Now I can't order a rare cheeseburger?!!

[Huck]

I remember the Jack in the box problems. A young boy died.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

...and you don't have the freakin' right to be that stupid, period.

This is still America and thank God (in most places, anyway) we do have that freakin' right.

Once we become a total nanny state, feel free to nominate yourself for Nanny-in-Chief.

[js1138]

It is not like eating a rare steak.

For $8.95 they can take a steak, sear the outside, grind it and cook it.

I suspect that before the terrorist threats go away, there will be a lot more people requesting irradiated food.

[Moleman]

$8.95, kind of an expensive burger...

[eastsider]

Dang! We Canucks get blamed for everything.

This whole discussion reminds me of the botulism scare many years ago from canned Bon Vivant vichysoise. Once again, you get what you pay for.

BTW, as much as I love rare burgers, I urge you to thoroughly cook your meat pies for Christmas Eve. : )

Your fellow Canuck,

[eastsider]

I'm in the foodservice business.... but don't ask me to sell you something that could land me in a deposition a year later.

Every time you sell a canned food, don't you risk passing on botulism?

[freeeee]

you don't have the freakin' right to be that stupid

Imagine the horror having to decide what you're going to eat. It just gives me a headache thinking about it.

I mean, all these choices, and << gasp! >> the responsibility to live with the consequences are just too much for us lemmings to take.

Some of these "freedom" types just don't get it. How dare they deprive us of our benevolent master's divine wisdom? I mean if the government can't decide what I'm going to eat, how can I be expected to make that decision? It just makes me want to turn off Jenny Jones and run right down to the statehouse and demand they tell me what I'm having for lunch!!!

The next thing you know, we'll all have to dress our own children in the morning. Can you imagine? Some of these "freedom" anarchists don't appreciate dress codes, so now I'm supposed to decide what my kid is supposed to wear?

How can I do that, decide what I'm going to eat, and watch Opra at the same time?

[Irene Adler]

Take a look at a new meat thermometer versus an old one. I'm pretty sure that the "standard" definition of what is rare has been changed in recent years. You know how suggested levels of doneness for various meats are listed on the face of the thermometer. My memory is that rare beef used to be 125 degrees F. Now, it's listed as 140 degrees F. As far as I'm concerned, 140 is real medium for beef.

[Mark de New Brighton]

Every time you sell a canned food, don't you risk passing on botulism?

Yes, but vendors would indemnify us. And, thankfully, botulism is very rare. That's why the Bon Vivant case is still remembered, 30 years later, and why Bon Vivant was the company that got sued, not the grocer who sold it.

[arly]

next thing you know you will have some gov't lackey following you around the grocery store with a clip board watching what food items your buying.

[eastsider]

That's why the Bon Vivant case is still remembered, 30 years later ...

Wow! I don't know whether to cry, or crow about how I've been eating rare burgers for that long without an incident! FRegards.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

When you order out, you take your chances. If you find a place that does it the way you like, patronize them. If you want to get it your way, every single time....cook it at home.

[WilliamWallace1999]

The meat packing industry should bear the brunt of your anger. If hamburger weren't ground in 1000# batches with allowable levels of hair and feces, none of this would be a problem. Thanks to the antibiotics used on a continuous basis by the feed-lot industry, cattle are now full of resistant super-bugs just waiting to rip into your intestinal lumen. Read the book Fast-food Nation. It will put you off Mickey D's permanently.

EAT MORE VENISON!

[buccaneer81]

I assume you mean Applebees, they did the same thing to me here in Albuquerque. No more business for them.

I ran into this problem at my local Damon's. Had I not already adopted my three-beer laid-back posture, I would have left. (I settled for medium and got a free draft as compensation).

[firebrand]

Rare beef has vitamin C; well-done beef doesn't. Soft-cooked eggs have lecithin, which counteracts the cholesterol-forming tendencies of eggs; well-done eggs don't.

I just go to places that I know and trust, or any good restaurant, and don't bother worrying.

[Revolting cat!]

Mmmmmmmmmm... tartar steak.

[Physicist]

No, I am thinking person who heard of all the Jack In The Box food poisionings and sees how a burger place feels the need to make sure the food is cooked.

Sort of like the way "Rain Man" will only fly with Quantas.

[Demidog]

USDA inspection is a joke. If you trust that your meat is good because the government said so, more power to you. Canada has their own inspection system and tthese kinds of laws are to cover the government's shoddy inspection, not make you any safer.