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From a safety standpoint, ground beef isn’t supposed to be undercooked. Ground beef shouldn’t be consumed “rare”.
But cooked properly does not equate to dry. Ground beef and steak are two different things. You can have a juicy burger that is still cooked all the way through.
Steak can be eaten rare because searing the outside will kill any harmful bacteria. But with ground beef, the way it is processed means that any potential harmful bacteria is mixed throughout, and as such the meat needs to all be cooked to a certain temperature throughout.
Exactly it! Its ground beef, it all actually needs to be cook. But if you wanted to say a medium steak and medium burger are entirely different i could roll with you on that.
Not exactly. Your definition of a properly cooked burger results in a dry slab of meat. The ground beef being so cooked that it comes out dry is not a requirement.
When and where did I say it has to be dry?
You spoke against the idea that a burger can be juicy w/o sauce while still being cooked properly.
You guys need to learn how to cook. You can cook a perfectly juicy hamburger that isn't pink and without adding anything to it. The trick is to sear both sides then throw a lid over it while lowering the heat some. Comes out juicy every time.
To have a thoroughly cooked yet juicy steak, you can do the same idea or marinade it first.
And for the love of everything use a damn meat thermometer.
Nope, I suggested adding worcstershire to the beef before cooking, because you should anyways, but for people who can't imagine a thoroughly cooked burger also being juicy. Of course if its so cooked its dry, its also bad.
Worcestershire said tastes like shit though. No sauce “should” be required for any kind of meat if you’re cooking it well.
Well, it's true that you dont need sauce. However soaking a burger in some Worcestershire and soy sauce can be amazing
Wtf? You don't need it to get a juicy burger. I do it all the time.
Yes but high quality beef you are probably fine. It’s not like chicken
Well done also doesn’t equate to dry.
Yep. Also from a food safety standpoint, ground beef should be cooked all the way through.
I always thought it was ok for some types of beef not to have to be cooked all the way through.
I mean if it was a safety issue, most/all restaurants would certainly just cook it all the way through.
It really depends on if you’re grinding the meat yourself or not. Prepackaged ground meat isn’t safe to eat without being fully cooked, but if you’re buying a normal cut of meat and grinding it up yourself then it’s not really a big deal. Plus the internal temperature is what matters, not the color
It's ok if it's freshly ground.
This isn't really true though, wouldn't even be an option to get a burger with pink in the middle at restaurants if it were.
And those restaurants all (at least the ones I've seen) have warnings in the menu about undercooked meat. If you want it "medium", they'll do it...but the warning is there.
Sure there's a warning, what I'm saying is if it was really that dangerous it wouldn't even be offered.
Some places freshly grind their meat and serve burgers med-rare unless you ask otherwise. They will give a warning not because you're taking a risk, but because some people may complain, because they don't know that it's perfectly safe if handled correctly.
and ive never gotten sick from it nor known anyone whos gotten sick from it
Anecdotes are not statistics.
Food safety is all about probability. Just because you skirt the food safety guidelines doesn't mean you'll automatically get sick. For example, not every chicken is infected with salmonella. It's entirely possible to eat raw or undercooked chicken, and get lucky enough to not contract salmonella. However, the process by which chickens are slaughtered exposes every single chicken to salmonella contamination. That's why chicken always gets cooked to 165F. The probability of salmonella is too high to risk eating medium rare chicken.
For ground beef, the risk is there if you don't cook a ground beef patty all the way through. But, the risk is low enough that restaurants can let their customers take the risk. It's the same with sushi or sashimi. There's a risk of getting sick from eating raw fish, but it's low enough that people can eat sushi or sashimi if they want to.
That's all my point is. There would be a hard line drawn like with chicken by those who draw up the health guidelines if it were that dangerous.
You can't, not in Canada at least. If you serve an undercooked burger here, you'll get a fine.
As another commenter pointed out, they have disclaimers.
It also depends on the municipal health codes in the area. In some places it’s a violation to offer fresh hand formed patties unless you grind the meat in house. You have to use pre-made.
??? D people seriously not know that they need to cook burgers thoroughly? For anyone who doesn't know: you can eat a steak rare because you are still cooking the outside which is exposed to bacteria, while the inside is not exposed. Hamburger meat, however, has been ground up so the exposed outside and the unexposed inside is mixed together, so all of it must be cooked well done.
Nearly 20 years as a chef across Canada and the US and you are correct except for in many jurisdictions fresh ground beef meaning ground on site at time of consumption can be cooked as low as medium rare and even lower in a few jurisdictions.
When I go to restaurants they ask how you want it cooked as if it's a steak. And I'm like it's ground beef, I want it cooked through but that doesn't mean fucking black and charred like they often assume when you ask for it well done (I just ask for medium well, but thats what goes through my head). But point is, a lot of people don't know consider the food industry is asking me how I want my burger cooked ffs...
Wrapping an overcooked burger in tin foil just keeps cooking it, you’re still losing all the juice in the cooking and resting process.
