Man Blames Burrito For Paralysis

[Horse with no Name]

My question is why would you continue eating an uncooked burrito? Nasty. Very tragic story though.

http://www.local6.com/news/11143651/detail.html
>>>snip
TAMPA, Fla. -- A man who can no longer feed himself said an uncooked chicken burrito put him in a wheelchair.

Anderson said he ate the burrito at a Moe's Southwest Grill in Land O' Lakes in September and became sick with stomach cramps, diarrhea and joint pains.

Anderson's attorney said the burrito caused a bacterial infection, which led to a disease that affects the body's nerves.

[Kolesar]

1. Uncooked, undercooked, or handled by someone with bacteria on their hands?

I think I will cook my own dinner tonight.

[kestrel91316]

2. I thought burritos came already cooked, and that all you had to do

was heat them up. I've never seen a store burrito with raw meat in it that still needed to be cooked.

More sloppy reporting from liberal arts majors who just arrange words into sentences without knowing what they mean..................

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. Sounds like it was at a restaurant. n/t

[kestrel91316]

11. Now that I read the actual article, lol, I am a little more clear on

the situation. If he had a documented bacterial food poisoning that led to paralysis (through some mechanism unknown to me), then bad on them (Moe's) and they need to PAY UP. If he got food poisoning and recovered uneventfully (as most people do) and is malingering (faking the need for a wheelchair) because he sees a vulnerable deep pocket, then HE ought to go to jail.

I don't have enough information to decide what's going on. After the finger in the Wendy's chili, I am skeptical of this sort of thing.

[rkc3]

3. My question - why eat at Moe's? It's the "mexican" equal to Arby's.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

4. Perhaps what they meant was undercooked?

Not heated up to the required internal temperature of 170 degrees? I can't imagine anyone chomping their way through a raw chicken burrito. :shrug:

[ncrainbowgrrl]

5. I'd have to agree- A raw burrito would be NASTY.

:puke:

Wouldn't you notice texture, at least?

[kenny blankenship]

6. Moe's burritos have sometimes caused me concern

just looking at the pans from which ingredients are being ladled out. I don't mean they've ever made me sick, just that for example the last time I ordered a burrito there, I had some serious and nagging doubts before consuming it.

There's not a lot of detail at this story's source, so it's hard to say anything more. But I do know there's no ordering option for "uncooked chicken" at Moe's. So if the guy was poisoned by eating there, the chances are that there was some undercooked chicken in the big pan of chicken they serve from. Most of the chicken in his burrito was probably really well cooked, but some of it wasn't. I know this condition is easy to achieve when preparing chicken from previously frozen parts. Incomplete thawing leads to parts of the meat resisting the heat of a skillet--or other method of cooking. So the outside can look thoroughly cooked while here and there in the interior there may still be pockets of chicken that are barely warmed. Longterm freezing tends to kill off most of the microbes that can contaminate meat, most but not all. The less time the chicken has spent frozen obviously the less bacteria will have been killed off. Chicken that has been frozen only a short while needs to be cooked with extra attention to doneness.

[kestrel91316]

12. If the chicken were incompletely cooked prior to going into the

burrito, then the biggest risk would be Salmonella or Campylobacter. I don't recall offhand that paralysis is a sequela to either.

Maybe he read about botulism and is trying to claim THAT'S what is going on?????

[Ron Green]

7. Florida again. I'm keepin' track.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. I think one lesson here is;

Don't buy a burrito from someone named "Moe"

[blonndee]

9. Wow. A friend of mine became violently ill after eating a burrito from a Moe's

here in Oklahoma. I always wanted to try Moe's but he very nearly made me swear I wouldn't. He was sure he had gotten food poisoning.