Nonuniformity of Temperatures in Microwave Steam Heating of Lobster Tail

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The biennial Conference for Food Protection provides a formal process for all interested parties to influence food safety guidance. At a recent conference, an issue was raised culminating in a formal request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to change its Food Code recommendation for safe cooking of seafood using microwave energy when steaming was also employed. The request was to treat microwave steam cooked seafood as a conventionally cooked raw animal product rather than a microwave cooked product, for which the safe cooking recommendation is more extensive owing to the complex temperature distributions in microwave heating. The request was motivated by a literature study that revealed a more uniform temperature distribution in microwave steam cooked whole lobster. In that study, single-point temperatures were recorded in various sections of the whole lobster, but only one temperature was recorded in the tail, although the large size of the tail could translate to multiple hot and cold points. The present study was conducted to examine lobster tail specifically, measuring temperatures at multiple points during microwave steam cooking. Large temperature differences, greater than 60°C at times, were found throughout the heating period. To compensate for such differences, the Food Code recommends a more extensive level of cooking when microwave energy, rather than conventional heat sources, is used. Therefore, a change in the Food Code regarding microwave steam heating cannot be recommended.