The Surgery - Are there dangers with serving pink pork?

Dear Surgery: A lot of my customers get nervous if their pork is cooked pink. Am I right when I say it is safe to cook it this way?

The Surgery says:

According to Richard Fagan, foodservice development manager at the Meat and Livestock Commission, the short and simple

answer is, yes, pork can be served rare, but in certain circumstances.

He says: "This sort of cooking process can only be applied to whole cuts of meat (fillet, loin, etc), but not to minced or boned and rolled cuts, which will have bacteria introduced into the meat through the butchery process.

The reason people still think you can't cook pork pink is because of Trichinella (most commonly thought of as "worms"). UK herds are free from Trichinella and the last one detected was in 1978.

The only real issue left is the actual act of cooking. We found with our work with rare cooked beef fillets that all pathogens were removed or reduced to an acceptable level when the steak was cooked rare.

It was only when the tongs used for turning the steak were not sterilised each time they touched the meat that we found there could be significant bacterial load and survival of the bacteria through the "rare" cooking process. Pork in the UK has been free of Trichinella for at least 28 years.

Bacteria are an issue, but as long as the sides are seared adequately then there should be no problem with bacteria.

Cross-contamination from tongs used to cook with would be the source of this problem, but this would be the same with any meat.

For more information, useful websites are: www.mlcfoodservice.com

www.redmeatindustryforum.org.uk

www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/nutritionessentials/meat