Question: is it unhealthy to eat raw meat

Jean Bourke answered on 17 Nov 2012:

Yes and no.

No because we can digest it tough it is harder.
Yes because cooking meat reduces the risk of you getting sick from it. Pork meat can contain cysts which have eggs in them, these eggs are from parasitic worms that can then live in your intestine. Though these are very rare now with modern farming methods you still need to ensure pork is thoroughly cooked. Chicken is associated with amongst other things, salmonella and it too needs to be cooked throughly to ensure the salmonella is killed off and can do you no harm.

It’s not just a question of what’s in the meat but what’s no it. All sorts of bacteria can grow on meat and these can’t just be washed off. That is why even when steak it served raw the outside has been cooked to kill these off. I have to say that I do not approve of really rare meat, it has to be of a really high quality and handle correctly throughout and it is very difficult to guarantee that this is the case. Medium rare to medium in a good restaurant is about as far as I’m willing to go.

There are so many foodborne illnesses that it would take me ages to go into them all. The most common are probably e.coli and salmonella, both are bacteria. Other bacteria, viruses, parasites, and toxins can be present in raw meat. As well as taking every precaution in handling raw meat, make use it is cooked through. Food poisoning is not just a day off school, if regularly kills people.

I cook a lot and I have a separate chopping board for raw meat and am very very careful when handling it to make sure I don’t contaminate anything.

When it comes to food poisoning, meat isn’t the only culprit. Make sure you wash fruit and veg properly, being especially careful of species that have a pitted surface. You may argue that the skin of an orange protects the inside and you don’t eat the skin but e.coli on the skin can be pushed into the flesh when you’re peeling it.

Never take risks with food, especially with young children, the sick, and the elderly as their immune systems can struggle to fight off something you or I might be able to deal with. And anyway, diarrhea is never fun.