Rules of safety
An admonition from an edition of "Joy of Cooking" dating back about 30 years states that pork requires thorough cooking. The venerable cookbook, which women all over America followed closely, advised bringing pork to an internal temperature of 185 degrees and a white to "greyish" color to destroy the Trichinella spiralis parasite that causes trichinosis.
Thanks to better breeding techniques, Trichinella is now rarely found in supermarket pork, and you no longer have to cook pork until the color is bleached out and all the flavor is gone.
Consumers are more likely to encounter Trichinella eating wild boar or other game, according to Katherine Bernard, technical information specialist for the US Department of Agriculture's meat and poultry hot line. In addition, jerky made using dried, uncooked pork carries the potential for Trichinella contamination, says Bernard.
Yet despite the small risk, food safety experts still recommend using a meat thermometer and cooking pork to 160 degrees for medium doneness or 170 degrees for well-done meat. Either temperature will kill Trichinella. At 160 degrees pork may still be pink in the center but will be safe to eat, according to the USDA. Any meat product, including pork, may contain harmful bacteria including salmonella, E. coli, and listeria. Cooking meat to the recommended temperature helps prevent food-borne illness, says Rita Brennan Olson, a food-safety educator at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
BEV BENNETT 