[ncallaway]

Dear lord please don’t use an AI overview answer for food safety.

If you made a bet with your friend and are using the AI overview to settle it, fine. But please please click on an actual result from a trusted source if you’re deciding what temperature to cook meat to

[sothatsit]

The problem is that SEO has made it hard to find trustworthy sites in the first place. The places I trust the most now for getting random information is Reddit and Wikipedia, which is absolutely ridiculous as they are terrible options.

But SEO slop machines have made it so hard to find the good websites without putting in more legwork than makes sense a lot of the time. Funnily enough, this makes AI look like a good option to cut through all the noise despite its hallucinations. That's obviously not acceptable when it comes to food safety concerns though.

[omnicognate]

If I do that search on Google right now, the top result is the National Pork Board (pork.org): ad-free, pop-up free, waffle-free and with the correct answer in large font at the top of the page. It's in F, but I always stick " C" at the end of temperature queries. In this case that makes the top result foodsafety.gov which is equally if not more authoritative, also ad-, waffle-, and popup- free and with with the answer immediately visible.

Meanwhile the AI overview routinely gives me completely wrong information. There's zero chance I'm going to trust it when a wrong answer can mean I give my family food poisoning.

I agree that there is a gigaton of crap out there, but the quality information sources are still there too. Google's job is to list those at the top and it actually has done so this time, although I'll acknowledge it doesn't always and I've taken to using Kagi in preference for this reason. A crappy AI preview that can't be relied on for anything isn't an acceptable substitute.

[pasc1878]

Kagi sort of gets this correct.

Kagi search gives the pork board first as well. But note that site fails mtkd's requirements giving temperature in degrees Fahrenheit and not Celsius. The second hit does give a correct temperature but has a cookie banner (which at least can be rejected with one click)

The optional Kagi assistant quotes the pork board, usda which also is only in Fahrenheit, and third a blog on site for a thermometer that quoted the UK Food Standard Authority and gives its temperature

However there is a problem the UK FSA does not agree with USDA on the temperature it puts it higher at 70 degrees C rather than 63

So if you get the USDA figure you are taking a risk. The Kagi Assistant gives both temperatures but it is not clear which one is correct although both figures are correctly linked to the actual sites.

[omnicognate]

I don't really see the problem with F and C. As I mentioned, I always stick " C" on the end of temperature queries. It's 2 characters and the results always have the centigrade temps, on both Kagi and Google.

[pasc1878]

The OPs main complaint was lack of C when that is the temperature scale used in their country

[omnicognate]

Of course. What else would I think they were complaining about? I also live in a country that uses C. That's why I always stick " C" on the end of temperature queries.

It would be nice if they automatically prioritised those results, but that's a search engine improvement and nobody's working on those any more [1]. A half-arsed AI summary that can't be trusted to get the actual temperature right certainly doesn't solve it.

[1] Except Kagi, and even they're distracted by the AI squirrel.

[jordanb]

Google could have cut down on this if they wanted. And in general they did until they fired Matt Cutts.

The reality is, every time someone's search is satisfied by an organic result is lost revenue for Google.

[taurath]

Which is the stupidest position ever if Google wants to exist long term.

Unfortunately there are no workable alternatives. DDG is somehow not better, though I use it to avoid trackers.

[Miraste]

It's a bit like the Easter Islanders cutting down all of their trees for wood. Where does Google management think they'll get search results if they kill the entire internet? Has anyone at Google thought that far ahead?

[9dev]

The internet they dream of is like a large mall. It consists of service providers selling you something, and Google directing you to them in exchange for some of the profit. The role of users in this model is that of a Piñata that everyone hits on to drop some money.

[what]

DDG is just serving you remixed bing and yandex results. There’s basically no alternative to GBY that do their own crawling and maintain their own index.

[Zardoz84]

qwant ?

[touisteur]

Qwant also has an AI overview. Pretty bad too.

[tonyedgecombe]

>The problem is that SEO has made it hard to find trustworthy sites in the first place.

We should remember that's partly Google's fault as well. They decided SEO sites were OK.

[FredPret]

Well, they decided which sites were OK, and then people SEO'd a bunch of crap into Google's idea of a good website.

I'm no fan of Google but it's not so simple to figure out what's relevant, good content on the scale of the internet, while confronted by an army of adversarial actors who can make money by working out what you value in a site.

[sothatsit]

It is a game of whack-a-mole in some sense, but Google also isn't swinging the mallet very fast.

