Mr. Toad's pork loin temp 140deg.---seems unsafe

Unknown

Mr. Toad suggest internal temp of 140deg. for his pork loin. My chart says pork should be cooked to 160deg.. [p]When should I pull it off?

Char-Woody

niceNjuicy, I will pull your leg a bit and say you need a new chart. Revised USDA figures put pork safe at over 138F degree, but we take it to the 145 to 150F level for a medium cook. A medium rare would be about 140 to 145F internal. Pork shines at its best when you have a very light pink to the interior and it will be at its peak in moistness. If necessary, I will dig out the latest UDSA approved temperatures for ya..
Cheers and eat safe..
Char-Woody[p]

Char-Woody

A partial section of a interesting pork article..! Seems if you have frozen your pork, its safer.[p]Cooking - Commercial preparation of pork products by cooking requires that meat be heated to internal temperatures that have been shown to inactivate trichinae. For example, Trichinella spiralis is killed in 47 minutes at 52o C (125.6o F), in 6 minutes at 55o C (131o F), and in < 1 minute at 60o C (140o F). It should be noted that these times and temperatures apply only when the product reaches and maintains temperatures evenly distributed throughout the meat. Alternative methods of heating, particularly the use of microwaves, have been shown to give different results, with parasites not completely inactivated when product was heated to reach a prescribed end-point temperature. The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations for processed pork products reflects experimental data, and requires pork to be cooked for 2 hours at 52.2o C (126o F), for 15 minutes at 55.6o C (132o F), and for 1 minute at 60o C (140o F).[p]The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that consumers of fresh pork cook the product to an internal temperature of 71o C or 160o F. The National Pork Producers Council recomments an internal cooking temperature of 68oC or 155oF for maximum juiciness and flavor. Although this is considerably higher than temperatures at which trichinae are killed (about 55o C or 131o F), it allows for different methods of cooking which do not always result in even distribution of temperature throughout the meat. It should be noted that heating to 77o C (171o F) or 82o C (180o F) was not completely effective when cooking was performed using microwaves.[p]Freezing - Experiments have been performed to determine the effect of cold temperatures on the survival of T. spiralis in pork. Predicted times required to kill trichinae were 8 minutes at -20o C (-4o F), 64 minutes at -15o C (5o F), and 4 days at -10o C (14o F). Trichinae were killed instantaneously at -23.3o C (-10o F). The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Code of Federal Regulations, requires that pork intended for use in processed products be frozen at -17.8o C (0o F) for 106 hours, at -20.6o C (-5o F) for 82 hours, at -23.3o C (-10o F) for 63 hours, at -26.1o C (-15o F) for 48 hours, at -28.9o C (-20o F) for 35 hours, at -31.7o C (-25o F) for 22 hours, at -34.5o C (-30o F) for 8 hours, and at -37.2o C (-35o F) for 0.5 hours. These extended times take into account the amount of time required for temperature to equalize within the meat along with a margin of safety.[p]
[ul][li]NPPC article.[/ul]

Painter

Char-Woody, Great job of investigative reporting. You're right with minumal safe temp cooking of some pork cuts. Juicy and flavorful, not like when I grew up with my mothers dry chops. To her credit she did it the way it was recommended. She always had a nice bark on it though. LOL
Painter

Char-Woody

Painter, I have some theory's in tooling up the BGE for some great ribs and chops coming up. I hope. If it works..this forum and the competition is in for some surprises. If not..I will run and hide..heeeeyaaaaaa.
I cannot wait.
C~W[p]