Safety of raw meats

[JustJoel]

How safe is it to consume raw beef, compared to fish or chicken? Is carpaccio as safe or safer than, say, halibut sashimi? Which has less capacity to get you sick, beef tartare or ahi poke?

 

[CraigC]

We've eaten raw fish and raw beef and don't consider one safer than the other, the key factor is freshness. My father and older brother would eat raw ground beef straight from the grocery store. Sandwich bread, ground beef, thick slice of raw onion, salt and pepper. I never partook of that sandwich.

 

[medtran49]

I wouldn't eat tartare to begin with because it reminds me too much of things I saw when I would assist in surgery, which is why I will only eat burgers that are medium at minimum. But if I did, it would be from meat I ground up myself at home. Like Craig wrote though, we do eat carpaccio, tuna sushi/sashimi, various ceviches/crudos, very, very rare beef like beef tataki, etc.

 

[tenspeed]

Here's a simple explanation, and then you can decide how much risk you want to take.

Sushi and Raw Beef: Why Can't I Eat Raw Meat? | Time

 

[Bigjim68]

How safe is it to consume raw beef, compared to fish or chicken? Is carpaccio as safe or safer than, say, halibut sashimi? Which has less capacity to get you sick, beef tartare or ahi poke?

I won't eat store bought ground beef raw, but will make tartare with chopped meat I chop myself. Any pre ground meat is subject to too many indeterminents for my comfort.

 

[mozart]

Tenspeed's link has all the right answers. No ground meat is safe under 165 degrees even if you chop it at home. Freshness has nothing to do with pathogenic bacteria; either it is there or it isn't.

 

[GotGarlic]

Tenspeed's link has all the right answers. No ground meat is safe under 165 degrees even if you chop it at home. Freshness has nothing to do with pathogenic bacteria; either it is there or it isn't.

Freshness has a little to do with it - the longer a cut of meat or fish sits around, the more the pathogens reproduce. The more pathogens, the higher the likelihood of getting sick, or the more severe the sickness can be.

 

[Mad Cook]

How safe is it to consume raw beef, compared to fish or chicken? Is carpaccio as safe or safer than, say, halibut sashimi? Which has less capacity to get you sick, beef tartare or ahi poke?

Raw or under-cooked chicken should never be eaten.

If I was going to eat raw fish I'd want it to be spanking fresh ie it smelled of the sea NOT of fish!! A "fishy" smell is indicative of fish that is not fresh

I like very rare steak but I'd only eat it like that if I knew its provenance. I would never eat raw minced beef (eg steak tartare) unless I'd minced/ground it myself immediately before the meal.

 

[mozart]

Freshness has a little to do with it - the longer a cut of meat or fish sits around, the more the pathogens reproduce. The more pathogens, the higher the likelihood of getting sick, or the more severe the sickness can be.

Except that pathogens don't reproduce if held at proper tempts. They are not killed if present, but they don't reproduce.

 

[mozart]

Raw or under-cooked chicken should never be eaten.

If I was going to eat raw fish I'd want it to be spanking fresh ie it smelled of the sea NOT of fish!! A "fishy" smell is indicative of fish that is not fresh

I like very rare steak but I'd only eat it like that if I knew its provenance. I would never eat raw minced beef (eg steak tartare) unless I'd minced/ground it myself immediately before the meal.

Rare steak is not a problem because, as the above link explains, bacteria is not in the muscle, it is on the surface of cut meats if present. When you grind meats, that surface bacteria gets mixed in the inside of the burger or whatever. Grinding meat at home, and eating at less than fully cooked is probably safer than store bought, but not really safe unless you use a large cut and only grind after trimming off some of the outside.

 

[Magiccarp]

I wouldn't eat raw beef. I think it's because of my skepticism toward it. I mean, even in fish there could be some bacteria. The main point is you will never know if something "bad" is in any kind of meat. Sometimes, even if you grove it yourself.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

For fish to be eaten ras, it must be frozen at temps as listeThe by the FDA, that is: -4 degrees Fahrenheit for a minimum of seven days, or for 15 hours at a temperature of -31 degrees F. Raw f ish can contain parasites as well as bacteria, fungus, and other nasties. The extreme cold will kill the parasites and fungus, rendering these harmless.

Raw beef carries its contaminants on the meat surface, as was mentioned by the others before my post. There is one way to be absolutely sure that your raaw food is free of danderous micro-critters. If the food has been iradiated with gama rays, it will be safe to consume raw. In fact, iraduated foods, so long as they are properly packaged, even milk, need no refrigeration.

Me, I don't have a gamma ray emitter available to me, and so I will stick with cooked proteins. And remember, some micro-critters, such as E-Coli can be found in uncooked veggies as well as uncooked meat. I overheard a biologist once say that if people knew how many bad thngs there are out the that can hurt us, and are everywhere, they would be afraid to get out of bed.

Oh, but wait, bed isn't safe either. There might be dust mites, or bedbugs, or head lice, or, or, or...

The best we can do is follow safe practices as well as possible, and learn the science of food safety. There are numerous resources that teach food safety, and in depth enough to certify you.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[taxlady]

Someone shared a post a while back. IIRC, it was a BBQ enthusiast married to a food scientist. He would drop a chunk of beef into boiling water for a few (8? 12?) seconds to pasteurize the surface of the meat, then grind it for rare burgers. Sounds logical to me, but it would be good to look up how long it has to pasteurize for. There are charts for time and temperature for that on the interwebs.