Amen on adults being able to decide for themselves. Why can't North Carolina restaurants do like I've seen elsewhere (like where I am, one state to the west): post on the menu that the restaurant is not responsible if you get sick ordering meat below a certain temperature. The diner gets what he wants and the restaurant isn't held liable. There are even restaurants that won't cook meat above a certain temperature because it loses its flavor. I don't support that, because I think a diner should be able to get what he wants (within reason), but it illustrates that some or most meats just aren't as good cooked at higher temperatures.

I think meat is icky, but you should be able to eat it any way you want as long as you assume responsibility for the potential consequences. Restaurants should have an informed consent policy.

Were I used to live ever menu had a warning that said something like "Eating undercooked or raw beef, pork, chicken, eggs.... may cause serious illness."

still, for a burger you could generally only get a little pink in the middle. For a steak, a bit more than that. A co-worker who really liked his meat rare told me that some places would slowly give it to you rarer if you kept going there...got to know him I guess or something. Apparently the places are still worried about getting sued.

A place I used to go to only did there burgers well (and given it was rather fast-foody, that is all I would want from there) and they were still excellant tasting though the texture was changed. Even some of my friends who liked things rarier thought that places burgers were good. The owner claimed it was the fresh (never forzen) local beef that made the difference.

Good update to the rules (though it should be unnecessary for those who want the choice). I like my pork chop / loin just right between medium / medium rare.

For steak, rare / medium rare (I don't mind rarer in principle, but it's usually cool, and I like my steak warm).

Burgers, medium well, if I don't know the providence of the meat (who knows what random meat is involved), but medium rare / medium if I trust the source, or if I grind it myself.

Here (OK), at least, most of the places I go to don't have any issues with however you want it cooked (standard disclaimer on menu).

The FDA meat-inspection program is severely underfunded, and more or less an ally of the meat-processing industry, rather than its taskmaster. If meatpackers could be relied on to supply untainted meat, restrictions on restaurants could be lifted. As it is today, you are playing roulette with your digestive system if you dine out and order rare meat.

It's getting increasingly difficult to get eggs "over easy," or even "over medium" in a restaurant these days. Good reason not to eat out, which my family and I do much less of lately, anyway. However, there are a lot of people who don't have as much choice in eating out as I do.

One thing I wish "they" would require is clear disclosure when "meat glue" (transglutaminase) is used, because it invalidates the idea that it's safe to eat steaks rare. When "meat glue" is used, parts of the meat that were previously on the outside (and thus open to contamination) are undetectably placed in the inside of the steak and thus don't get hot enough during the cooking to kill the bacteria. Not to mention that you may be ordering a nice juicy steak and are instead getting tenderized, stuck-together stew meat.

So, while I certainly am against the "gub-mint" requiring our food to be cooked in a certain way, I don't think it's out of bounds to ask that if we think we are buying meat, it actually BE all meat and not meat-with-transglutaminase glop. Otherwise, we are deciding based on incomplete information.

By the way, you can be sure that ANY lunch meat, wieners or other deli meat contains "meat glue" to hold together the scraps they swept up off the floor.

I enjoyed raw milk in Philadelphia. Can' get it here though.

"I eat nearly raw meat at home and at restaurants and have been for
years, and it hasn't killed me yet."

Yeah, and NASA sent up the shuttle many times in marginal conditions
with the "never had any trouble (yet)" mindset.

You may even be right, but "hasn't killed me yet" isn't a valid
substitute for knowing what the odds are. Most people who
religiously use safety belts in cars have never experienced any
direct benefit, either. If they used the "hasn't killed me yet"
argument, they might not go to the bother of belting up.

Wegmans sells irradiated ground beef, which is sufficient to kill the bacteria that cause these illnesses. The luddites don't like that either.

I've taken to grinding my own "hamburger" out of steaks. Actually, I grind steak and bacon together (at about a 2-1 ratio of steak to bacon) to make the most incredible bacon burgers I've ever had. Seriously. The bacon is in the burger itself. Damn 'at's good eats!
Amy, if you and Gregg ever get to hang out in the NoVa, I promise I'll make you a batch.

Actually, I grind steak and bacon together (at about a 2-1 ratio of steak to bacon) to make the most incredible bacon burgers I've ever had.

Have you considered making sausage?

That sounds like the perfect bacon cheeseburger. Beef and bacon, uncontaminated by spoiled milk.

As a Texan I endorse this message: "Just wipe its ass, knock off its horns, and throw it on a plate."

I R A Darth Aggie,
No. There are so many really good commercially available sausages that the trouble of stuffing skins was more than I would really want to go through.
But I hadn't thought of sausage-fying the "bacon burger" to be honest. Hmmm. (pondering) I may give that a try if I can borrow the stuffing equipment. Thanks for the idea!

A friend used to describe how he would order steak thus: "Take the steak, hold it over the grill, and explain to it the concept of fire. Then bring it to me."

I find the older I get, the more rare I like my beef. Generally I prefer pork done all the way through.

Vincent: "But bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good."

Jules: "Yeah, and sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'll never know 'cause I'll never eat the filthy mofo."

Considering modern swine and cattle feedlot conditions, I'd say Jules is on to something.

I just got a couple of cows back from slaughter, one came back at 945lbs and one came back at 1280lbs, not sure if that included the paper they were wrapped in or not.

I like cooking my steaks to the point the outside looks brown and feels like wet rough leather and just a milimeter or two beneath is blood red, piping hot and the juice that comes out looks as red as my blood the time I hit an artery

'"I don't believe in a nanny state when it comes to food," said Elliot'

Seriously, fuck this dude. He's just like the "we should raise taxes but not on me" or the "cut spending except the program that sends money to me.

The minute the nanny state affects him he doesn't see the reason for it but I'm sure he supports other nannyism. How do people not see how this works? If you support the nanny state to stop other people from doing stuff you don't like it will come back to haunt you because there are people out there who will try and stop you from what you are doing because they dont like. Give the state the power and they will abuse it, even against you.