Quite a few people I know are really over-careful about rice, saying that you 'really really mustn’t keep it/reheat it, but everything I am reading suggests that it need be treated the same way as cooked meat; cool it and keep it cool is all.
Whenever I cook beef stew or chili, I leave it out at room temperature for around 24 hours. Improves the flavor greatly, it does. And I’ve never gotten ill from it, nor has anybody else who’s eaten it. My theory is that the mass amounts of ethanol that are usually consumed with it do a good job of neutralizing any pathogens that may be present.
What kind of otters do you serve with it?
…I am the King of Leftover Pizza Omeletes…
peel the cheese and toppings(hopefully sausage,onions,peppers,and mushrooms) off the slice,toss it on your eggs(about 3 jumbo per pizza slice),cook that bad boy up…throw on some hot sauce…eat…repeat as needed
GUINNESS, that may be the most beautiful recipe I’ve ever seen. One question though: my pizza must contain pepperoni as a topping. How well does that omelete-ize? Rationally, it should be equivalent to the chunk sausage, but my stomach is giving a little <squick> at pepperoni slices and eggs…
Foods were also routinely and elaborately cured to retard spoilage, to a far greater extent than is done now. There’s a fascinating book by Mark Kurlansky called Salt that I would highly recommend on the subject.
G’day
Before there was refrigeration, and in parts of inland Australia where ice was not available, people kept meat in meat safes. A meat safe is a sort of cupboard with walls of fine mesh (to keep out flies and dust). Raw meat would be rinsed with vinegar to inhibit the growth of existing bacteria, and could be kept in the meat safe for three days or so in hot weather, and up to two weeks in cool weather.
For centuries at least before the invention of the fridge, people in Europe kept cooked meat on a plate in a rather ordinary cupboard called a ‘larder’. It was common to keep it thus for a couple of days without ill effect.
Sometimes people got food poisoning, indeed it was more common than it is now. But usually not.
Modern customs and procedures for food safety are fanatical and excessive. The cost of saving one quality-adjusted life-year by food safety measures would save fifty quality-adjusted life-years if diverted to the emergency ward at a hospital.
Regards,
Agback
Remember also that Homo Sapiens evolved essentially as a scavenger species. We are omnivores and will eat almost anything, including a lot of stinky foods (cheeses, etc). The point about meat is well taken–the finest steaks are “aged” which means they are allowed to rot slightly to enhance the flavor. Stinky = yummy!
However, I disagree with Agback. Mass production of food must be done under very controlled and clean conditions, or the number of E. Coli, Salmonella, etc. outbreaks would be much greater than it already is. We’re talking about potentially hundreds or thousands of deaths when it’s not done right.
I always go with the “when in doubt, throw it out” theory.
<Thinks> This guy would eat anything.
Can someone tell me why? I’ve done this dozens of times, with no apparent ill effect. I didn’t realize this was risky.
I’m with Squink, Snake-Hips and Agback on this one. While I have no cite to prove it, I’ll say that America throws away enough edible food each day to feed other small countries for a year.
Common sense and good hygiene usually prevent most food related illnesses. I’ve eaten flour tortillas that were over one month old. Last night, I had a chicken fried steak made with a cube steak wear dated MARCH 24. Not even so much as a hiccough did I experience this morning. I’d eat the other cube steak in the package right now except that I’m out of eggs. I’ve eaten a burrito that had been in my freezer for OVER ONE YEAR. Other than a slightly off flavor, it provided an edible meal with no after effects. Mind you, I also keep my refrigerator very cold in order to retard spoilage.
I firmly believe that by consuming slightly bacteria-laden comestibles you actually increase your immunity and resistance to food poisoning. Someone I used to live with was horrified that I used no soap when cleaning my fine Le Creuset frying pans. He was a complete clean freak. I found it hilarious that he got every cough or cold that came around while I usually get sick once or twice a year.
Yes, it’s a good thing for the food preparation industry to have somewhat stringent regulations. The nature of bulk processing means that thousands of people could be affected by one single batch of tainted food. However, this does not mean that individual consumers need adhere to similarly strict standards. I have seen people I know directly dispose of uneaten food when clearing the table. I feel this is insanely wasteful and an insult to the environment that provided it in the first place.
