If you made a bet with your friend and are using the AI overview to settle it, fine. But please please click on an actual result from a trusted source if you’re deciding what temperature to cook meat to
But SEO slop machines have made it so hard to find the good websites without putting in more legwork than makes sense a lot of the time. Funnily enough, this makes AI look like a good option to cut through all the noise despite its hallucinations. That's obviously not acceptable when it comes to food safety concerns though.
The reality is, every time someone's search is satisfied by an organic result is lost revenue for Google.
Unfortunately there are no workable alternatives. DDG is somehow not better, though I use it to avoid trackers.
We need AI that’s trained exclusively on verified data and not random websites and internet comments.
I'm hopeful this will be possible in the future though, maybe using a mix of 1) using existing LLMs to help humans filter the existing internet-scale datasets, and/or 2) finding some new breakthroughs to make model training more data efficient.
Turns out all the information it gave me came from old Reddit posts and lots of it was factually wrong. Gemini however still linked some official Ikea pages as the "sources".
It'll straight up lie to you and then hide where it actually got it's info from. Usually Reddit.
Meanwhile the AI overview routinely gives me completely wrong information. There's zero chance I'm going to trust it when a wrong answer can mean I give my family food poisoning.
I agree that there is a gigaton of crap out there, but the quality information sources are still there too. Google's job is to list those at the top and it actually has done so this time, although I'll acknowledge it doesn't always and I've taken to using Kagi in preference for this reason. A crappy AI preview that can't be relied on for anything isn't an acceptable substitute.
Kagi search gives the pork board first as well. But note that site fails mtkd's requirements giving temperature in degrees Fahrenheit and not Celsius. The second hit does give a correct temperature but has a cookie banner (which at least can be rejected with one click)
The optional Kagi assistant quotes the pork board, usda which also is only in Fahrenheit, and third a blog on site for a thermometer that quoted the UK Food Standard Authority and gives its temperature
However there is a problem the UK FSA does not agree with USDA on the temperature it puts it higher at 70 degrees C rather than 63
So if you get the USDA figure you are taking a risk. The Kagi Assistant gives both temperatures but it is not clear which one is correct although both figures are correctly linked to the actual sites.
It would be nice if they automatically prioritised those results, but that's a search engine improvement and nobody's working on those any more [1]. A half-arsed AI summary that can't be trusted to get the actual temperature right certainly doesn't solve it.
[1] Except Kagi, and even they're distracted by the AI squirrel.
Note that we're talking about the Google AI Summary here, not AI in general. Whatever magical capabilities you think your favoured model has or will soon have, the Google AI Summary is currently utter garbage and routinely spouts nonsense. (Don't try and persuade me otherwise. I have to use Google at work so I see its lies first hand every day.)
You know, at "I'd rather overcook my food than click the top result on my search", I think I'm done.
We should remember that's partly Google's fault as well. They decided SEO sites were OK.
I'm no fan of Google but it's not so simple to figure out what's relevant, good content on the scale of the internet, while confronted by an army of adversarial actors who can make money by working out what you value in a site.
It's genuinely harder than it's ever been to find good information on the internet, but when you're dealing with food safety information, it's really worth taking the extra minute to find a definitive source.
https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/safe-minimum-i...
All that said, the cooking temperatures aren't something that they've changed, and I would still rely on the US government published number over a AI generated value
So, I'd agree -- safety info from an LLM is bad. But generally, the /flavor/ (heh) of information that such data comprises is REALLY good to get from LLMs (as opposed to nuanced opinions or subjective feedback).
I don’t think this is substantively different from cooking temperature, so I’m not trusting that either.
After all, AI can theoretically ask follow-up questions that are relevant, can explain subtleties peculiar to a specific situation or request, can rephrase things in ways that are clearer for the end user.
Btw, "What temperature should a food be cooked to" is a classic example of something where lots of people and lots of sources repeat incorrect information, which is often ignored by people who actually cook. Famously, the temp that is often "recommended" is only the temp at which bacteria/whatever is killed instantly - but is often too hot to make the food taste good. What is normally recommended is to cook to a lower temperature but keep the food at that temperature for a bit longer, which has the same effect safety-wise but is much better.
I love this reply because you support your own point by repeating information that is technically incorrect.
