First off, this post is based on what I took away from the micro chapter in Biology 101, which amounts to: jam, jelly, peanut butter, ketchup and mustard don’t go bad no matter where you put them, because they’re so highly concentrated that any microcritter that tried to land on them would have all of its water sucked out and die. Correct me if I’m wrong here. Otherwise…
Ground beef is obviously less concentrated and much, much more susceptible to spoiling. But what if you left a hamburger floating in a tub of ketchup? Would the ketchup foil the hamburger intruders, or would they get through to the beef in the middle somehow? How would refrigerating and freezing this tub change the picture?
Presumably you’d transfer the patty to the ketchup using aseptic techniques. Still, a floating burger would be exposed to air and whatever bugs are suspended in it.
A submerged burger would be somewhat safer. However, bacterial spores could still find their way into the ketchup, and thence to the yummy meat.
Ketchup alone is not sufficient to kill all bacterial spores: Inactivation of Bacillus spores by the combination of moderate heat and low hydrostatic pressure in ketchup and potage.
You’re wrong here. At least partially.
I had some homemade raspberry jelly that got left out on the counter for several days after being partially used. It developed a growth of mold across the top.
And I’ve found ketchup that was pushed to the back of the refrigerator for some time – probably months. Besides separating out, it also had something greenish-gray start to grow on it.
Peanut butter will separate and get stale-tasting, but I’ve never seen it actually go bad (anything start to grow on it). Mustard I don’t like, so no experience.
You didn’t mention honey, but that is something I have never seen go bad. It will crystalize eventually, but microwaving or heating in hot water will repair that.
Usually, ground beef is contaminated during the grinding process, as surface bacteria are mixed into the interior. So airborne bacteria really aren’t that big a factor. Submerging it in ketchup wouldn’t really do much, because the meat itself provides enough of a growth medium for the critters to grow.
OK, I am SLIGHTLY exaggerating that, but ketchup can go bad. If it is not stored properly, it will ferment, and when you open a fermenting bottle of ketchup, it will effervesce out of the bottle. It’s also considerably more vinegary-smelling than ketchup should be. Saw it happen LOTS of times when I worked in restaurants (one reason I only use restaurant ketchup that comes in bottles with unremovable tops - servers can’t “marry” half-used bottles, which reduces the risks of contamination.)
Heh. Let me rephrase that. I am talking about a plastic flip-up top that does not, itself, detach from the bottle, thereby preventing anyone from transferring ketchup (or anything else) INTO it. The opening, under the flip-up part, is a small nozzle-y sort of thing.
To the best of my knowledge, it is and always has been against health regs to marry* condiments, but every restaurant I worked in required it. Full bottles of ketchup just look better on a table than half-used ones. The newer ketchup bottles are actually ketchup-colored plastic, so the bottle always appears neat and tidy, and the tops are not removable. And they’re MUCH easier to get ketchup out of, too, being all squeezy, rather than rigid like glass.
(*Let’s don’t get silly. You know what I mean by “marry” here.)
I work in a restaurant and they don’t allow us to do that, citing the health regs.
However, we do usually keep enough ketchup bottles stocked, and replace the ones we go through by putting more at the front of the cabinet, that I do have to wonder sometimes what will happen if someone takes the very last ketchup bottle (the one furthest back) out.
I brought back a huge tub of hot mustard from France a long while ago, and even several years later it was as good as when I bought it. After a long spell some of the fluid would separate out, but with a minimum of stirring it was just like new.
OK, so the main function is to open up an out-only hole, but do any of these actually prevent you from taking the whole damn top off? I’ve never seen one. Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, though.
You don’t know my roommate. He wouldn’t touch a low-fat turkey burger if it offered to get him drunk and pleasure him sexually. (I know I said ground beef, but in my case it’s actually turkey.) My burgers, at the very least, are safe.
Haven’t they ever heard of First In, First Out? We don’t have ketchup where I work, but if one of us started making a habit out of putting new condiments in the front instead of behind the old bottles, we would be roundly fired, and fast.
It would have to be a very thoroughly cooked burger inmersed in ketchup while still hot. Otherwise the bacteria inside the meat will happily survive and spoil it. I worked in a supermarket’s meat department. Trust me, there is a reason ground beef goes bad so quickly.
Yes, you cannot remove the top. One of my friends works for (long explanation, bear with me) the company that invented the machinery used to attach the caps to the bottles. I have no idea how the ketchup gets into the bottle in the first place, actually - I never asked, but I’m assuming either there’s some specific filling gadget at the ketchup-making place that will fill the bottles through the teeny little nozzle, or the caps are attached post-fill.
I haven’t tried to pry one off a bottle yet. I know they won’t unscrew - THAT I have tried. It may also be that the caps are not completely unremovable, but that it is impossible to do so without wrecking the bottle or otherwise being obvious.
Aha. I have found this : “SUMMARY The Heinz Upside Down Ketchup provides a design for better evacuation of ketchup with less product left inside. The “easy squeeze” design provides an easier and cleaner dispensing of ketchup for enhanced patron satisfaction as a table top condiment. A non-removable SafetyCap™ feature eliminates the opportunity of tampering with the bottle’s contents and provides improved hygiene and food safety. The “stay-clean cap” keeps the bottle attractive serving after serving. The non-removable cap also means that restaurant patrons are guaranteed to get 100 percent Heinz ketchup. Shelf life of the product is 7 months.Judges felt that the red container (versus clear) portrays higher quality and always maintains a full and clean appearance at table top. They noted that the upside down design provides a ready to use product without shaking or jostling to get the ketchup down as in a normal bottle. They also noted that this would reduce splash or accidents with patrons. All judges noted the excellent quality of the ketchup itself.”
FWIW, from a pragmatic viewpoint I’m not really all that concerned about the ketchup weddings. I’ve eaten in restaurants all my life–mostly cheap ones–and I would be surprised if I haven’t already eaten gallons (pints?) of married ketchup in my life and I’m still alive.
My coffee shop has nine employees, one of whom doesn’t actually work there but is on call, and our manager does a lot of the grunt work himself. And our work area is really small. By the nature of the beast, it’s hard not to notice what everyone else is doing almost all of the time.