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Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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I know it's not truly raw, but I remember camping and there were a group of Europeans. They were happily eating bacon out of the packet uncooked and I was quite taken aback. I guess they were too impatient to cook it.
It's probably been somewhat sterilized, although some people say it's still not safe. i myself have no desire to eat raw bacon. It wouldn't taste anywhere near as nice all hot and crisp, but I'm wondering if anyone does this? Is it maybe a cultural thing? Maybe the Europeans thought it was cured ham or something like that?
Location: somewhere between Lk. Michigan & Lk. Huron
5,585 posts, read 984,816 times
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Yucky, I would never consider eating raw bacon. Seems like it wouldn't take long before a person became sick from eating raw bacon. Never heard of anyone eating it raw.
First, yes it is relatively safe. It's not recommended, but it's not terribly dangerous.
American pork production and inspections are so good that the historical diseases people were once concerned about have essentially been eliminated in Government Inspected pork products.
Over a year ago the USDA even lowered the safe temperature for cooking pork 10 145 F for 3 minutes, and says fully cooked pork can be pink in the middle.
There just isn't any way I'm eating raw or undercooked pork, no matter the changes in parasite abatement methods, etc. I don't really see any rational for leaving pork undercooked. It's not like it improves the aesthetic.
Maybe the Europeans thought it was cured ham or something like that?
Bacon in other countries is quite different than American bacon, sometimes resembling ham, but not that different. I've never seen anyone eat raw bacon, anywhere. Maybe they were from some obsure country where it's commonly done, but it does sound weird. Or maybe they were just very inept campers and didn't know how to make a fire, or cook it if they did? You should have asked them what the heck they were doing.
A little OT, but I remember cooking bacon in a paper bag over a fire as a Girl Scout.
There just isn't any way I'm eating raw or undercooked pork, no matter the changes in parasite abatement methods, etc. I don't really see any rational for leaving pork undercooked. It's not like it improves the aesthetic.
Well, if you read the article you will see that at 145 F :
1) Pork is not undercooked. By USDA standards it is fully cooked. As the research showed:
"We found it was perfectly acceptable and that 160 was probably overkill," says Elisabeth Hagen, USDA's undersecretary for food safety.
Salmonella, not trichinosis, was "really the pathogen that we worry about the most in pork, so we had to be fully confident that salmonella would be killed," Hagen says.
"Those myths die hard," says Ceci Snyder, of the National Pork Board.
2) The asthetics are definitely improved, because the meat is juicier and more tender. And that's the point.
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