The tenderest steak I’ve ever had was cooked to well-done over an outdoor grill (I don’t know what cut it was), and I’ve also had cute cut cooked medium rare. Yes, the well-done steak was significantly more tender than the cute cut, which is no surprise: If raw meat were as tender as cooked, cows would collapse from trying to stand.
This makes absolutely no sense.
But feel free to beat your own drum, ignoring all the objective measures of tenderness and citations given in this thread and believe what you will. Just don’t have the chutzpah to tell us that we’re the ones fooling ourselves.
Nobody does that and nobody expects anyone to. That language on the package is strictly a legal CYA.
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I’ve been dealing with this problem for the past 5 years as part of Meals on Wheels and a couple of other projects. We need to be sure our clients heat their food to 165, very few do. Most people nuke something until the outside is boiling, then stir it until the frozen part melts, then eat it. A lot of our clients put in the microwave for a few minutes then forget entirely until the next day at which point they nuke it again. A lot of clients leave them on the counter to thaw, then nuke it just enough to warm it through. Everyone is provided with a thermometer, taught how to use it, no one does.