USDA revises pork cooking temperature

Remember when seeing pink inside a pork chop struck fear in the heart? Mama said you'd get really sick if you ate even a tiny piece.

That was because pork cooked to an internal temperature of less than 165 degrees courted trichinosis, a dreaded parasitic disease.

But more often than not, the meat ended up tasting like shoe leather.

All that changed Tuesday for home cooks when the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service updated its pork cooking recommendations, lowering the temperature to 145 degrees, as measured by a food thermometer in the thickest part of the meat.

Crucial to safety, according to the USDA, is a rest time of 3 minutes before the meat is carved or eaten, assuring the destruction of any pathogens.

No need to worry about trichinosis any more, anyway; the disease has been virtually nonexistent for years.

According to Ceci Snyder, vice president of marketing at the National Pork Board in Des Moines, today's pigs are fed and raised "much differently than our grandparents' generation," with food and housing geared to protection from rodents and pathogens.

As it also turns out, the USDA releases its guidelines a bit late in the game; since 1999, the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the retail food industry, has held with a 145-degree internal temperature for cooking pork.