I can safely state that my consumption of old food has save me untold thousands of dollars in my life. I am also rather confident that it has contributed to an extra level of immunity for my body’s defenses. The food waste going on in America is wrong and extravagant.
It’s the KISS principal for bacteria:
Rice combines a ready source of moisture, with an easily digestible source of carbohydrates. With meats and fruits, the water content is more tightly bound to the food, and there are all sorts of other molecules present that a) tie up the water and b) require more complex metabolism.
That said, left out rice is not a death sentence like sunwarmed potato salad used to be. It’s just something that merits a bit of caution.
I agree with everyone cited above (I’m not so sure about the immunity theory, has anyone studied this?)
I too am not that careful with food. There are countless times that I’ve ordered takeout and forgotten about it overnight, and eaten it the next day. It’s been totally fine. Pizza strikes me as particularly safe (except the sausage tastes rancid to me the next day) I’ve also left things out overnight and refrigerated them the next day to eat them later, and they have been fine as well. I am talking about food that has been cooked and directly delivered to me. This includes fried rice, which usually just gets a little drier.
I’ve always followed the premise that if it smells and tastes o.k. that it’s fine to eat (within reason). This has never failed me yet. I can’t remember the last time something I ate made me sick.
Is there something wrong with following this principle?
I’d like to add though, that I frequently can’t eat certain things that others can, like chicken in restaurants. The reason is there’s some smell and taste that really turns me off, and it’s usually from chicken that has been sitting out too long or something - I still can’t figure it out. It smells bad or rancid to me. Almost metallic or something. This happens most often with stir fry and infrequently with large pieces. It seems to be worse on the outside edges of the meat. One time I was in one of those Japanese places where they chop and cook your stuff on a table in front of a group and some funky chicken contaminated everything and I couldn’t eat any of the food. No one else in the group detected it, but it was inedible to me. Of course when I complained to the restaurant they looked at me like I was crazy. Sometimes beef gets this funk too, particularly hamburger patties that are too old, but not as often. I know I’ve been in an upscale restaurant that serves hamburgers, and me and my mom tasted funkiness in the meat, and my dad couldn’t tell at all.
So maybe some people are more sensitive to spoiled food, or the beginnings of spoiled food than others. I think though, for the most part, the bacteria that gives you food poisoning has to come from somewhere other than your ordinary house environment. Theoretically, the cooking should have killed everything and your food would have been a clean slate when it was delivered to you.
:eek:
Wouldn’t the salt in pizza sauce/cheese and the preservatives in the toppings (nitrites or potassium benzoate) limit bacterial growth?
Yes there is, well, there is in theory at least.
The bacteria that make food stinky don’t always make you ill and the bacteria that make you ill don’t always make food stinky; under ‘normal’ condiditons (i.e. a freshly-hunted carcass lying out on the savannah), a good rule of thumb might well be that when the stinky bacteria have done their work, then the dangerous ones will have as well, but we don’t generally store our food under ‘normal’ conditions; some bacteria are more tolerant of cooler temperatures than others, so the growth rate of bacteria on refrigerated food may not be uniform for all species.
Quite aside from that, some bacteria are pretty much endemic to certain foods, for example, raw chicken is quite likely to contain salmonella.
Having said all of that, I think it is true that most cases of food poisoning come from cross-contamination (say, by using the same chopping board for raw meat, then salad), after that, improper cooking is probably the next worst culprit (those barbecued sausages that are black on the outside and frozen at the middle), after that probably comes improper handling/storage after cooking.
That’s a bit of an exaggeration. According to this(a PDF from the USDA), only about 8.7% of US chicken have salmonella. (And in eggs it’s a lot less, something like 1 egg in 20’000.)
The main problem with salmonella , and other bacteria, is that ‘one rotten apple can spoil the barrel’. In the catering industry it is not uncommon to mix hundreds of eggs, and if one of them has the bacteria, then the whole mixture has it.
So if you eat raw chicken, the chances of contacting salmonella are between 1 in 11 and 1 in 12.
That is what I would describe as ‘quite likely’ YMMV.
Never had such a problem.
In my house, anything “left out” more than about 10-15 minutes is classified as ‘obviously intended for us’ by my kittens!
To be clear: my pizzas only have sauce and cheese on them.
Although, if its not “real” cheese, it stands a greater chance of being okay ala “singles” which they can’t call “cheese”.