will it make you sick? i ate pancakes over the weekend that were fried in butter that… well, let me just say that something about the pancakes was definitely “off.” i didn’t realize it was the butter until about 1/4 of the way through, and then i stopped eating them.
i feel fine, but i’m curious if rancid butter is just kinda gross or if it’s actually enough to give one food poisoning?
Not necessarily. In Tibet they eat a huge amount of it - dissolve it in their tea, melt it on their flatbreads - and while it is an acquired taste, doesn’t do one any harm.
Rancidity is the result of a chemical decomposition of fatty acids and subsequent oxidization. It’s not biological spoilage and, to my knowledge, is not significantly more toxic than what you’d get from cooking with butter.
The substance responsible for “butter flavor” is the same substance that gives vomit its characteristic flavor and aroma.
A few years ago, after Thanksgiving. I ate some leftover peas that had quite a bit of butter on them. They still tasted fine, but were somewhat slimy. I know, I know…why in God’s name did you eat them anyway? Less than an hour later I was in a ball in front of the heater, praying for death. I emptied my stomach completely and continued to dry heave for a long time. I could not even sit or stand. I have never been so sick in my life and there’s absolutely no doubt that it was because of the butter on those peas.
That seems like a pretty quick reaction to bad food, Hazle.
Sickest I ever got was salmonella…my bro in law fixed some Chicken Cordon Bleu and it wasn’t cooked properly due to an oven on the fritz. We all got sick. Flu-like symptoms but much more intense. Ugh! IIRC it took about 8 hours for the illness to kick in.
Was that the only thing you ate in the preceding several hours? That is awfully fast for food poisoning.
Absolutely; however, it may have been more like 2 or 3 hours later. It was over 10 years ago. But, I guarantee, that’s what it was.
What do asterisks surrounding a word mean? I’m really not sure.
Really? Butyric acid is what gives butter it’s flavor? Seriously?
A few months ago, I went to a Mexican restaurant with my sister, her friend, and all of their kids. I ordered chicken fajitas, and one of the kids had a chicken chimichanga. No one else had chicken. It was seasoned within an inch of its life, and neither of us ate all that much.
We took my sister’s friend and her kids to see Graceland after lunch so I got back to my house maybe 3-4 hours later. I sat down, then quickly lay down. I was back up and throwing up in the bathroom within minutes. I was fine after that, though I haven’t gone near that restaurant since.
No. Butyric acid is what gives rancid butter it’s flavor. Butyric acid triglyceride makes up about 3-4% of fresh butter, according to Wiki, and the butyric acid is liberated by hydrolysis when the butter goes rancid. The major flavor of fresh butter is, of course, from butterfat.
Quicker than bold/underline.
[Hi Jack!]
Fidonet readers would edit out the asterisks and then bold or color the word.
[/Hi Jack!]