Sous Vide Cooking for Consumers - Recognizing the Risk

Sous vide cooking is gaining in popularity among consumers.  Sous vide is essentially cooking food in a sealed bag at low cooking temperatures (140F to 180F) for a long period of time. Cooking product at low temperatures in a sealed bag has advantages for flavor retention and tenderization. Unfortunately, there are some serious food safety issues that consumers may be unaware.

Food safety issues arise when the food is not adequately cooked, when cooled incorrectly, or when product is later held at incorrect temperatures.   The first concern is that the food will not reach high enough temperature to kill pathogenic vegetative cells like Salmonella or E. coli (STEC).  In traditional cooking, product is exposed to higher temperature and the center point then rises to meet that temperature.  Our standard endpoint cooking temperatures of 165F for 15 seconds for internal chicken temperature provides sufficient kill that we don't need to worry about Salmonella or Campylobacter.  With sous vide cooking, lower temperatures for longer times are used.  So the concern is that will there be sufficient heat to eliminate vegetative pathogens such as Salmonella or Campylobacter.  For traditional consumer cooking temperatures, we have ample scientific support. But for sous vide, while there is some scientific validation for commercial processing, there is less for consumer at-home cooking.  Generally people count on the direction provided by equipment manufacturers.  How valid are those directions?  And what about when people start to vary from those directions?  Perhaps they start with frozen chicken vs thawed chicken, or they decide to process at 148 instead of 155?

The other concern is cooling.  The temperatures used will not eliminate sporeforming pathogens such as Clostridium botulinum or Clostridium perfringes and so if product is not cooled quickly enough, or if product is left at room temperature for an extended time before consumption, these organisms will grow, especially in a vacuum sealed environment.  Commercial operations that use sous vide processing are required to have tight controls on cooling and refrigerated or frozen storage.  Will consumers do the same?  Fish is a particular concern because the risk of low-temperature growing Clostridium botulinum.

Photo courtesy of Zach Lampich

Consumer Reports
https://www.consumerreports.org/kitchen-appliances/sous-vide-tools-review-anova-joule/
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