Author Topic: Any food safety experts in the house?  (Read 751 times)

Hawkmoon

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Any food safety experts in the house?
« on: September 03, 2021, 06:58:28 PM »
Lost power due to Ida on Wednesday evening. Didn't get the generator fired up until Thursday, after which I ran it on a cycle of basically two hours on, two hours off. Last run Thursday night was around 9:30 p.m.

This morning I ran it for about an hour before leaving for work, then I put it away and scrammed. When I came home at 1:00 p.m. the power company had just finished getting the power restored. Ice cream was still cold, but quite soft. Fish stick were soft enough to bend without snapping.

I think the ice cream is okay. I think the pre-cooked meatballs are okay. I think the Birds-Eye Steam Fresh veggies are okay.

I had two portions of chicken cordon bleu. Usually one makes a meal, but I'm cooking both tonight and I'll eat them. Not sure what to do about the fish sticks. I'm leaning toward tossing them.

What are the chances they might be safe?
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zxcvbob

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2021, 07:05:44 PM »
I am not any kind of expert.  But I'd let the ice cream be your guide; it was still maybe 30 degrees or a little less.  So everything else it the freezer should be close to that.  The fish stick should be fine up to about 40 degrees for a few hours and they didn't get anywhere near that. 

Cook them.  Smell them before you eat them (you know what bad fish smells like)  The texture might be a little off from freezing and thawing, but I predict not even that.
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RoadKingLarry

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2021, 07:12:57 PM »
When in doubt throw it out.
I'd much rather waste some food than endure a bout of food poisoning or worse.
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Jim147

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2021, 08:01:17 PM »
If it stayed below 45 eat it.
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And sometimes goes on and on and on.

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Hawkmoon

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2021, 09:36:46 PM »
The problem is that I don't know if it stayed below 45.

I ate the chicken cordon bleu for supper this evening, and (as of 9:35) I haven't died -- yet. But I think I'll go with RKL and toss the fish sticks. The veggies are in sealed pouches, so I'm not worried about them.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2021, 01:32:28 AM by Hawkmoon »
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JTHunter

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #5 on: September 03, 2021, 10:00:37 PM »
Hawkmoon - many years ago, I was a county health inspector.  We checked out restaurants, grocers, water wells, etc.  One of the things my supervisor impressed on me was that food poisoning happens when food spends a total of 4 hours at temperatures between 40o and 120o.  It doesn't have to be all at one time either.  It can be 20 minutes here, 30 minutes there, etc., but 4 hours at those temps and you need to assume that food is no longer safe.
Remember summertime picnics with a big bowl of potato salad macaroni salad, coleslaw, or lettuce salad and how they would sit out?  That is where many cases of food poisonings originated.  Even in pouches, vegetables have bacteria on them.
If those fish sticks were breaded, PITCH THEM.  If the ice cream was still under 40os, even soft it should be OK.
Be careful.
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Bogie

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #6 on: September 03, 2021, 10:41:25 PM »
I hate fish sticks. Burn them.
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sumpnz

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #7 on: September 04, 2021, 12:02:00 AM »
Let your nose be the judge.  If it’s bad you’ll know.  Sounds like everything stayed cold but questionable if actually frozen.  It’s probably fine, though culinary quality will suffer a bit. 

I’m surprised that 2 hours on, 2 hours off wasn’t sufficient to keep things solid.  Unless it’s in a 100+F garage anyway.

Hawkmoon

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2021, 01:31:26 AM »

I’m surprised that 2 hours on, 2 hours off wasn’t sufficient to keep things solid.  Unless it’s in a 100+F garage anyway.

The problem wasn't the 2-on, 2-off cycles. The problem was the longer OFF periods overnight. I'm too old and too tired to drag myself out of bed every two hours to mess with a generator in the middle of the night. And Wednesday night was a non-starter, anyway. The storm was dumping torrents or rain al night, up until the wee hours of the morning. The driveway in front of my attached garage was hlooded, with water seeping under the overhead door. I wasn't going to try to fire up the generator under those conditions.
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griz

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #9 on: September 04, 2021, 05:40:27 AM »
let the ice cream be your guide

My niece lives by that wisdom.
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Ben

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #10 on: September 04, 2021, 07:49:47 AM »
If your fridge/freezer doesn't have a built in thermometer, you can buy good, cheap analog freezer thermometers off Amazon. I keep one in my chest freezer. No power needed.

That said, I had a few 2-6 hour power outages this Summer. Even after the six hour one, I didn't bother to check food. A modern fridge/freezer, especially if pretty full, should go a half day easy without reaching concerning temps inside.

If food getting above 45deg will give you food poisoning or kill you, I should have been dead by the time I was ten, given family camping trips with old fashioned ice chests where there was nothing left of the ice but cool water by the end of the camping trip.  :laugh:
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K Frame

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #11 on: September 04, 2021, 07:56:54 AM »
Realistically, the fish sticks are probably OK....

