Temperature's rising, but by how much? (safety techniques for cooking)

There's a good chance that next month you'll be cooking one of the millions of Thanksgiving turkeys that comes with a pop-up thermometer to tell you when it's done. Don't rely on it--at least not by itself.

"Most of the time pop-up thermometers are pretty dependable," says Bessie Berry, the acting director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Meat and Poultry Hotline, "but there have been instances when they have popped up prematurely." That could mean bringing a bird to the table that still has harmful bacteria breeding all over it because the turkey never got hot enough to kill them. The potential end result: foodborne illness in the form of nausea, vomiting, and …