Fish and steak are totally different animals (pun intended) and the way they are handled after slaughter is completely different.
Chickens are dunked in a cold bath with a lot of other chickens after slaughter. This creates a lot of opportunity for cross contamination. Air chilling the chicken mitigates, but doesnβt completely eliminate, this. Itβs still potentially dangerous to eat air chilled chicken undercooked because the structure of the meat still allows salmonella to more easily penetrate the muscle. Air chilling chicken at scale is a newer approach because itβs always been cheaper to water chill it. Air chilled chicken is significantly more expensive to purchase.
Cattle are air chilled, but before they go in to be chilled, the carcass is gutted and washed out. Care is taken to ensure tainted meat is not present during the chilling phase. Chilling cattle is also an aging process that takes several days. You wouldnβt eat a raw steak because pathogens do get on the surface of the meat, but they do have a hard time penetrating the muscle. So yeah, you sear or grill the outside to kill those pathogens. They certainly can get into the muscle so eating a steak at under 165Β°F does still carry risk of foodborne illness. Still, itβs generally safe to do so.
The same can even be said of whole pork cuts. The USDA recommends at least 145Β°F with a 3 minute rest period.
As for fish, I donβt know enough to assert anything, but Iβll speculate that itβs because fish is handled and chilled over ice very quickly and youβre always eating whole cuts. Still, raw fish is risky and itβs significantly safer to at least cook the outside. Donβt let that stop you from trying raw sushi though.
