For lunch I just yank a package a lunch meat out of the freezer and noted that it expired 3 months ago. I told my self “it was frozen, its still good.” It smelled ok and tasted ok, but as I was eating some doubt started to set in. Does freezing foods (at normal freezer temperatures) keep them good forever, or do they simply spoil more slowly?
What the heck is “spoiling” anyways?
[Insert Clever Quote Here]
If the meat is frozen, you’re not going to catch anything from it. Food that’s been frozen doesn’t spoil. What does happen is that the moisture leaks out of it, and it gets discolored and won’t taste very good. Won’t hurt you, but won’t be especially appetizing, either.
Frozen meat can still contain microbes in it. Not all bacteria are killed by the cold temperature of a freezer.
Now if you’re cooking that meat up thoroughly after you thaw it, you should be OK. Cooking temperatures kill all kinds of stuff quite nicely. Especially the microbes that tend to be in food.
Just FYI this is from the CDC:
Also:
This is from Medical Microbiology (S. Baron, editor.):
The point is not to make you paranoid, but that while freezing cold is not the ideal environment for most food-borne pathogens it doesn’t necessarily kill them. Especially spore-forming bacteria.
bon appetit
Alphagene
But doesn’t that refer to food that is ALREADY contaminated before you put it in the freezer?
However, I thought the chances of it actually going bad in the freezer are low to none. If the lunch meat is OK when he put it in the freezer, it’s OK when it comes out. 'Course, there’s always the possibility that it picked up something in the thawing process that might be bad, but assuming it was thawed correctly (in fridge or microwave) it’s going to be OK.
Eeeeew. I’m not feeling well already. I forgot in the original post to include another spoilage questions.
A while back, I grabbed a club sandwich from a fast food joint named after a mass transit system. As I was scarfing, I noticed that the roast beef was not a nice uniform carmel color, but had light gray splotches, and the turkey had a “rainbow” spectral sheen to it. What causes the meat to discolor like that and is it dangerous?
[Insert Clever Quote Here]
Well the point is that meat may be contaminated in the living animal. The bacteria comes from the animal itself, not necessarily from leaving it out on the countertop overnight.
falcon, I doubt you’re gonna get terribly sick. Like the good folks at the CDC said, unless you’re preggers, have full-blown AIDS, got a liver transplant in the past week or are over the age of 90, your immune system is probably more than capable of dealing with any bacteria which may or may not have been in the meat.
The thing with food-borne illness is that it happens a lot and people often don’t know it. It can manifest itself as a day ot two of mild stomach pains.
You could be real safe and autoclave all your pastrami prior to ingesting it. You might want to pile on the mustard though.
As for your Amazing Technicolor Roast Beef, falcon, I have no idea. It could be mold or bacteria. Maybe the fat in the turkey caused a cool prismatic effect like the oil spots in a puddle. But I’d autoclave that too.
Alphagene
Well the point is that meat may be contaminated in the living animal. The bacteria comes from the animal itself, not necessarily from leaving it out on the countertop overnight.
falcon, I doubt you’re gonna get terribly sick. Like the good folks at the CDC said, unless you’re preggers, have full-blown AIDS, got a liver transplant in the past week or are over the age of 90, your immune system is probably more than capable of dealing with any bacteria which may or may not have been in the meat.
The thing with food-borne illness is that it happens a lot and people often don’t know it. It can manifest itself as a day ot two of mild stomach pains.
You could be real safe and autoclave all your pastrami prior to ingesting it. You might want to pile on the mustard though.
As for your Amazing Technicolor Roast Beef, falcon, I have no idea. It could be mold or bacteria. Maybe the fat in the turkey caused a cool prismatic effect like the oil spots in a puddle. But I’d autoclave that too.
Alphagene
Ok, I missed something. What is autoclave? Some kind of antibacterial condiment?
Oh sorry. I’m being a microbiology snob, using jargon like that.
Autoclaving is a sterilization technique. You’re basically taking whatever it is you want to sterilize and putting it in a big steel contraption called an autoclave, appropriately enough. The autoclave will blast the object with pressurized hot water (about 121°C). It’s basically Hell’s dishwasher. You let this go for about a half hour and you object will be damn near totally sterile.
Obviously, you don’t want to do this to a sandwich. Even one from Subway.
Sorry to confuse ya. Scientific jargon and a wise-ass attitude are a dangerous combination.
Alphagene
Now I’ve seen the rainbow sheen, too, particularly on Canadian bacon on frozen pizzas or ready-to-bake pizzas from deli counters. I asked my mom once and she reckoned it was caused by preservatives. It’s not made me sick yet, so I just lump it in with “things about processed food I’d rather not think about too hard.”
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Isn’t the rainbow sheen just the grease that’s in or on the meat? Like when you see oil floating on a puddle, it often looks like a rainbow. I think it’s just fat.
I’ve seen the rainbow on meat too, but I usually see it on ham. And it’s not spoiled ham, but it always makes me think it is. Maybe it’s a mix of the fats of the meat and water?