# Burgers should be brown! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 22, 2006, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787 "2006-06-22T23:08:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/21 "2006-06-23T01:45:07Z")
I don’t think that people who like their beef pink or red are in danger of getting sick, I just think it’s _gross_! 😛 [QUOTE=katie1341] I had a disconcerting experience at a Ruby Tuesdays recently, though. I ordered a turkey burger, and the waitress asked me how I wanted it done. :eek: [/QUOTE] I was going to write this in response to **HelloNinja** ’s line about chicken, but quoting your post is more appropriate: I was on a business trip in Florida once, at a Tuesdays-like chain, and the waitress asked me how I wanted my chicken cooked. My _chicken_. I gave her a " :dubious: " look until she realized what she’d asked. I was really nice about it, though, because she was obviously very new to waitressing (not just because of that question). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/22 "2006-06-23T01:58:05Z")
Oh man. Slightly off-topic, the bagger at the grocery store was about to throw in my goud cheese - which I was planning to eat as is, of course - with my uncookech chicken. Blegh. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/23 "2006-06-23T02:12:15Z")
Burgers, I like a bit of pink in the middle. Steaks, throw them on the grill till they quit mooing. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/24 "2006-06-23T02:30:26Z")
Burgers and steaks should be a little pink in the middle. If I want raw meat I’ll make Steak Tartare. ---
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/25 "2006-06-23T04:33:55Z")
I used to take my burgers medium well and my steaks medium rare. However, I had a steak on Tuesday and medium-rare tasted overcooked. I’ve also been ordering my burgers medium lately. Strangely enough, I don’t mind well done meat either as long as it’s a cheaper cut. As far as fish goes, I like my tuna and salmon seared only. Fully cooked tastes too strong, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/26 "2006-06-23T05:59:40Z")
I prefer my steak rare but will eat it anywhere short of burnt and prefer my burger medium well but chance it rarer and, again, will eat it anywhere short of burnt. I’m not particularly picky. ---
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/27 "2006-06-23T12:14:59Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] I’ve never gotten sick from food, and the chances of it even with shit covered meat are so absurdly small, I refuse to let myself be bullied by the Food Police. I’m going to die someday, I’d rather eat yummy meat until then. [/QUOTE] Hoo, boy. Get back to me after your first memorable experience with food poisoning, and let me know how you feel about that “Food Police” theory. ---
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/28 "2006-06-23T12:16:35Z")
Oh, and I’m a well-done carnivore myself. Not because of my experience with underdone meat, though. My food poisoning experience comes from restaurant nachos and Stouffers spich quiche. ---
**Author:** ![Who\_me\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/958977/32.png) [@Who\_me\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Who_me_1)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/29 "2006-06-23T12:23:50Z")
I like my steak as rare as I can get it and I’ve eaten my burgers rare on occasion also, although I don’t chance it often. If you cook my steak well done, chances are that it won’t get eaten. ---
**Author:** ![blinkingblinking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@blinkingblinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinkingblinking)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/30 "2006-06-23T12:28:15Z")
Everyone knows that burgers must be well-done, right ? As for steak…I have known two guys who worked as butchers. They always ate steak well-done. They know where the meat could have been, and where it could have come from. That is what they told me. I do not know whether it is true. ---
**Author:** ![Aholibah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Aholibah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aholibah)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/31 "2006-06-23T12:45:19Z")
For steak, I’m very nearly in the Gollum camp: “Give it to me rrrrraw, and wrrrrrrrigggling!” OK, not really. But I do like a cool red center. If I order it rare in a restaurant and it comes out medium I’m going to be severely annoyed, and may send it back if I have enough time. If it comes out medium well or well, it’s definitely going back, because I simply cannot enjoy a steak that’s been cooked that much. For a burger, I prefer some pink in the middle, but I really don’t care that much. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/32 "2006-06-23T12:45:25Z")
I like my steak blue, rare at a pinch. I like my burgers rare, provided I’m cooking (and If I’m making burgers, I have my butcher mince the steak in front of me, I don’t use ready made minced meat). I’ll take shop-bought burgers and burgers in restaurants medium-rare. If the centre is anything except pink and bloody, I don’t want it. Meat is sterile, the only way it could be contaminated is if hygiene in the abattoir is not up to standard, or the animal is gutted incorrectly. Even so, any contamination is on the outside, so rare steak is fine. Hell, steak tartare is usually perfectly safe! I know and trust my butcher, and he knows exactly where his meat comes from, so I’m comfortable not cooking it all the way through. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/33 "2006-06-23T14:30:44Z")
