Restaurant rule number one for eating beef raw: GRIND YOUR OWN! It will be so worth it. There is just so much surface area on ground beef, it will be very unlikely that you can kill it by freezing it, and vinegar isn't going to touch it (if bacteria can survive your stomach and make you sick, it surely can survive a little splash of vinegar).

I like eating raw meat and raw seafood myself, and I think that a lot of websites that promote raw eating really gloss over the possibilities for bacteria/parasite like "oh, it's not a big deal, it hardly ever happens, trust us". In reality, it does happen (how many times have you heard of the "24 hour flu"? Cause that was probably food poisoning), and sometimes it can be bad news (particularly if you are pregnant, elderly or a child). Freezing can not always be the ultimate solution- parasites can survive freezing, so you need those suckers flash frozen if you are wanting to eat raw pork or raw fish. It's just a good idea. For beef, the biggest thing is the surface area, so really just grind it yourself. Invest in a meat grinder and freeze the parts to get a clean grind, or use a very sharp knife and some patience on a semi-frozen piece of beef.

The chances that you will get seriously sick this way- not very high. You might get an upset stomach or a small bout of diarrhea every once in a blue moon, so it is your choice. You just don't want to be that one guy though that gets REALLY sick. We had one guy in our community contract trichinosis that just happened to cause a speech impediment and damage his CNS from wild hog- I mean, what are the chances, but it happens. Same with raw milk- listeria is a natural part of the udder flora and does no damage to the cow, and it probably won't hurt your average person either, BUT if you are pregnant do you want to take that risk of miscarriage? It just makes sense to take the precautions you can, weight the risk for yourself, and go in well prepared. Makes it taste better when you know you made it as safe as possible :)

don't worry about it. raw meat is completely safe. What makes knowing your butcher and source safer from getting e-coli in your ground beef is knowing how they slaughter. E-coli comes from shit. Shit gets in your beef when they string the steer up and kill it. The animal defecates when it dies and because it is upside down it can get on the skin. Then because most mills don't give a shit they mix anything they really want to ion to their ground beef including portions of meat exposed to this bacteria. If you want to eat raw ground beef make sure what you get is a)fresh and b) ground from actual cuts of meat not just a random variety of trash. I have been eating raw meat since my teenage years and not once ever have I gotten sick. I get actual chuck steaks that are fresh ground in to ground beef. I eat raw and rare pork I never cook any meat other than poultry (it's a texture thing) and like mashed up hamburger over med rare. I eat burgers and steaks extra rare. But if for some reason you get e-coli in your beef cause you bought shit from a grocery store or a tube of beef then vinegar won't help you.

i eat frozen ground meat from local grass-fed ops, i have been doing so for 3 years and have not been sick once:) beef in apple cider vinegar with lots of seasonings is delicious, there are a ton of ceviche esque recipes on the interwebs.

Look, unless you can personally vouch for every moment between mooing animal to market meat, there are considerable risks in eating raw meat. Don't let paleo-romanticism crowd out common sense.

I don't think salt or vinegar would help at all.

If you dare, read the worm within

That's enough to put me off the thought of eating any raw meat,ever.

www.scribd.com/doc/11337868/Optimal-Conditions-for-the-Growth-of-E-Coli has some clues as to what promotes growth:

"However, because of the mechanism of osmosis, extremely high levels as well as complete absence of salt could be lethal to E. coli bacteria."

So what does extremely high levels of salt mean? Is it still edible after that? Page 11 shows the results of the salinity test, and all concentrations show the same result. So salt did not seem to work. "E.coli is able to tolerate added salt of up to 10% concentration."

Sugar did not work either: "None of the concentrations of glucose had any affect on the growth of E.coli."

pH is more interesting: "E.coli was able to tolerate an acid of pH 2.4 more easily than a base of pH 11.6." The pH of apple cider vinegar is typically between pH 4.25 and 5.00. So soaking in vinegar would not really help, but making it basic would help. Perhaps Lemon juice might help as that's a pH of 2, thus more acidic that Vinegar, and below the 2.4 threshold, so ground beef ceviche anyone?

Making it more basic: Ammonia has a pH of 11.6, so this is why CAFO meats are soaked in it. Would it still be edible after that? Would you want to eat ground beef that's been soaked in Ammonia? Maybe it could be washed off, but what affect does it have on the meat and are there residues and remnants of reactants to Ammonia?

And if you go to a normal restaurant, do you think they'd even bother to soak ground beef to wash away the Ammonia, or does it go straight onto the grill?

Temperature: "largest colonies were present..at 37C." ... "as the temperature increased from 37C to 50C, the size and number of colonies decreased." Hence the recommendations to keep meats very cold, and cook until the internal temperature is high enough to kill any pathogens.

"E. coli bacteria can survive freezing temperatures" so all freezing would do is to prevent growth, and keeping meat cold just limits the growth.

In principle the acid is effective. See the article below.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1902205/

I work at a plant which uses sulfuric acid to kill e coli in the effluent, so the vinegar should work, but how much would require testing the meat.

leave the vinegar out. cook the meat. cooking kills e. coli. vinegar may not kill the bacteria but hold it static until it gets diluted inside your body.

Sally Fallon says that freezing meats for two weeks or longer will kill any harmful organisms...I've been doing this for years with no detrimental effects! Raw meat gets me high...

The WAPF recommends freezing liver for 14 days if you are going to consume it raw. I have no idea if that translates to muscle meat.

I keep reading that wine can help prevent food poisening. Maybe a nice glass of vino could be an extra insurance policy with your mish-mash tartare.

I agree with grinding your own for raw consumption, that's why rare steak is less dicey than rare burgers when eating out.

Much safer if you grind or chop it yourself. All meat, including relatively "clean" ground meat has bacteria in it, and the longer the meat is waiting around, the more the bacteria colonizes the meat.

Even when ground meat has been frozen, the bacteria has had a chance to grow while the meat cooled down to frozen, and it grows again as the meat thaws.

It's much better to start with a whole piece of meat, wash the outside well in plenty of running water, grind it in an impeccably clean grinder. Then serve it immediately and you're pretty safe. You could also chop it in the food processor.

It's even simpler to just chop it up with a couple of very sharp knives. That's what chefs do when preparing steak tartar, or kitfo.

MMM, mmm, good.

Great question. Maybe it has to be frozen for X amount of time?

I've also developed a taste for raw ground beef. I sear it unseasoned on the grill and plop it on top of an arugula salad with an egg yolk or two on top. Then I add vinegar, celtic sea salt, macadamia oil etc.

In my case I dealt directly with the guy who raised the cow locally, and the competent family-run processor who made the cuts and ground beef, so my worry level is very low. But I guess if its raw raw, it would be good to know if freezing and how long for freezing minimizes the risks.

Nope. That won't work. You either have to freeze the meat, or heat the meat. If you really want to partake in some raw deliciousness, try buying GF steak, or whole cuts, and grinding it yourself. Whole cuts have less surface area exposed to harmful bacteria.

To boldy go, where no man has gone before...

Nope salt and vinegar are not going to do anything whatsoever if you eat beef that's contaminated with e coli. But if you grind your own meat it's a lot safer...I wouldn't eat pre-ground meat raw, ever, even if it wasn't grocery store beef. Better safe than sorry I think (yes, I'm a wuss but food poisoning is AWFUL and can be a lot more serious than just throwing up for a few days.)

Absolutely not. If there is bad E coli or something hardcore salt and vinegar isn't going to do a thing.

Not that I think eating raw ground beef is wholly bad. If it's a clean product you trust, go for it.