One of the crazier things I learned soon after I was sworn in that the USDA/FSIS was doing was ignoring science when promoting safe cooking temperatures. And only when I suggest we get smart did I realize changing a culture takes more than a village.

Thanksgiving was approaching, bird flu was in the news, and the Turkey Federation was nervous that people would substitute hams for birds. They wanted us to hold a press conference and state that simply cooking your birds to the right temperature would guarantee no problems from bird flu, salmonella or any other pathogens.

But the Agency speech writers wanted me to say if cooking chicken or turkey breasts, make certain the core temperature is 165 degrees using an internal thermometer.

Fair enough.

But the speech went on to say if cooking parts like thighs, cook them to 175 degrees and if cooking whole birds, cook them to 180 degrees measured at the groin.

It was hard enough getting cooks to even check the temperature of the meat, let alone memorize three different temps to cook to; so I asked why?

The answer was that the juices of a whole bird would be pink and disgusting unless we got that heat up to where the bird was dried out. It had nothing to do with food safety, but maybe something to do with making eating poultry less enjoyable and so fewer birds would be killed.

I like a medium rare steak; the juices are pink, but the meat is safe.

One Assistant Administrator insisted we were not changing. The folks who ran the help lines were also refusing to change their responses. After all, we had pamphlets and thermometers with the printed advice that I wanted to turn into ancient history.

When I asked why we still told cooks to get pork to 165 degrees when cooking to that temp to prevent Trichinosis had left the station decades ago, you would have thought I had asked why the sun came up in the East.

Word spread fast that I wanted common sense changes in the recommended temperatures for poultry and pork.

Two numbers; one for poultry; one for pork and beef.

I was called into “The Cage” and advised to pick one product or the other, the lifers just could not handle the idea that maybe they had been dishing out misinformation for years that was leading to drier, tougher meat.

I went with poultry, humming that old Bee Gees song with some amendments:

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

165,

Stayin’ Alive

I flew to Atlanta to advise the CDC Director we were changing to 165 and hoped they would move in concert with us.

When she said it was a no-brainer, and I really had not needed to fly down, two of her lieutenants said they would never change to one temp for all poultry products.

Her response? “Oh, I see why you are here.”

In 2011 FSIS finally changed the recommended temperature for safe pork to 145 degrees—Six long years after I asked the question “why 165”?

Craziness is not limited to FSIS, even though one description of Washington, D.C., is 16 square miles of turf surrounded on all sides by sanity.

Number three of a few

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