PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The USDA has revised its cooking guidelines for pork. You no longer have to cook it to 160 degrees. You can now serve it at a more medium rare temperature of 145 degrees.

Four Seasons Banquet Chef Joe Drago is quite comfortable with the new guidelines.

“To me that’s a good medium to medium well even. It’s extremely safe. It’s not like even eating beef that is medium rare the temperature of that is 125-130 for beef for medium rare. I mean you’ll see that the pork will be a little pink a lot of times the pink in the pork is the color of pork it’s not so much the rareness as you would see in beef.”

The important thing to keep in mind is to let the meat sit for a while before you start slicing it because the meat you are roasting literally cooks from the outside in.” So when your internal temperature gets to 145 degrees; the temperature along the edge of the meat might be 170 or 80 degrees.”

Letting the meat rest awhile after cooking allows you to seal in those juices.

Reported by Michelle Durham, KYW Newsradio