[al_borland]

AI is being influenced by all that noise. It isn’t necessarily going to an authoritative source, it’s looking at Reddit and some SEO slop and using that to come up with the answer.

We need AI that’s trained exclusively on verified data and not random websites and internet comments.

[jval43]

I asked Gemini about some Ikea furniture dimensions and it gave seemingly correct answers, until it suddenly didn't make sense.

Turns out all the information it gave me came from old Reddit posts and lots of it was factually wrong. Gemini however still linked some official Ikea pages as the "sources".

It'll straight up lie to you and then hide where it actually got it's info from. Usually Reddit.

[sothatsit]

Creating better datasets would also help to improve the performance of the models, I would assume. Unfortunately, the costs to produce high-quality datasets of a sufficient size seem prohibitive today.

I'm hopeful this will be possible in the future though, maybe using a mix of 1) using existing LLMs to help humans filter the existing internet-scale datasets, and/or 2) finding some new breakthroughs to make model training more data efficient.

[heavyset_go]

It'll still hallucinate

[zahlman]

I've been finding that the proliferation of AI slop is at its worst on recipe/cooking/nutrition sites, so....

[ncallaway]

Please find a trusted source of information for food safety information.

It's genuinely harder than it's ever been to find good information on the internet, but when you're dealing with food safety information, it's really worth taking the extra minute to find a definitive source.

https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/safe-minimum-i...

[AlecSchueler]

The site you linked to is published by the American government who are actively anti-science, removing access to research and cutting funding for ideological reasons, denying widely accepted climate and medical facts etc. I wouldn't trust that source at all.

[ncallaway]

I mean, I'm absolutely not going to take the current FDA's guidance on drinking raw milk. You need to evaluate what you're willing to trust for yourself. I printed out the pre-January 2025 FDA vaccine schedule, so I could compare it against any updated recommendations.

All that said, the cooking temperatures aren't something that they've changed, and I would still rely on the US government published number over a AI generated value

[jkingsman]

Mmm, I see this cutting both ways -- generally, I'd agree; safety critical things should not be left to an AI. However, cooking temperatures are information that has a factual ground truth (or at least one that has been decided on), has VERY broad distribution on the internet, and generally is a single, short "kernel" of information that has become subject to slop-ifying and "here's an article when you're looking for about 30 characters of information or less" that is prolific on the web.

So, I'd agree -- safety info from an LLM is bad. But generally, the /flavor/ (heh) of information that such data comprises is REALLY good to get from LLMs (as opposed to nuanced opinions or subjective feedback).

[Velorivox]

I don’t know. I searched for how many chapters a popular manga has on Google and it gave me the wrong answer (by an order of magnitude). I only found out later and it did really piss me off because I made a trek to buy something that never existed. I should’ve known better.

I don’t think this is substantively different from cooking temperature, so I’m not trusting that either.

[jkingsman]

Eh I think it is. Arcane things -- sure, that might be a bit of a stretch. My general rule of thumb is that if I would expect ~10% of people to know the information factually, I can likely trust what an LLM tells me.

[Velorivox]

Really?

[0] https://i.imgur.com/ly5yk9h.png

[edanm]

Idk. Maybe that's true today (though even today I'm not sure) but how long before AI becomes better than just finding random text on a website?

After all, AI can theoretically ask follow-up questions that are relevant, can explain subtleties peculiar to a specific situation or request, can rephrase things in ways that are clearer for the end user.

Btw, "What temperature should a food be cooked to" is a classic example of something where lots of people and lots of sources repeat incorrect information, which is often ignored by people who actually cook. Famously, the temp that is often "recommended" is only the temp at which bacteria/whatever is killed instantly - but is often too hot to make the food taste good. What is normally recommended is to cook to a lower temperature but keep the food at that temperature for a bit longer, which has the same effect safety-wise but is much better.

[gspencley]

> Btw, "What temperature should a food be cooked to" is a classic example of something where lots of people and lots of sources repeat incorrect information, which is often ignored by people who actually cook. Famously, the temp that is often "recommended" is only the temp at which bacteria/whatever is killed instantly

I love this reply because you support your own point by repeating information that is technically incorrect.

To qualify myself, I have a background in food service. I've taken my "Food Safe" course in Ontario which is not legally mandated to work in food service, but offered by our government-run health units and many restaurants require a certificate to be employed in any food handling capacity (wait staff or food prep).

There is no such thing as "killed instantly." The temperature recommendations here in Canada, for example, typically require that the food be held at that temperature for a minimum of 15 seconds.

