• Question: why is raw meat bad for you? and how does cooking it prevent this?

    Asked by ava and hibba!! on 28 Jan 2025.
    • Photo: Carly Bingham

      Carly Bingham answered on 28 Jan 2025:

      Raw meat often has germs on it that make us seriously ill – you might have heard of bugs such as salmonella and E.Coli. These bugs are usually killed by the cooking process as most bacteria (bugs) cannot survive at high temperatures.

    • Photo: Jo Brown

      Jo Brown answered on 17 Feb 2025:

      It is not that raw meat is bad for you, but eating raw meat can be risky as it can make you really poorly. Raw meat can contain bacteria, germs, toxins, bugs, parasites… which makes raw meat unsafe to eat. to minimize the risk of getting severely poorly it is important to cook meat thoroughly to the recommended temperatures as this can kill all these harmful things and then makes meat much safer to eat.

      This applies to a lot of foods that you will buy in the supermarkets. Food Safety is the central aspect for the food industry !

    • Photo: Iain Brownlee

      Iain Brownlee answered on 5 Mar 2025:

      Raw meat can host harmful microbes that could cause serious infections in all people but that could be life-threatening in some individuals. Cooking and other form of food processing kills microbes in food, making them safer for everyone.
      Infections from what we eat (called “foodborne illness”) is estimated to cause 2.4 million people to become sick every year in the UK. The cost of treating this illness and wider impacts on society are over £9billion every year (according to the Food Standards Agency).

Comments

  • Photo: melissau

    melissau commented on :

    Raw milk can also contain germs which can make us unwell – that’s why milk you buy in a shop is pasteurised, which means it’s been heated to a high enough temperature to kill the germs.

  • Photo: sandrarobertson

    sandrarobertson commented on :

    It is also important to think about how the meat has been treated before you cook it for eating. Any meat which has been minced, means the germs from the outside can get mixed all through the meat as it is being put through the mincing machine, so it needs to be completely cooked to reduce the risk of germs still being there.

  • Photo: Kirsty R

    Kirsty R commented on :

    Some types of food, like sushi or steak tartare, rely on raw meat/fish as part of their manufacture. However, this can increase the transmission of parasites that live inside the fish. Cooking can kill these parasites and microorganisms.

    It is also why it isn’t necessary to wash meat in the sink before cooking. This simply spreads any germs on the surface of the meat all over your kitchen instead!