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If you have been cooking your meat until there is absolutely no pink in it for your entire life, you may be surprised to learn that sometimes a little pink is okay. Foods like steak are okay to enjoy with some pink and they may even taste better that way. Other foods such as chicken or pork might be okay to eat a little pink in certain cases. These guidelines may completely change what you think about pink meat!

The Meat That Is Okay To Eat Pink Includes:

Rare steaks are fine, ground beef is questionable
According to Hertz, danger zone on beef is the exterior layer where the most common E. coli strains and other pathogens breed. Searing a whole steak cut will kill most bad bacteria and sterilize the meat, but Higgins are more skeptical because other strains have the potential to contaminate the whole muscle.

Part of how chefs can get away with serving rare steaks or steak tartar is by carefully sourcing their proteins. Aizen goes so far as to suggest never consuming factory-farmed animals, even when fully cooked, because the risks of contamination are so much higher.

This is especially true with ground beef. Hertz cited a stat that a low-quality burger patty could contain meat from up to 283 cows, which aside from being a weirdly specific number, also makes it hard to trust that no susceptible surface-level muscle ended up in the mix.

Poultry has risks , but is a gray zone
Hertz suggested most dangerous bacteria in chicken lives on the outside of the meat. Therefore many restaurants cook under the suggested temperature in order to maintain a juicy interior.

When we consulted the other nutritionists, both threw up red flags, citing a serious risk of salmonella.

FDA suggests heating to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, but Hertz has noticed many restaurants settle for 160 degrees Fahrenheit in order to maintain moisture levels without compromising safety.

The risk is there in pork
Rare pork used to be associated with a high risk of trichinella parasites because factory pigs ate literal garbage. Livestock dietary regulations have largely solved this problem, so the FDA's internal-temperature advisory has dropped over time from 165 degrees to 145 degrees. the E. coli risks are still real, so commodity pork should be cooked with care.

Fish is another story
According to Hertz, seafood is more vulnerable to parasites than land-based proteins but modern supply-chain techniques like flash freezing have cut down significantly on the risk. If seafood does have parasites, cooking thoroughly won't rid the meat of them. This means that rareness doesn't even matter.

If You Like Your Meat A Little More On The Rare Side Then It's Okay!

These guidelines will make cooking a bit easier and will make you feel better if you see a little pink. Did you know about these guidelines already?

Let Us Know Your Thoughts!

Article Source: Thrillist