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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 plea

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

zahlman 1y ago
I've been finding that the proliferation of AI slop is at its worst on recipe/cooking/nutrition sites, so....
- ncallaway 1y ago
  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-internal-temperatures https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/safe-minimum-i...
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      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
sothatsit 1y ago
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.
- jordanb 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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.
    - what 1y ago
      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 1y ago
        qwant ?
        touisteur 1y ago
        Qwant also has an AI overview. Pretty bad too.
jkingsman 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      Really? [0] https://i.imgur.com/ly5yk9h.png https://i.imgur.com/ly5yk9h.png
edanm 1y ago
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 1y ago
  > 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

zahlman 1y ago

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

ncallaway 1y ago
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-internal-temperatures https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/safe-minimum-i...
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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

sothatsit 1y ago

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.

jordanb 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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.
  - what 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      qwant ?
      - touisteur 1y ago
        Qwant also has an AI overview. Pretty bad too.

jkingsman 1y ago

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 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    Really? [0] https://i.imgur.com/ly5yk9h.png https://i.imgur.com/ly5yk9h.png

edanm 1y ago

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 1y ago
> 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