Is It Safe To Eat Pork That's Still Pink In The Middle?

There are plenty of food safety rules to keep in mind when it comes to cooking meat. All meat is different in terms of how thoroughly it needs to be cooked and what its minimum internal temperature should be. Chicken, for example, should always be cooked to 165 degrees Fahrenheit and have no pink in the middle. A steak cooked to rare or medium temperature, on the other hand, is to be expected. But what about pork? It turns out this cut of meat will usually have some pink in the middle, and for the most part, it's still safe to eat — but you should always check the meat for proper doneness.

In order to eliminate all pathogens and potential bacteria from pork, it should be cooked to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, which means there is no pink in the middle. However, the USDA minimum internal temperature requirement for pork is only 145 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning you're likely to see a little bit of pink if you order the pork chop from a restaurant. That's because 145 degrees Fahrenheit is the requirement for killing pathogens like trichomoniasis, and the risk of running into any other harmful bacteria within the pork is extremely low.

When it comes to safely cooking pork, focus more on its temperature than its color. For something like a pork steak or chop, eating it with a little pink in the middle — assuming it's cooked to 145 degrees Fahrenheit — is no more of a health risk than eating a steak that's pink in the middle; the harmful bacteria are mostly on the meat's surface and don't penetrate into the center of the cut.

There is one cooking mistake that could ruin your pork: cooking all pork to 145 degrees Fahrenheit. Only pork chops and steaks can meet this minimum temperature. Any other kind of pork, such as ground pork (for example, meat loaf) or organs within the pork (liver, heart, etc.), the minimum USDA temperature is 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Ground pork means all parts of the meat have been exposed to potentially harmful bacteria, so it's important to cook it to a temperature that kills the bacteria.