United States Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service

Authority

Official guidance

Territories

US

Primacy

primary

Commercial interest

none

Retrieved

2026-08-13

State

Read and citable

Original document

Whole cuts of beef, pork, veal and lamb: 145 °F with a three-minute rest. Ground meats: 160 °F. All poultry including ground: 165 °F. Direct fetch returns HTTP 403 to automated clients; figures confirmed via search result text and the widely mirrored FSIS chart, and independently corroborated by the Clemson and Illinois extension restatements registered below.

Safety, Technical

• Explicitly not culinary practice: A safety floor is not a doneness recommendation, and the chart does not claim to be one.

• “Cook raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops, and roasts to a minimum internal temperature of 145 °F ... allow meat to rest for at least three minutes”

  USDA FSIS gives 145 °F (63 °C) as the safe minimum internal temperature for raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops and roasts, with a rest of at least three minutes before carving or eating.

  Form:

  Whole cuts only. Ground meats are covered by a separate, higher figure.

  The three-minute rest is part of the safety requirement, not only a quality step.

  How it was measured:

  As measured with a food thermometer before removing from the heat source.

• USDA FSIS gives 160 °F (71 °C) as the safe minimum internal temperature for ground beef.

  Form:

  Ground/minced meat. Higher than the whole-cut figure precisely because of mincing.

  No rest time is specified for ground meats.

• “Cook poultry (ground or whole) to an internal temperature of 165 °F”

  USDA FSIS gives 165 °F (74 °C) as the safe minimum internal temperature for all poultry, whole or ground.

  Form:

  Applies to whole birds, portions and ground poultry alike.

  Stated as a temperature to reach, without an accompanying hold time.

• “For safety and quality, allow meat to rest for at least three minutes before carving or consuming.”

  USDA FSIS recommends cooking raw beef, pork, lamb and veal steaks, chops and roasts to a minimum internal temperature of 145 °F and then allowing the meat to rest for at least three minutes before carving or eating. FSIS describes the rest as the period during which the temperature remains constant or continues to rise, destroying harmful bacteria.

  A safety interval, not a serving suggestion. The food has not reached its endpoint until the three minutes have elapsed, which is why FSIS treats 145 °F plus three minutes as equivalent in lethality to a higher instantaneous figure.

  Where it applies:

  United States.

  Safety regime:

  Consumer guidance — addressed to people cooking, not to food businesses.

  What it covers:

  Whole cuts. Ground meats and poultry are governed by different figures entirely.

• In the United States, all poultry — whole or ground — has a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F (74 °C).
• In the United States, whole cuts of beef, pork, lamb and veal have a safe minimum internal temperature of 145 °F (63 °C), followed by a rest of at least three minutes.
• In the United States, ground beef has a safe minimum internal temperature of 160 °F (71 °C) — higher than the whole-cut figure, because of mincing.

If this source changes, these are the claims that need rechecking. That is the point of recording provenance per claim rather than per page.