Why can we eat duck meat medium rare, treating it like red meat, but chicken, which is white meat, has to be fully cooked, even though both are types of birds?

Question

Why can we eat duck meat medium rare, treating it like red meat, but chicken, which is white meat, has to be fully cooked, even though both are types of birds?

In: Other

Answer 1

Because it’s much less likely that duck meat is carrying bacteria/parasites.

Cooking food is all about risk management. You could eat raw chicken 100 times and never get sick if you’re lucky. Or you could eat slightly undercooked pork once and get super ill.

Ducks and chickens are farmed very differently, and chickens are just way more likely to be carrying something that can make you sick, so it is recommended that chicken gets more thoroughly cooked. 

Bacteria and parasites can still exist in duck meat or beef, but it’s just much less common, meaning having medium rare duck or beef isn’t as risky.