You can order a steak rare at a restaurant, no worries. They won’t serve you a hamburger that hasn’t reached temperature. There’s only one real difference; your steak has a miniscule chance the cow it came from was sick, while that hamburger has the bacteria of every cow that went into the meat grinder.
As per the other comments, we have thousands of cows per bottle of milk. 1000x the risk that someone drinking raw milk from their family farm has.
Cow muscle tissue is dense and difficult for bacteria to penetrate, with a single surface area (the outside) assuming safe handling and “edible freshness”. So cooking the outside to “rare” offers protection by cooking off surface or lightly penetrated bacteria.
Ground beef is soft and porous, with a massive surface area, much easier for bacteria to penetrate completely.
However, that aside, your analogy has a sound basis: more input sources = higher opportunity for corruption.
I thought this was extremely common knowledge. To see that the other person had been getting up voted for his comment at all was really surprising to me.
It’s not that there was even more information. It’s that yours is completely incorrect. There is zero to do with how many cows the meat came from. It is exclusively because the bacteria on the outside of the meat gets blended into the inside when it’s turned to hamburger, and that hamburger is more porous and bacteria can more easily travel through it.
Steak only has bacteria on the surface and only needs the surface to be seared, while hamburger, even from a single cow, has been mixed so that any bacteria is present throughout.
Of course, we’re better off today no doubt.
But let’s not act like this is ridiculously dangerous for humans to engage in.
It is though. It’s the mixing thing.
You can order a steak rare at a restaurant, no worries. They won’t serve you a hamburger that hasn’t reached temperature. There’s only one real difference; your steak has a miniscule chance the cow it came from was sick, while that hamburger has the bacteria of every cow that went into the meat grinder.
As per the other comments, we have thousands of cows per bottle of milk. 1000x the risk that someone drinking raw milk from their family farm has.
(Pedantic, but informative incoming)
That’s not the reason.
Cow muscle tissue is dense and difficult for bacteria to penetrate, with a single surface area (the outside) assuming safe handling and “edible freshness”. So cooking the outside to “rare” offers protection by cooking off surface or lightly penetrated bacteria.
Ground beef is soft and porous, with a massive surface area, much easier for bacteria to penetrate completely.
However, that aside, your analogy has a sound basis: more input sources = higher opportunity for corruption.
I thought this was extremely common knowledge. To see that the other person had been getting up voted for his comment at all was really surprising to me.
knowledge is never common any more.
Well hey I appreciate it, I genuinely thought what i wrote was the whole thing, I’m glad to know that there’s more, and the details behind it.
It’s not that there was even more information. It’s that yours is completely incorrect. There is zero to do with how many cows the meat came from. It is exclusively because the bacteria on the outside of the meat gets blended into the inside when it’s turned to hamburger, and that hamburger is more porous and bacteria can more easily travel through it.
Steak only has bacteria on the surface and only needs the surface to be seared, while hamburger, even from a single cow, has been mixed so that any bacteria is present throughout.
So you’re saying the steak tartare is off the menu?
Except it literally is. It’s literally why you’re here right now commenting. Scroll up and read the headline again.