Anything other than well done is extremely uncommon in Canada. You're not killing the E.coli if you don't cook it all the way through.
If it's shit quality ground beef burger yeah cook it well done but if it's a burger with ground sirloin or whatever it's fines cooking it medium
Nah. I like it medium. I like steaks rare.
Ground beef is not steak, it isn’t safe to consume undercooked.
Bacteria can grow on the surface of the meat, which can make people sick.
A steak only has bacteria on the outside which is immediately killed when you grill/cook the outside of it.
But when beef is ground, all the surface area is chopped or ground up and the bacteria on the surface is mixed throughout the meat. So, ground beef must be cooked more thoroughly to ensure all the bacteria is killed before being eaten.
It’s safe enough for restaurants to be allowed within established safety standards to cook it with a little pink in the middle otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to ask how you want it cooked
And in countries with proper food safety laws, they're not allowed to do this.
I don't care
Sounds good, I’m gonna eat my unsafe but delicious burger meat and enjoy every bite.
A properly cooked burger doesn’t mean it needs to be dry. Idk why that’s confusing. Properly cooked ground beef can still be juicy.
I never said that. I don’t like the texture of a well done burger. I also like the blood in a not well done burger.
Ground beef doesn’t need to be “well done” to be cooked to a safe internal temperature.
Ground beef doesn’t follow the same principles with steak. It’s either cooked or not cooked. There is no grading of “how” cooked.
No matter how much ground beef is cooked, the texture is not going to be the same as steak.
Dude I’m going to enjoy my burgers with pink inside because I like it that way. Let me get e.coli or whatever and die at 34 years old happy.
There is definitely grading. Lots and lots of steps between raw and charcoal.
Blue cheese has mold in it
Why don’t people eat raw or undercooked chicken then?
The reason we cook meat to a specific temperature is to kill any bacteria. The vast majority of the bacteria comes from the intestines. The slaughtering process of the cow keeps the meat pretty clean, removing the intestines prior to butchering. The slaughtering process for birds is not so clean. Almost all of the meat gets easily coated in the intestinal juices because the butchering process is very messy. Thats why we cook chicken to done no matter what, but when cooking beef, its less risky, and any meat unexposed, like steak, can be cooked to lower temp pretty safely. Even the parts that make ground beef are exponentially more safe than chicken, it’s why people can eat tartar and don’t get sick. I’m not justifying undercooked beef, I’m simply saying all beef is safer than chicken at any temperature.
Because undercooked chicken isn't the same thing as rare beef. They're two completely different meats with different properties. Even different birds can be cooked to different temps. Poultry should always be well done and is unappetizing when it's medium rare, but duck cooked to medium is delicious
Duck can be cooked to and served rare or medium. It is considered a red meat.
And it's incredible when you cook it that way. Overcooked duck is a travesty, especially when it's one you shot yourself. My buddy shot a duck last year and cooked it like chicken and complained it wasn't good. Let him try the duck I got on that same trip and you should have seen his face. He realized he'd wasted that duck and I don't think he's ever felt so bad about anything in his life lol
I watched Roy Choy on chef show and there was a segment where they helped prep duck med rare and it was one of the more enticing foods I saw on that show.
Blue cheese has mold in it
They do in some countries
That’s the real unpopular opinion here. “Chicken is okay to eat undercooked”.
I've been eating ground beef medium for my entire life and never been sick from it.
If someone wants their burger cooked well done I'll happily do it for them. If they want it less than that I'm gonna treat them like an adult that's capable of accepting risk and cook it however the hell they want.
It's safe to eat it if it's ground steak if you go to an actually good burger place they have freshly ground sirloin or waygu burgers
Any beef that is ground before it’s cooked is unsafe to consume w/o it reaching a certain internal temperature (which is around 160F).
But again, properly cooked ground beef doesn’t mean it’s dry.
Well if the cow is raised and butchered well and things are astonishingly fresh you can do it. I mean the Germans eat raw ground pork with raw onions on bread. It’s a German comfort food called “Mett”
All meat itself is safe to eat completely raw, it’s the bacteria that can grow from butchering processes that make it unsafe, and it’s just more efficient to butcher poorly and require people to cook it to a certain temperature.
It's safe to eat a medium burger if it's high quality meat and not the absolute garbage that is American mass produced ground beef pumped full of hormones and antiboitics
It's fine if it's fresh. Steak tartare, fully raw beef in that dish.
Eh, I like to live a little dangerously, especially if it takes me to flavortown.
Not when some people assume that means you want it crunchy. First time someone at a restaurant asked me how I wanted a burger cooked, rare and well-done were the only answers I could think of and that burger was just shy of charcoal. I’ll only go as high as medium well now.
I’m kind of with you somewhat in theory.
I like medium-medium well.
I prefer my stakes medium rare.
Though, a well done burger is too dry.
