Give two examples of foods that must be cooked to safe minimum internal temperatures.

• A. Poultry (165°F) and ground meat (155°F).
• B. Fish and shellfish.
• C. Pasta and rice.
• D. Raw vegetables.

Answer: (A)

The main idea is that some foods must be cooked to specific safe minimum internal temperatures to destroy dangerous pathogens. Poultry and ground meat illustrate this clearly: poultry can have harmful bacteria like Salmonella and Campylobacter inside the meat, so it must be heated to 165°F all the way through. Ground meat is especially risky because grinding spreads any surface bacteria throughout the product, so it needs to reach 155°F (for a sufficient time) to reduce those bacteria effectively.

Other options don’t emphasize this safety principle in the same way. Fish and shellfish do have safe temperatures too, but the typical teaching point highlighted here is the combination of poultry and ground meat. Pasta, rice, and raw vegetables aren’t governed by the same internal-temperature rule for safety in the same sense, since they’re either starchy foods that don’t require a kill-step the way meat does or are eaten without cooking.