SEATTLE — Seattle attorney Bill Marler has been hired most recently to represent many of the people sickened after eating at Northwest Chipotle restaurants, but he has made food safety the focus of his practice for decades.
And if you ever see him eating in a restaurant, chances are Marler will be eating soup.
"The hotter your food is, the more likely it is that the heat has killed whatever bacteria that might have grown in it," Marler told KIRO 7 Reporter Amy Clancy over lunch on Tuesday.
The world-renowned food safety attorney sued Jack in the Box in 1993 because of a fatal E. coli outbreak in hamburger meat.
For the next 20 years, hamburger-related E. coli cases brought in 90-percent of his firm's business.
But Marler said he rarely gets hamburger-related calls anymore, because restaurants are cooking meats more thoroughly.
"After the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak, I didn't eat a hamburger for 22 years," Marler told Clancy.
Marler will now order burgers in restaurants, as long as they're cooked well-done.
There are other foods he currently avoids.
Most of them are based on cases that have crossed his desk: unpasteurized milk or juice, sprouts, bagged salads or spinach, undercooked meats, and raw oysters.
Marler also cleans out his food supply often.
"Every once in a while, I'll look inside our refrigerator and I'll start throwing things away just because they've been in there too long," Marler said.
He often has to eat in restaurants because business keeps him on the road, so Marler reads online reviews, health department websites, and checks the cleanliness of a restaurant before he orders.
What about grocery store sushi?
"Oh, no" Marler answered. "That's one of those things where sometimes being convenient is not worth the risk."
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