When considering a sliced meat purchase, always go for the more expensive $1.49 kind (photo via milkshakepants' flickr)
Your bologna has a first name, it's l-i-s-t-e-r-i-a. It's been discovered that the nasty little bacteria that can cause food poisoning (and possibly death) has adapted to survive refrigerator temperatures! According to Boing Boing, cold cuts are basically hostels for listeria, and "all it takes is some improper handling of the meat, somewhere along the production chain, and a little listeria can bloom—inside your fridge—into a potentially serious problem." The scienticians at Bovine University never mentioned this...
...but the American Meat Institute did—the group says heating meat to 165 degrees is a good idea for at-risk individuals (people over 50, and pregnant women). Something the CDC agrees with.
This is, of course, another reason to always fry your bologna—get a pre-made fried bologna sandwich at Seersucker in Brooklyn, or at home you can simply follow the world's most depressing recipe! And don't forget to slather on the mustard (researchers killed off 90 percent of three pathogens—Listeria, E. coli, and Salmonella—within 2 hours of exposing them to a mustard compound).
