The USDA has made official what many cooks have known for years, mainly that pork does not have to be cooked to shoe leather to be safe.
Story here.
The new guideline is 145F and a three minute rest before serving.
If you have never cooked pork to that low a temp, get a digital thermometer and try it, you will be amazed at how juicy it can be.
About time! Not like I ever followed USDA guidelines anyway, but now maybe people won’t freak when I pull the chops before they turn into charcoal briquets.
I wish it were that easy. I’m afraid that overcooked pork is a tradition of our generation as well as our generation’s generation, ad infinitum. We can only hope that the children of the next generation don’t listen to us and cook it right.
Now, now. I’m around 60 and grew up with the idea that pork must be thoroughly cooked. Nevertheless, for decades I’ve been preparing pork chops a bit pink inside. Sure beats the dry ones my mom made.
Finally!
pinkish pork just doesn’t taste as good as whitish. different from beef.
Throw it in a crockpot with beer as nature intended.
Beg to differ. I don’t like it super rare, but definitely think it’s much better when it’s not white all the way through.
^
fine with me, but i’m also an avid wild boar hunter and i’d rather burn the meat to a crisp than risk any pinkish juice inside that’ll cost me another 5 days in the hospital.
But you’re talking about two completely different things, despite sharing the same name.
“Pork” that most people eat is supermarket-reared meat, brought up in sanitary circumstances, taken from animals that are barely a couple of years old (if that) that have no contact with wild animals whatsoever. It’s a very safe meat that’s got a lot of stigma against it because of issues from the past.
Boar, which some people refer to as pork, is a wild meat, from animals of uncertain providence that may or may not have been exposed to diseases and parasites over the course of their lives. In that case, yes it is prudent to cook the meat to a further extreme.
got it, but my real point is, this new development will drastically change one’s mental state concerning eating.
how many here agree with me when i say the two greatest joys of eating are rare beef and well-done pork? and how many will curl their eyebrows if this were to change?
I have been cooking it the “new” way for about 10 years … I don’t like my pork dried out to leather. If I wanted jerkey I would make jerkey.
but i’m sure you or your mom would know how to bring pork chops up to 165F internal temperature and it’s still be tender and juicy. 
The problem isn’t just cooking it too much; the pork you get at the supermarket is bred to be too lean and shot up with “solution”. Try some non-factory-farmed pork sometime and you can taste the difference.
I got asked if I’d like my pork rare, at a restaurant in Atlanta 20 years ago. Freaked me out a bit. I guess I have to re-educate myself.
It all stems from fear of tapeworm eggs, doesn’t it?
Since living in Spain in the 80s, I have cooked pork as they do. “A su punto justo” to just the right point.
Roasted fried, simmered sauted.
Never a health problem or concern.
Nice to know the FDA has “adjusted” their standards.
Sorta. Its trichinosis that people are worried about, and it is a parasitic worm.
Yes, trichinosis is the fear with pork, but it’s been absent from the domestic pork supply in the US for decades now. The only cases of trichinosis in recent memory have come from game - wild boar and the like.
This is great to hear–I actually cooked a pork tenderloin the other day @ 325 for 45 minutes, took it out at about 140, and it was slightly pink & perfect. Always try to let it rest at least 15 minutes, though. I do agree that a lot of people will still overcook the hell out of pork.
Right, which is why most of us that know this have been eating pork about medium temperature for years now.