Duck Doneness

[phatch]

I often see duck breast cooked medium rare. I've eaten it medium rare.

But.

It's fowl and I expect that it's not any cleaner slaughtering than chickens or turkey or any other farmed poultry.

So why can duck be safely cooked to medium rare?

Or is it just that it's a dark meat so 160, which is safe, still looks pink and medium rare and we accept that in duck but not in chicken legs.

Phil

[Someday]

The reason that you should cook chicken and turkey to well done is because turkey and chicken are ridden with salmonella bacteria, which don't die at lower temps. So if you ate MR chicken you would most likely get sick. The slaughtering process has, to the best of my knowledge, little to do with the infection of the birds and more to do with the conditions in which they are raised.

Duck, on the other hand, is not a ridden with the stuff and can be safely eaten at lower temps.