Most strains are harmless but some strains can cause serious illness. Most cases of E. coli food poisoning occur after eating undercooked beef (particularly mince, burgers and meatballs) or drinking unpasteurised milk. Meat Tartare Steak or chicken tartare is meat eaten uncooked.

When meat is minced to produce burgers, any harmful bacteria from the surface of the raw meat spread throughout the burger. Unless the burger is cooked right through, these bacteria can remain alive on the inside. That’s why a burger needs to be served well done, while a steak can be served rare.

The bottom line is that ground beef doesn’t need to be fully cooked, as in it must be. Many people prefer to eat rare ground beef and some even eat it raw.

Which meats can you eat raw? Raw beef contains pathogens on its surface, but many parasites do not penetrate the dense meat. So once the outside is cooked, a rare steak perfectly safe to eat, at least in most cases. Fish is a great raw option for those who can’t bear the idea of waiting for something to cook.

Cooking beef to a minimum internal temperature of 145-degrees and letting it rest for a few minutes is the only way to ensure that most of the unsafe bacteria that may be lingering on it could be killed. Eating raw meat doesn’t have to be a no-go, though, if you’re dead-set on doing it.

Raw meat and poultry are most likely to cause food poisoning. They can have all sorts of bacteria from E. coli to salmonella, which can make you very sick. To stay safe, be sure meats are properly cooked.

Beef is in most cases safe to eat raw, as long as you sear the surface of the meat. This is because, on whole cuts of beef, bacterial contamination (such as E. coli) is usually only present on the outside. Therefore, you should fully cook beef mince and beef that you’ve cut yourself to avoid these risks.

Storing meat

Eating Raw Meat: Bacteria and Parasites. While the meat you kill in the wild may taste fresher than what you buy in the grocery store, that doesn’t mean it’s clean enough to eat raw. Although you sometimes cannot see it, bacteria and parasites may be hosting dinner parties of their own on that meat you just hunted down …

It’s meat. Outside of jawing on it for 20 minutes to get it down (presuming that we’re talking something bigger than a chicken), you’re going to digest it. If it’s a chicken heart, you can probably swallow it whole.

Eating large amounts of undercooked steak can cause a listeria infection that manifests itself within 24 hours of ingestion. You may experience body aches, nausea, fever, and watery diarrhea.

No risk of sickness Any meat bought from a reputable source will carry very little risk of salmonella, E. coli or any other scary ailment associated with undercooked meat. So eating that medium or rare steak isn’t going to make you sick.

The longer you cook a steak, the hotter it gets, and as it heats up, the muscle fibers get firm and all the juices cook out. The result is that the interior of a well-done steak is a uniform gray color, and the steak itself is tough, chewy, flavorless, and dry. This isn’t cooking; it’s arson.

Most strains are harmless but some can cause serious illness. Most cases of E. coli food poisoning occur after eating undercooked beef (particularly mince, burgers and meatballs) or drinking unpasteurised milk. The incubation period for food poisoning caused by E. coli is typically one to eight days.