I like my steak bloody, but my burgers well-done. Undercooked mince makes me nervous.
Thanks for clarifying for me- I meant that meat, being muscle, is sterile while in the animal. Muscles don’t usually have bacteria in them. It has to become contaminated in order to be unsafe, and that simply should not be happening.
Whether your meat minced or served as a whole leg, if hygiene standards have been maintained, there should be no problem. The animal is skinned in such a way that the meat isn’t contaminated, it is gutted in a way which prevents leakage from the gut, and the meat is hung in a sterile cold room. All workers wear gloves and masks, and all knives are supposed to be sterilised- in a properly run slaughterhouse and butchery there should be minimal contamination of the meat.
Like I say, I like steak tartare, carpaccio and very rare burgers and steaks and it’s never made me ill.
Things that have made me ill: cinema hotdogs, kebabs from the dodgy kebab shop, and sandwiches from a deli where the potato salad wasn’t as fresh as it was supposed to be. In none of those times was my illness due to raw or undercooked meat, and in the case of the kebabs and hotdogs, they were cooked thoroughly through.