Do you think this is safe to eat?

I have a bit of a phobia of meat not being thoroughly cooked. It started many years ago at a summer picnic when a friend, who wasn't a very good cook to begin with, took the chicken off the grill a little too early. Amidst the laughter and good cheer, I looked down at my plate and realized that I had eaten half of a very raw chicken breast. I was convinced that I would die a terrible death and spent the following 48 hours under a self- imposed salmonella watch. Nothing happened but it unleashed the "meat police" in me.

This drives my husband crazy because his inner caveman likes his beef very rare. Not just very, very rare, but very, very, very, scary rare. When he grills for our children, I have to watch him like a hawk-- although over the years they've become pretty good meat police too.

It's a widely known fact that poultry, mixed meats and pork should never be eaten rare. Fresh cuts of beef only contain bacteria on the outside so that's why they always warn you about properly handling it. In the case of mixed meats, like hamburgers (here's where my husband and I have our biggest beef) grinding the meat can spread the bacteria on the outside throughout the meat mixture and small areas of bacteria may survive cooking at a low temperature.

Rare meat can be extremely dangerous, depending on the source and the species, or delicious if handled appropriately. That's where the meat police come in.

I took this picture of my husband's plate over the weekend while at at friends dinner party. This was the last bite and look how rare it is! Can you imagine what the middle looked like?

He couldn't have been happier because I was on the other end of the table eating everyone's onion rings and I missed my meat patrol opportunity. I did however, manage to grab this piece of evidence before he gobbled it up.

(Forensics Note: No photoshop used in this picture).