About e. coli

As you point out, e. coli on the surface of meats and poultry are distributed throughout the meat once it's ground. This is not the main problem however. The problem is that it may take days or more from time of commercial grinding to distribution of the ground meat into your home or restaurant, and the e. coli have time to multiply to the point where they may cause illness. To be certain of safety, you need to cook pre-packaged ground meat to a temperature which makes burgers dry and unpalatable to most tastes - or you can add a lot of chopped onion and other moisturizing ingredients so you can cook them well done and be safe but still not have cardboard burgers.

If you grind meat yourself and cook it right away, there's no time for any little buggers which might have been on the surface to multiply into sickening proportions (and you always rinse meat and chicken pieces before cooking with them, something you can't do once they've already been ground!) I still COOK my own ground meats though - no steak tartare! But I never liked that anyway.

I know how you feel though. Food which has made you sick sure loses its appeal!