fibers, so a cheaper steak chews like a pricier one.
You can't see the cuts when it's done. Sometimes you'll spot thin slits in the fat on a ribeye, and that's about it.
Injecting a steak with marinade does the same thing. Needles go in, and so does whatever was on the outside.
USDA calls all of this "mechanically tenderized." It figures about 1 in 10 pounds of beef sold in the US gets this treatment. That's 2.6 billion pounds a year, or roughly 8 pounds for every person in the country.
The blades carry germs to the middle
A whole steak is usually safe to eat rare because E. coli lives on the outside of the meat. A hot pan kills what's on the surface, and the middle was never exposed.
A blade changes that. Each time it goes in, it can drag a little of the surface down into the center. Lab studies have shown blade tenderizing moves E. coli from the outside of beef to the inside. Now the middle of your medium-rare steak is the part that never got hot enough.
This has made people sick. Since 2000, the CDC has tied 6 outbreaks to tenderized beef cooked in homes and restaurants. 176 people got sick, 32 went to the hospital, and 4 developed a kind of kidney failure that hits kids hardest. Investigators said undercooking was likely a big factor in several of them.
What these numbers can't tell you is your odds from one steak. Most tenderized beef is eaten without anyone getting sick. The risk shows up when germs, blades, and a rare center all line up.
Costco added labels after a recall
In 2012, a huge beef recall in Canada traced back to a plant called XL Foods. 18 people got sick from E. coli. Alberta health officials found that 4 of them ate strip loin steaks bought at an Edmonton Costco, and they asked Costco stores to stop using a tenderizing machine that they said could push E. coli inside.
Later that year, Costco started labeling its tenderized beef, according to Consumer Reports and NPR. It did that on its own, years before the law said it had to.
The bad beef came from the XL Foods plant. A government-appointed review blamed the plant's "weak food safety culture."
The USDA now requires identification
In May 2016, the rest of the industry caught up. A USDA rule now says any raw beef that's been through blades or needles must say "mechanically tenderized," "blade tenderized," or "needle tenderized" on the package. It also has to print cooking steps.
The number USDA uses is 145°F in the center, then a 3 minute rest before you cut it. That's the same as a pork chop.
USDA's general advice is 145°F for any steak. Most people ignore that for a whole steak, since the risk sits on the outside. With a tenderized steak, that habit stops being safe.
Your restaurant doesn't have to tell you
The USDA rule covers the package. It doesn't cover the menu.
About half of all tenderized beef goes to restaurants, hotels, and cafeterias, by USDA's own estimate. The cook in the back sees the label. You don't.
When people asked USDA to make restaurants disclose it on menus, the agency said no. It said cooks would see the label and cook it right, and pointed diners to local health departments.
So when you order a steak medium-rare, no one has to tell you whether blades went through it first.
What to do
Check the label for "blade tenderized," "needle tenderized," "mechanically tenderized," or a marinade line like "injected with a solution." Any of those means cook it to 145°F in the center and rest it 3 minutes.
Use an instant-read thermometer pushed into the thickest part, sideways, from the edge. Color lies, especially in the middle of a thick cut.
At a restaurant, ask "Is your steak mechanically tenderized or injected?" before you order it rare. If they don't know, order it medium.
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