Tomorrow, millions of Americans will do something they only do once a year: cook a turkey. Not being an everyday activity for most, even many experienced cooks are apt to make a mistake in the cooking process — say, forgetting to take the plastic-wrapped giblets out from the turkey's cavity; overcooking and burning the bird; or, perhaps worst, undercooking it.
Why is undercooking a turkey such a problem? Notably, it is far easier to undercook a turkey than, say, smaller, more often-cooked poultry like chicken or duck. And while overcooking means the turkey may be partly inedible, it also means that any residual pathogens — meaning bacteria or the like — have undoubtedly died. Not so with undercooking. If you fail to prepare your turkey correctly, you may wind up ingesting some very scary pathogens. In 2018, one person died and over a hundred became ill due to a salmonella outbreak linked to raw turkey.