I bought a meat grinder so I can cook burgers to any temp I want. Most people still want theirs cooked through, but my sanitized meat grinder quickly processing some beef before immediate cooking isn't going to be any more dangerous than a med rare steak. I'm not cooking them super rare either, just a bit of pink in the middle like a nice medium/medium well.
Genuinely bad opinion, upvoted
You do not need to cook meat well-done to ensure it is safe to eat, which is the premise of this argument. If you cook beef to 140° for 12 minutes it's considered safely pasteurized according to the FDA.
Nope. Take my upvote, you uncultured person.
Sure, if you wanna be safe, the risks are pretty low. Safe, yes, right, not really. If you grind your own meat, it doesn't even apply.
I'm gonna have to ask you politely and firmly to leave
My goal for burgers is a quick sear then a slower cook to medium well. Touch as little as possible.
First, burgers can be made from all sorts of meat. Second, steak tartar is much tastier than a well-cooked ground beef burger.
The only way I would think a burger would be better well done is if it were made from bear meat or some other game meet that needed to be fully cooked for safety.
I feel like if you're comparing burgers and steak tartar, you might not be grasping the "different foods are different".
I'm just imagining someone saying "Hey, I'm making tartar, you want some?" and then serving it to me between two buns with a slice of tomato. I don't know what I'd do, but I would definitely not let that person cool again.
You are correct that my comparison was not completely parallel. Think of it as being hyperbolic. My point was that uncooked beef is delicious. Burgers, less so. So I vote to keep at least some of that deliciousness in your burger.
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If that is the way you like it.
I always liked crunchy on the outside, char broiled burgers. They were still juicy in the inside.
Any regular ground meat (factory) should be cooked well (160)to kill the bacteria and (possible) rodent feces.
If you are careful and grinding safe meat then you can play with temperature.
Hence Steak tartare
Depends on the quality of the ground beef. Nobody eats steak tartare?
With store bought ground beef sure. But if you're grinding your own, as is the case in a good restaurant burger, then medium or medium-well is great. Especially if its a grind with sirloin etc.
If this is unpopular, I don't wanna be popular.
why would this be an unpopular opinion? eating grounded beef that hasn't been fully cooked is a death sentence
lol
Except for when they said b**ch, I definitely read this in Hank Hill's voice 😂
Commercial or fresh ground?
No
Reading the comments, you know that temp/color are two different things?
Rare is 135F, well done 165F, i have cooked burgers to temp, that still have some red in the middle.
If you grind the beef fresh you can undercook it. If you buy it ground then you have to cook it through.
I want that shit mooing or I’m not eating it
I like my steak well done. Just tastes better. Maybe slight tint of red in the middle. And I was always confused why some restaurants as how you want your burger cooked. Like cook it like a fuckin burger?
Or, only order hamburgers from places that grind their meat daily, on site. Will be safe that way. And delicious.
Steak is from one cow and the bacteria is on the surface (unless the cow had some kind of a disease). You sear that sucker on all sides and you're probably good to go. Ground meat is from who knows how many cows and all of that bacteria is all in the meat. There's such a huge difference, and I can't fathom why people can't understand.
Well done=dry/overcooked. Im not adding worcestershire to it. Its a hockey puck
Who adds worcestershire after it's been cooked?
No one
Who adds it during for moisture? You said it, not me. I did not say anything about after
Who adds worcstershire during cooking? You mix it in with the ground beef BEFORE cooking... before.
Smashburger is superior in every meaningful way.
Lmao imagine thinking you’re cool because you like your meat “rare”. Grow up and cook all your meat entirely.
You are absolutely right. Raw ground beef is not tasty. I love the edges of my burger crispy. I prefer to request my patties 'extra' well done at some fast food joints that will accommodate those kinds of modifications.
Standard for most restaurants for food safety is medium well.
Agreed. I love medium rare steaks but ground beef is just different.
I've found the key is to flip 4 times. Sear both sides on high heat, usually 4 to 5 minutes each side with the grill open. Then close the lid and do each side on low to medium indirect heat for another 4 to 5 minutes each side. Then put cheese on top and melt and boom. No pink or the absolute slightest amount of pink and juicy.
Is this really an unpopular opinion? I feel like this IS the popular opinion
*only way
Unpopular opinion for sure, i think the best burgers are rare, but dont get me wrong, if the place seems too cheap to grind their own beef i would absolutely get a bit nervous about a rare burger.
This just accurate. Ground beef should be cooked through unless you are very familiar with the butcher and/or farm that it's sourced from.
Tartare is definitely a thing, but you should mince or grind the meat yourself or get it from a trusted restaurant.
If you are getting store bought ground beef, it should definitely be cooked through. In general, burgers are better when fully cooked, the nature of ground meat serves the purpose.
And yes, steaks should be mid rare, if not rare. I take my steaks blue rare with a sear and burgers well done. They are different foods.
Ground beef does not have the same benefit or risk as steak when cooking it to lower temps.
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