"It's safe to bite when the temperature is right"—that's the advice given by a USDA fact sheet on appliances and thermometers.  But how do you know when food is cooked to a sufficiently high temperature to kill the pathogens that cause food-borne illnesses?  An accurate food thermometer can tell you. "No modern kitchen should be without one," says our Advisory Board food process engineer, Dr. Timothy Bowser.  "Why do people take chances on risky methods of determining doneness of food when a thermometer will do the job better? It's like ignoring a perfectly good GPS or compass and relying on the wind, hearsay, memory, or a paper map written in a foreign language to find your way on an important mission over dangerous terrain."