There is some truth in what you say. Using temperature to neutralize biological contaminants is a function of time and you can certainly accomplish the same result by holding food at lower temperature for a longer period of time. Whether this makes the food "taste better" or not depends on the food and what you're doing.

Sous Vide cooking is the most widely understood method of preparation where we hold foods at temperatures that are FAR lower than what is typically recommended, but held for much longer. I have cooked our family Thanksgiving Turkey breast at 60C sous vide, and while I personally like it... others don't like the texture. So your mileage may vary.

My point is that you're making a bunch of claims that have grains of truth to them, but aren't strictly true. I think your comment is an application of the dunning kruger effect. You know a little bit and because of that you think you know way more than you actually do. And I had to comment because it is beautifully ironic. Almost as if that paragraph in your comment is, itself, AI slop lol

[edanm]

> And I had to comment because it is beautifully ironic. Almost as if that paragraph in your comment is, itself, AI slop lol

Glad to be of service :) I think that's the first time a comment of mine has been accused of being AI slop. Sorry to say, every word - correct or incorrect - is mine.

> To qualify myself, I have a background in food service.

I'm just a person who watches cooking YouTube a bit, so right off the bat - I'll defer to your expertise on this.

I'm not sure we really disagree much though. My rough memory is that the guidelines specify temperature at which things are killed, I don't know if "instantly" or "15 seconds" really makes a difference in practice.

> Sous Vide cooking is the most widely understood method of preparation where we hold foods at temperatures that are FAR lower than what is typically recommended, but held for much longer.

Sous Vide is where I was first exposed to this concept, but I was more referring to things like chicken breasts, etc, which often aren't great at the minimal internal temperature, but I've seen YouTube "chefs" recommend cooking them to a slightly lower temperature, banking on the idea that they will effectively be at a slightly lower temperature, but long enough to still effectively kill bacteria. I've even seen criticism of the FDA charts for exactly this reason.

But to clarify, this is far outside any expertise I actually have.

> I think your comment is an application of the dunning kruger effect. You know a little bit and because of that you think you know way more than you actually do.

Absolutely possible.

[gspencley]

> , but I was more referring to things like chicken breasts, etc, which often aren't great at the minimal internal temperature, but I've seen YouTube "chefs" recommend cooking them to a slightly lower temperature, banking on the idea that they will effectively be at a slightly lower temperature, but long enough to still effectively kill bacteria.

Something that is very common is removing food from the heat source before the internal temperature hits your target because heat transfer itself takes time and so the food will continue to cook inside for a short period of time after being removed. This is because the outside, which you are blasting with heat that is far higher than your internal target, will partly transfer to the inside (the rest will dissipate into the air). So if you remove it from the heat exactly when you hit the internal temp, you can exceed the target temperature and your food will be "over cooked."

The problem with a tv chef recommending using a traditional cooking method, such as baking or frying, to TARGET a lower temperature, is that is very hard with those mediums to control for time. What you are doing with those mediums is you are blasting the outside of your food with a temperature that is far hotter than your internal target.

And so say, for example, you have your oven set to 180C and you are cooking chicken and your internal temperature target is, let's say 4 degrees cooler than the official recommendation. So the official recommendation is 74C held for a minimum of 15 seconds (that's Canada) and you are targeting 70C. With traditional cooking methods, you are playing a guessing game where you're blasting the outside of the food with very hot temperatures in order to bring the inside of the food up to some target.

I don't know off hand how much longer you would have to hold at 70C to get the same effect as 15 seconds at 74C ... but while you're waiting, your food is likely to exceed 74C anyway because of the high temperatures you're working with.

So that's why I talked about sous vide... becuase it's kind of the only way you can control for those variables. No oven can hold steady at temps as low as 70C (even at higher temps they fluctuate quite a bit. Anywhere from 5C - 20C depending on the oven).

And yeah - we definitely agree on most things. The minimum recommended temperatures are "play it safe" rather than "make food delicious." I do recognize that that was ultimately your point :)

It wasn't really my point to pick on you or argue with you, but to show that certain things you said are "partly true", which is a common complaint of AI (that and hallucinations). When we're dealing with things like food safety and the general public, it is usually better to offer general advise that is play it safe.

And with certain foods this matters more than others. Chickens get infected with salmonella while they are alive, for example, and so the bacteria can live throughout the meat. Whereas if you're cooking beef, you really only need to worry about surface contamination and so you can sear a steak for a few seconds and have it still be very "blue" in the middle and you're good.