MovieChat Forums > Food Fighters Discussion > Medium-rear pork that Cat Cora made...

Medium-rear pork that Cat Cora made...


I always been told that under cooked pork is dangerous to eat. I wouldn't have eaten it.

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Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

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I don't think she would've eaten it either if she were judging. It's raw when you can't even pull it apart. I wonder if Cora knew it was that under done.

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I don't think she would ruin her reputation by serving raw pork...at least I hope it wasn't raw, I don't know. Pink pork is gross to me.

I searched it online and apparently the USDA changes guidelines for cooking pork. USDA is stating that it's now safe to eat medium rear pork. Here's one article http://news.discovery.com/human/life/go-ahead-order-your-pork-chops-me dium-rare.htm I will not be cooking my pork medium rear and think it was a bad decision that Cora made. But I am happy the home cook won all the money.


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Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

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Medium rare seems to be the standard now. And I'm sure she knew whether it was raw or not. I really think it was a case of the judge being one of those folks who think pork is undercooked unless it is practically jerky

"I am allowed to think everyone is stupid for 10 minutes."-- Randy Susan Meyers

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She said it was also tough which made me think it was probably on the raw side. The camera showed the piece of pork and it looked undercooked to me the way it didn't look like it was pulling apart.

Cora probably didn't know that it was that raw. The meat could've cooked uneven since others ate the pork and didn't complain that it was raw. Cora's a great chef, but even on Iron Chef she sometimes loses. She's not perfect.

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Listen, that was one stuck in the mud home cook. She didn't like anything that was creative and outside her comfort zone.

Let's be real here. The show is set up for the home cooks to win. It's a stupid concept. I've seen 10 challenges and the home cook has won 9 times. Which you and I could do because we're selecting the dish and know it well. The professional is cooking on the fly.

So far, I am bored with the concept.

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All in all, this is also an incredibly pandering program with very little (if any) redeemable substance to support it. As you indicated, GingerSnap101, this show leans toward the easy way out for the home cooks and makes this like a game show. I highly recommend to anyone who does not already do so to watch Masterchef (where the challenges are much more complex and the show is actually played out as a competition over several weeks) in favor of this drivel.

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Medium rare seems to be the standard now
I honestly didn't think I would learn something from watching these type shows and surprisingly I did learn something.

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Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

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I didn't say she'd ruin her reputation as a chef, I meant that as a judge she wouldn't have eaten raw pork. The woman that said the pork was raw also said it was tough, so that meant it was undercooked. Medium rare pork it tender, raw pork is tough.

Most judges on cook shows decline eating undercooked pork fish, and chicken. she probably didn't know that piece was raw. So if Cora was judging the food and found the pork too undercooked for her tastes, she wouldn't have eaten it.

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I didn't say she'd ruin her reputation as a chef
Ok, understand what you are saying.

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Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

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Medium rare pork is safe to eat as long as it's not on the bone. People are just paranoid and used to eating way over done pork because they're awful home cooks. I grew up eating my moms ultra done pork chops as a kid and was amazed that properly cooked pork actually has juices in it and doesn't have the texture of cardboard.

Anyway...like I said as long as it's not on the bone it's safe to eat, the bacteria is on the surface and in the blood. So say a tenderloin...it should be cooked medium rare to medium and it will be perfectly safe to eat.

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Anyway...like I said as long as it's not on the bone it's safe to eat, the bacteria is on the surface and in the blood.


Bacteria is not and never has been the "problem" with undercooked pork any more than it is with any other form of meat. The problem is that pork can transmit parasites - specifically the worm that causes trichinosis in humans.

Freezing will kill some of the parasites that cause trichinosis (which is the same way raw fish is "treated" so that you don't get fish parasites eating sushi), but not all. And cooking pork to different temperatures will kill the parasites if you keep the pork at the right temperature for the right period of time.

So, it is more of a "know what you are doing" kind of thing and you'll be perfectly safe eating something other than cardboard pork.

Wikipedia has a chart that shows how long pork needs to be held at various temps to kill the trichinosis-causing parasites. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichinosis#Food_preparation.

Trichinosis used to be a big problem in the first world (and still is elsewhere), but that had more to do with how the animals were fed and cared for, which allowed the parasites to proliferate. The problem has been addressed so well in the US that there are fewer than a dozen cases a year and some if not most of those come from eating wild game that hasn't been cooked properly.

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That's true, but pork does carry the bacteria Yersinia enterocolitica, it's just not that dangerous as long as the meat is handled and cooked properly. So say a pork burger should never be cooked below medium. Also if it's processed in a plant where other animals are slaughtered there is occasional cross-contamination, but I don't think I've heard of that happening for well over a decade. Either way bacterial food poisoning in pork is far more common than parasites.

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