But, fish goes south faster than just about anything else out there.

Throw the fish sticks out.

Here's something else about other food...

For most stuff, if you thoroughly heat or reheat it, you'll kill whatever nasty critters might be in there. The problem is, however, making sure that everything gets thoroughly heated...

That's where a sous vide machine has come into play for me.

I tend to hold things like chicken maybe a bit longer in the refrigerator than I should... But... I also sous vide chicken breasts to 150 deg. for 4.5 hours.

Pretty much nothing that is bad for us is going to survive being held at that temperature for that long.

Good table here.

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/pasteurization-table-or-how-to-safely-cook-your-food-to-a-lower-internal-temperature.261182/

But fish sticks? Those won't sous vide, and to really make sure you're not dealing with some nasties you'd have to cook them long enough that they wouldn't be edible.
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Kingcreek

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #12 on: September 04, 2021, 12:33:33 PM »
1. I’ve eaten things that should have killed me or made me very ill.
2. That doesn’t mean I should have eaten that stuff.
Here’s another way of looking at it:
Risk v benefit.
How much money are you potentially saving vs how much does a case of food poisoning cost you?
What we have here is failure to communicate.

zxcvbob

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #13 on: September 04, 2021, 01:00:58 PM »
I tend to hold things like chicken maybe a bit longer in the refrigerator than I should... But... I also sous vide chicken breasts to 150 deg. for 4.5 hours.

Pretty much nothing that is bad for us is going to survive being held at that temperature for that long.


Be careful with that.  150° will kill all but the most thermophilic bacteria (and I don't think those are particularly nasty) but it will not denature staph toxin nor botulinum toxin.  Boiling will quickly destroy botulinum toxin, but I don't think even that is high enough for staph toxin.

In the bad old days when people would can green beans in the oven or in a boiling water bath canner, the reason that worked is you always boiled the contents again before you ate them.  That last detail seems to be mostly lost.  (by the time I die, probably nobody will remember, but a few folks will still remember that Grandma did her beans in a water bath canner and might try it)  Somewhere I have a Kerr home canning guide from the early 70's that gives times for BWB canning low acid foods.  It's something ridiculous like 3.5 hours.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2021, 12:11:08 AM by zxcvbob »
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Jim147

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #14 on: September 04, 2021, 01:40:00 PM »
Yeah as a kid i helped my mom water bath can green beans we picked. That was a long day.
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Doggy Daddy

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #15 on: September 04, 2021, 11:13:48 PM »
Get a smallish plastic cup.  Fill it with water.  Let freeze in the freezer.  Then, put a penny on top.  If you open the freezer and the penny is not on top anymore, it got over 32 degrees.
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K Frame

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #16 on: September 05, 2021, 08:10:54 AM »
"but it will not denature staph toxin nor botulinum toxin."

No, it won't.

But, the chances of there being botulinum toxin in stuff you run through a sous vide (mainly meats) is pretty slim. Botulism bacteria are anaerobic. That's why the most common vector for botulism is through canned food.

Staph is more of a concern, but I'm not holding this food for a couple of weeks before cooking it.
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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #17 on: September 06, 2021, 12:43:38 AM »
I've been a broke cur a bunch of times, everything you've described is mighty fine eatin imo.
 if I was slightly worried I would nuke it after cooking it.
 I once ate a gluten free all natural donut I found in my truck ( 100 degrees days ) that was two or three weeks old and I ate it.


 ( boy, did I ever get sick, it was way worse than covid )
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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #18 on: September 06, 2021, 05:31:27 AM »
As a kid I got real sick once from spaghetti left in the trunk of a car and arriving home from a family outing.  Didn't taste bad it just wuz.

Put it this way:

You had to ask the question.

Therefore the food is questionable.

Don't eat questionable food.

.

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REF:
Estimates of Foodborne Illness in the United States ...

https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/index.html

CDC estimates 48 million people get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases each year in the United States. CDC provides estimates for two major groups of foodborne illnesses - known pathogens and unspecified agents. Learn about our methods.

Hawkmoon

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #19 on: September 06, 2021, 11:45:20 AM »
I tossed it all except the ice cream and the frozen veggies. And I'm debating tossing those, too.
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K Frame

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #20 on: September 06, 2021, 11:46:58 AM »
Probably the only thing that will be wrong with the veggies and ice cream will be a loss of texture. Especially the ice cream.
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Hawkmoon

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #21 on: September 06, 2021, 03:05:36 PM »
Actually, the ice cream didn't turn all icy crystalline when it refroze, which is probably a good sign.
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Ron

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Re: Any food safety experts in the house?
« Reply #22 on: September 06, 2021, 06:52:47 PM »
I got a bad sammich from JJ, twelve hours after I ate it I spent the night puking my brains out.

When I looked in the mirror in the morning I saw that I blew out all the blood vessels in my eyes.

Both eyes were completely bloodshot red in a scary looking way.

My rule is when in doubt throw it out, I hate being nauseous and throwing up.

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