Grillers are responding to claims that bird flu could be lurking in undercooked beef.
A former FDA official this week urged DailyMail.com readers to avoid rare or medium steaks because of a small risk of contracting the virus that is spreading on American farms.
We visited several steakhouses in Manhattan on Wednesday to see if restaurant staff and customers shared the concerns.
All seven steakhouses said their meat was “safe to eat,” but some admitted they “hadn’t even heard of” the H5N1 outbreak in cattle.
Chris Pratt was photographed eating a steak last year, as steakhouses say their steaks are safe to eat and there are no warnings from officials about bird flu on their meat.
New York City restaurant owners told DailyMail.com that they were not worried about the outbreak of bird flu in livestock and that their steaks were safe to eat.
The map above shows cattle herds where the virus has been reported. It is found in 20 herds in seven states, data shows, although most cases are linked to Texas.
“Our steaks are safe to eat,” said Brian Morrissey, director of operations at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse in New York City.
“If we were worried, we would have heard something by now,” he added. “I trust the FDA.”
“Our steaks are good,” said another manager at nearby Ted’s Montana Grill.
“Customers don’t even come in and say they’re worried about their steaks.”
He added: “We haven’t heard anything from the companies about this and they are usually pretty good at telling us if there is a recalled package we should pay attention to.”
A third manager at Smith and Wollensky Steakhouse, a popular restaurant near Grand Central, said his staff had never even heard of the bird flu outbreak in livestock.
He added that they were not concerned about the reports, saying outbreaks of bird flu are often reported.
The above shows how bird flu is approaching human contagion in the US.
It comes after former FDA food official Dr Darin Detwiler warned that undercooked steaks could transmit bird flu.
“I’m still not convinced that simply searing the exterior is enough to kill H5N1 in beef,” he said.
‘I would 100 percent recommend that it be cooked completely to a safe minimum cooking temperature. [to kill viruses and bacteria].’
Officials are also trying to allay any concerns about potentially contaminated meat or milk, saying both are still safe to consume.
A spokesman for the National Cattlemen’s Association, which represents ranchers, said: “It is important to note that the agency [USDA] confirmed that there is no threat to human health and that milk and meat remain safe to consume.
‘The USDA has confirmed that affected dairy cows do not appear to transmit the virus to other cattle within the same herd. Currently, H5N1 has not been detected in cattle.’
So far, outbreaks of bird flu have been reported in 20 cattle herds in six states, although mainly in Texas.
But all of these cases are in dairy herds, and no cases have been recorded in the nearly 30 million head of cattle in the United States.
There is also no evidence at this stage that infected cattle have the virus within their meat, and it is only recorded in their milk, while blood and mucus swabs came back negative.
Alarm has been raised about the virus as it spreads to 40 species of mammals, raising concerns that it could also reach humans.
This year, a case has been recorded so far in a Texas farmer, the second in the United States, in which the patient only suffered mild symptoms of inflammation in the eye.
But doctors have been urged to be on the lookout for more cases of the disease among farmworkers.
Some experts have also warned that infections could easily go undetected because symptoms can be very mild.
Authorities are not sure how the cattle became infected, although they have so far found no evidence to suggest the virus is transmitted through the air between herds.
Instead, they say the animals could have been infected by eating a food called “poultry droppings,” which are ground up remains of birds and their droppings.
Cattle may also have been infected through dirty milking machines.