[QUOTE=singular1] Hoo, boy. Get back to me after your first memorable experience with food poisoning, and let me know how you feel about that “Food Police” theory. [/QUOTE] But that’s my point. 31 years and nothing besides the occasional diarrhea. I’ve always eaten meat very rare, even as a little kid. Either I’m exceedingly lucky, my body’s somehow immune to e. coli and listeria, or the risk has been overstated. I suspect the latter. Not to turn this into a Great Debate, but have you actually seen the statistics? > [@](#): > > An estimated 73,480 illnesses due to E. coli O157 infection occur each year in the United States, leading to an estimated 2,168 hospitalizations and 61 deaths annually (5), and it is an important cause of acute renal failure in children 61 deaths. There’s more deaths each year from [kids drowning in backyard pools.](http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:V1vHWc7zlSwJ:www.cpsc.gov/library/FOIA/foia06/os/drownMemo.pdf+pool+drowning+deaths+us+per+year&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a) Heck, more people died from the [Firestone tred seperation issue.](http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:64260188/Tire+investigation+widens,+62+deaths.html?refid=SEO) I’m just saying each one of us draws our own personal line for acceptable risk. I’m exceedingly careful with poultry and dairy, with preventing cross-contamination in my kitchen and keeping all foods out of the “Danger Zone” heatwise. Not so much with beef. I do grind my own ground beef from larger cuts I find on sale, but that’s about all the concession to my quality of life I’m willing to make. I’ll be more than happy to cook yours well-shoe leather if you’re over for dinner, but mine’s going to be bleeding. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/34 "2006-06-23T14:34:38Z")
All red meat is supposed to be eaten blood-rare. Burning perfectly good meat is just uncultured and wrong. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/35 "2006-06-23T14:54:06Z")
[QUOTE=Kiros] Burgers should have some pink left in them. Honestly, they taste great with a little red, but there’s that whole problem with getting sick and dying. [/QUOTE] But try getting them that way in a restaurant nowadays. I have. They won’t do it. Too concerned about liability if you get sick. Steaks you can get rare, but burgers have to be cooked all through. I like my steaks medium to medium-rare. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/36 "2006-06-23T14:59:27Z")
I’ve never gotten sick from rare meat. I’m a stickler for freezing pork before I cook it (which kills pork tapeworms and other nasty parasites), and cooking it well, I always cook chicken through (although I like duck pink), but my beef is always going to be barely cooked, and my lamb pink. If I’m cooking tuna, that gets frozen, properly defrosted, and cooked to rare too. Organ meats, I cook thoroughly, but that’s only because I don’t like the texture of rare liver and kidneys. Seriously, I had to take 2 years of microbiology, and there is very little risk from properly prepared, good quality meat. Cheap meat, badly prepared, improperly stored, improperly defrosted, re-frozen or cross-contaminated, sure, you’ll have problems- a nice fresh steak that goes from your butcher to your plate on the same day, not a huge issue. A lot of food poisoning is coliform, and most of that, dare I say it, is from the badly washed hands of food preparation staff, rather than from the meat itself. Certainly Staph Aureus food poisoning is very common, and that is a skin commensal, usually found in food through cross contamination by human hands. Also, think about people who get sick after a burger and salad- was it because the burger wasn’t cooked through, or is it because the person used the same chopping board for the salad and the meat, without washing it properly in between? Or perhaps they were making the burger patties before chopping the salads, without washing their hands properly in between. More often it’s not the cooked meat, it’s the germs from the hands or the raw meat that have got transferred onto something raw or already cooked. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/37 "2006-06-23T15:01:39Z")
Burgers should be cooked to the exact specification of the person who is going to consume them, whether pink, brown, black, cinder-ash, or still mooing. 🙂 Personally, yea, I’m of the “cooked until _just_ brown” variety. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/38 "2006-06-23T15:07:02Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] But try getting them that way in a restaurant nowadays. I have. They won’t do it. Too concerned about liability if you get sick. Steaks you can get rare, but burgers have to be cooked all through. I like my steaks medium to medium-rare. [/QUOTE] Hmm… Every Fuddruckers and Chee-burger Chee-burger joint I’ve been in (southeast and midwest) they always ask how you want your burger done. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/39 "2006-06-23T15:13:29Z")
[QUOTE=irishgirl] Meat is sterile, the only way it could be contaminated is if hygiene in the abattoir is not up to standard, or the animal is gutted incorrectly. [/QUOTE] This is wrong. Meat is certainly not sterile once it is removed from the animal; it’s pretty much impossible for _anything_ to be sterile, except perhaps in parts of an operating theatre. Food poisoning pathogens are widely distributed in the environment; they’re in the guts of animals, they’re in soil and dust, they’re on your skin (even if you are clean and healthy), their spores are airborne. The reason we’re not constantly sick is that they are not normally present in sufficient populations to overwhelm our defences. They are able to build up to dangerous population levels in the presence of three factors: food, time, warmth - the moment a piece of meat is cut and handled or left exposed for a moment, it will have pathogenic bacteria on it - the only thing to do from then on is to prevent these bacteria from reproducing by eating it promptly and/or storing it at a temperature that retards their growth. ---
**Author:** ![Kiros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/439d5e/32.png) [@Kiros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiros)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2006, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787/40 "2006-06-23T15:20:22Z")
[QUOTE=Hampshire] Hmm… Every Fuddruckers and Chee-burger Chee-burger joint I’ve been in (southeast and midwest) they always ask how you want your burger done. [/QUOTE] Yeah, but practically, BG is right - there’s the exception that will do exactly what you want, but generally the only acceptable responses to that question are medium or higher… and especially at the chain places, it’ll end up at least medium regardless of what you ask for. At least in my experience. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burgers-should-be-brown/361787.md?page=3)