To qualify myself, I have a background in food service. I've taken my "Food Safe" course in Ontario which is not legally mandated to work in food service, but offered by our government-run health units and many restaurants require a certificate to be employed in any food handling capacity (wait staff or food prep).
There is no such thing as "killed instantly." The temperature recommendations here in Canada, for example, typically require that the food be held at that temperature for a minimum of 15 seconds.
There is some truth in what you say. Using temperature to neutralize biological contaminants is a function of time and you can certainly accomplish the same result by holding food at lower temperature for a longer period of time. Whether this makes the food "taste better" or not depends on the food and what you're doing.
Sous Vide cooking is the most widely understood method of preparation where we hold foods at temperatures that are FAR lower than what is typically recommended, but held for much longer. I have cooked our family Thanksgiving Turkey breast at 60C sous vide, and while I personally like it... others don't like the texture. So your mileage may vary.
My point is that you're making a bunch of claims that have grains of truth to them, but aren't strictly true. I think your comment is an application of the dunning kruger effect. You know a little bit and because of that you think you know way more than you actually do. And I had to comment because it is beautifully ironic. Almost as if that paragraph in your comment is, itself, AI slop lol
Glad to be of service :) I think that's the first time a comment of mine has been accused of being AI slop. Sorry to say, every word - correct or incorrect - is mine.
> To qualify myself, I have a background in food service.
I'm just a person who watches cooking YouTube a bit, so right off the bat - I'll defer to your expertise on this.
I'm not sure we really disagree much though. My rough memory is that the guidelines specify temperature at which things are killed, I don't know if "instantly" or "15 seconds" really makes a difference in practice.
> Sous Vide cooking is the most widely understood method of preparation where we hold foods at temperatures that are FAR lower than what is typically recommended, but held for much longer.
Sous Vide is where I was first exposed to this concept, but I was more referring to things like chicken breasts, etc, which often aren't great at the minimal internal temperature, but I've seen YouTube "chefs" recommend cooking them to a slightly lower temperature, banking on the idea that they will effectively be at a slightly lower temperature, but long enough to still effectively kill bacteria. I've even seen criticism of the FDA charts for exactly this reason.
But to clarify, this is far outside any expertise I actually have.
> I think your comment is an application of the dunning kruger effect. You know a little bit and because of that you think you know way more than you actually do.
Absolutely possible.
Something that is very common is removing food from the heat source before the internal temperature hits your target because heat transfer itself takes time and so the food will continue to cook inside for a short period of time after being removed. This is because the outside, which you are blasting with heat that is far higher than your internal target, will partly transfer to the inside (the rest will dissipate into the air). So if you remove it from the heat exactly when you hit the internal temp, you can exceed the target temperature and your food will be "over cooked."
The problem with a tv chef recommending using a traditional cooking method, such as baking or frying, to TARGET a lower temperature, is that is very hard with those mediums to control for time. What you are doing with those mediums is you are blasting the outside of your food with a temperature that is far hotter than your internal target.
And so say, for example, you have your oven set to 180C and you are cooking chicken and your internal temperature target is, let's say 4 degrees cooler than the official recommendation. So the official recommendation is 74C held for a minimum of 15 seconds (that's Canada) and you are targeting 70C. With traditional cooking methods, you are playing a guessing game where you're blasting the outside of the food with very hot temperatures in order to bring the inside of the food up to some target.
I don't know off hand how much longer you would have to hold at 70C to get the same effect as 15 seconds at 74C ... but while you're waiting, your food is likely to exceed 74C anyway because of the high temperatures you're working with.
So that's why I talked about sous vide... becuase it's kind of the only way you can control for those variables. No oven can hold steady at temps as low as 70C (even at higher temps they fluctuate quite a bit. Anywhere from 5C - 20C depending on the oven).
And yeah - we definitely agree on most things. The minimum recommended temperatures are "play it safe" rather than "make food delicious." I do recognize that that was ultimately your point :)
It wasn't really my point to pick on you or argue with you, but to show that certain things you said are "partly true", which is a common complaint of AI (that and hallucinations). When we're dealing with things like food safety and the general public, it is usually better to offer general advise that is play it safe.
And with certain foods this matters more than others. Chickens get infected with salmonella while they are alive, for example, and so the bacteria can live throughout the meat. Whereas if you're cooking beef, you really only need to worry about surface contamination and so you can sear a steak for a few seconds and have it still be very "blue" in the middle and you're good.