Paula Castrillon knows exactly how she likes her steak prepared.
"I get my steak medium rare all the time," Castrillon said.
[WEB EXTRA: Inspection & Grading of Meat: What Are the Differences?]
One thing she didn't know is that some of the steaks and roasts on store shelves have been mechanically tenderized during processing.
Castrillon confesses, "No, I have not heard of that at all."
When beef is mechanically tenderized, a machine punctures the meat with blades or needles to break down the muscle fibers, allowing for a more tender product.
One man tells me, "I've seen chefs tenderize meat with the mallet and I've done that myself but didn't realize this posed a threat."
The potential threat, according to the USDA is that the process can drive bacteria like the deadly pathogen E. coli from the meat's surface-- deep into its center.
Chris Waldrop of Food Policy Institute with Consumer Federation of America says,
"Consumers need to know that this product is mechanically tenderized so they know they have to cook it differently. A mechanically tenderized steak needs to be cooked more thoroughly for sure."
Scott Fader is a butcher at Petty's Meat Market in Longwood; here they do not mechanically tenderize their meat.
"No, no I've never done it. I don't need to the type of beef that we have," Fader said.
That's because Fader says their beef is a higher quality and explains, "You know it's going to be tender based on where the cattle come from and the age of the cattle."
But because many of us are buying beef at big grocery stores and wholesale markets the USSA will now require labels to alert you that the beef you're about to buy has been mechanically tenderized.
"It'll have two, two things on the label: No. 1 it will have the cooking instructions, along with the rest time and it will also have the process in which it had been mechanically tenderized," Alfred Almanza with the USDA said,
Some terms you may see that also mean the meat has been mechanically tenderized: blade tenderized or needle tenderized.
Barry Carpenter of The North American Meat Institute points out the industry has taken other steps on its own to reduce the risk that tenderization will transfer pathogens further into the meat.
"The industry has done a number of things to improve the safety: more interventions to reduce the microbial load on product before it goes into the either blade tenderizing or the, the needle tenderizing process," Carpenter said.
As for Castrillon, she says, "It's a step in the right direction but it's not enough"
But even with these precautions some folks still say, "I don't eat beef so one more reason not to."