Why is thorough cooking so important for ground meat products such as hamburger?
Within the muscle there is no bacterial contamination. When the muscles are cut into steaks and roasts, the bacterial contamination will only occur on the cut outside of the meat. Cooking these meats rare to medium will create enough heat to kill off these bacteria. In ground meat, however, the surface where bacterial contamination occurs is spread throughout the product in the grinding process. The only way to be sure to eliminate the bacteria is to cook the hamburgers thoroughly.
