Last Thursday the roomate brought home 10 pounds or so of hamburger. It was my responsablity to divide the meat into usable portions and freeze it. “I’ll do it tomorrow”, I said and thew it in the back of the fridge and promply forgot about it, until Monday evening. I took it out and it was definatly grey, corpse grey. However it didn’t smell bad and only small portions were getting slimy. My roommate with unabashed enthusiasm expressed her desire to never ever ever eat it, this from the same woman that won’t eat bologna if its been in the fridge more then 3 days though. I however thought it was till good and divided it into protions and froze it. Over the past couple of days my nerves have been getting to me though and think my will to eat the possibly bad meat is waneing.
What should I do? Should I try it and see what happens? I think I have a strong immune system so I probably won’t DIE… but still.
Well, that’s not what I expected when I opened this thread …
That being said, I would toss your meat*. It turned colours, Whammo, you may trust your stomach to be strong enough to handle a little turned meat, but why tempt fate?
*[sub]Why couldn’t I even type that without blushing?[/sub]
I say go for it!! If you do get sick at least you get to have your stomach pumped. You havent lived till you get a tube stuck down your throat and have the contents of your stomach sucked out with a vaccum.
I thought you were supposed to beat your meat and toss the salad, but to each their own.
I’d have to go along with most of the rest and say throw it out. If some of it has gotten slimey and the colour is disagreeable then kick it to the curb. The idea of having my stomach pumped isn’t appealing.
Thursday to monday… thats 4 days. Remember it didn’t smell bad… I don’t think… not rotten anyway… and only a little slimy. Less slimy and stinky then Talkinsquirrel anyway…
Well, something like this really depends on your personal situation. How attached are you to your meat?
Seriously, unless 10 lbs of hamburger is a serious portion of your grocery budget, why risk it?
And if it is, remember this: meat will only last until it’s “bad”. Freezing makes the process of turning “bad” take place more slowly. But if the meat was “almost bad” or “close to bad” before freezing it, which it probably was (and no, it probably wasn’t all that bad yet), then it’s also not going to last as long in the freezer as it usually does, either.
So if you’re going to use it, use it more quickly than you normally would. And I’d also make sure that you cook it a little longer than normal, too.
Now, I have to ask, how full is your refrigerator that you DIDN’T NOTICE 10 pounds of hamburger for 4 days?
Well, if I were to use it (and I’m not saying I would, this is a totally subjective test) I’d reserve it for something that’d be cooked all the way through, like meatballs or meat loaf. This is not burger material.
The change-color part doesn’t bother me, that’s really not that much indication; I think light alone will do that to meat. The sliminess does, it suggests that the meat is starting to…decompose.
[hijack] remember the far side cartoon showing the guy slumped over the piano? one onlooker says to the other:
“Shh! The Maestro is decomposing.”[/hijack]
