Food safety: roast chicken left out?

curtis73 wrote:

Cotton wrote: I'd eat it, but I also eat eggrolls from gas stations so.....

My grandfather used to get a big bucket from KFC and leave it on the counter all week. He would just eat some here and there. He said he didn't like cold chicken. He lived to the age of 96.

Probably speaks more to the quality of food used in fast food. I think it was in the movie Supersize Me that he set a big mac, french fries, and other fast food out on the counter. It took a ridiculously long time for the food to start to mold. I don't think the french fries ever did, they got thrown out first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLbTi6noemI

I worked at a fast food joint for a couple years. We got boxes of frozen beef patties three times a week.

You've all been to a posh restaurant where you see "Grade A Beef" on the menu, right? Well, no one advertises anything less than the best. The meat you eat at fast food joints is rated anywhere from grade D to grade F. Our boxes were stamped by the USDA as "grade F: edible."

In reply to curtis73:

"Grade D but edible, our food, our life, our attitude..."

Having woken up at 2:00 am, violently puking my guts all over the bedroom floor, while listening to my wife and 4 children do the same, I'd pitch it. Chicken is cheap and food poisoning truly sucks.

curtis73 wrote: I worked at a fast food joint for a couple years. We got boxes of frozen beef patties three times a week. You've all been to a posh restaurant where you see "Grade A Beef" on the menu, right? Well, no one advertises anything less than the best. The meat you eat at fast food joints is rated anywhere from grade D to grade F. Our boxes were stamped by the USDA as "grade F: edible."

That's why I basically stopped eating fast food after working at Sonic in college and try to get other people to not eat it either.

It's cheaper and healthier to eat at home, but I guess taking 45 minutes to cook dinner and wash the dishes is poor alternative to eating good food and being healthy at the same time.

curtis73 wrote:

Cotton wrote: I'd eat it, but I also eat eggrolls from gas stations so.....

My grandfather used to get a big bucket from KFC and leave it on the counter all week. He would just eat some here and there. He said he didn't like cold chicken. He lived to the age of 96.

Once a Taco Bell taco was left in the dorm room fridge for an entire semester. It looked the same after several months in the fridge as when it came from the restaurant.

93EXCivic wrote:

curtis73 wrote:

Cotton wrote: I'd eat it, but I also eat eggrolls from gas stations so.....

My grandfather used to get a big bucket from KFC and leave it on the counter all week. He would just eat some here and there. He said he didn't like cold chicken. He lived to the age of 96.

Once a Taco Bell taco was left in the dorm room fridge for an entire semester. It looked the same after several months in the fridge as when it came from the restaurant.

i know this isn't 100% factual, because i've tried the Taco Bell experiment myself... a hardshell turns to mush in a couple of hours, the lettuce turns brown and the cheese shrivels up in a day, and the meat turns into a leathery substance after a couple of days..

McDonalds would have 39 cent hamburgers on Tuesdays. Since I was pretty much broke I would buy 12 and keep them in a drawer in the shop. They held surprisingly well if you got them without ketchup and pickles.

Wally wrote: McDonalds would have 39 cent hamburgers on Tuesdays. Since I was pretty much broke I would buy 12 and keep them in a drawer in the shop. They held surprisingly well if you got them without ketchup and pickles.

novaderrik wrote:

93EXCivic wrote:

curtis73 wrote:

Cotton wrote: I'd eat it, but I also eat eggrolls from gas stations so.....

My grandfather used to get a big bucket from KFC and leave it on the counter all week. He would just eat some here and there. He said he didn't like cold chicken. He lived to the age of 96.

Once a Taco Bell taco was left in the dorm room fridge for an entire semester. It looked the same after several months in the fridge as when it came from the restaurant.

i know this isn't 100% factual, because i've tried the Taco Bell experiment myself... a hardshell turns to mush in a couple of hours, the lettuce turns brown and the cheese shrivels up in a day, and the meat turns into a leathery substance after a couple of days..

This was a soft taco and there was no lettuce but I sure thought it looked similar.

Toss that E36 M3 out. Seriously, why would you even consider this to save a couple bucks?

In reply to rotard:

It's long gone; it's not the money so much as the time, and the tasty, tasty soup. It was a good dinner plan which I was looking forward to, that's all...

We've been trying to eat out less, and we've been coordinating menus and swapping nights of on person taking care of both dog-walking-duty and dinner making while the other gets to do whatever they want, whether it's projects or staring at the wall. This was just a minor hiccup in our planned menus.

We had homemade pizza instead, which was excellent, and tonight I'm going to try a tiny batch of chili verde since we got a pound of tomatillos from the CSA last week...

^Excellent, that's the wife and I do.

Cook a big batch of meals 2-3 times a week, then you "change" which leftover you have so you don't have it XX number of meals straight......then treat ourselves to a meal out once a week.

mtn wrote:

poopshovel wrote:

Cotton wrote: I'd eat it, but I also eat eggrolls from gas stations so.....

See also: Fried Chicken Livers.

They have Fried Chicken Livers at your gas station?

Yup. And I deliberately leave pizza out overnight. Mama gets all freaked about it. It's not the same after it's refrigerated. I've left steak, hamburgers, etc out too. Only one I'll never touch again is raw oysters. Shellfish poisoning is a motherberkeleying motherberkeleyer.

poopshovel wrote:

mtn wrote:

poopshovel wrote:

Cotton wrote: I'd eat it, but I also eat eggrolls from gas stations so.....

See also: Fried Chicken Livers.

They have Fried Chicken Livers at your gas station?

Yup. And I deliberately leave pizza out overnight. Mama gets all freaked about it. It's not the same after it's refrigerated. I've left steak, hamburgers, etc out too. Only one I'll never touch again is raw oysters. Shellfish poisoning is a motherberkeleying motherberkeleyer.

Nothing personal, but I'm not sure about taking food safety advice from a guy with "poop" in his name

Leftover pizza reheated on a baking stone makes it worth the wait.

Something else to note is that there is a latency period between eating contaminated food and feeling the effects. If you are feeling sick today, chances are, your stomach is reacting to something from at least a few days ago.

Note: does not apply to alcohol poisoning.

I would've nommed the E36 M3 out of that chicken.

beans wrote: I would've nommed the E36 M3 out of that chicken.

yup.. 3/4 of the people in the world would just freak out if they heard that we throw away perfectly good food in America just because it sat out for a few hours after it was already cooked..

novaderrik wrote:

beans wrote: I would've nommed the E36 M3 out of that chicken.

yup.. 3/4 of the people in the world would just freak out if they heard that we throw away perfectly good food in America just because it sat out for a few hours after it was already cooked..

And 1/2 of those people would have combed through your garbage to get it after you threw it out.

Getting hard to see through all the smug.

My uncle was a missionary bush pilot in Peru. He and my aunt lived amongst the natives. When they'd kill a large Tapir or Pecari, they would eat on it for several days. Obviously no refrigeration. He said after a few days they would just peel off the black meat until they got down to reddish meat and chow down.

If anybody has any good links for specific guidelines for types of food and conditions of storage to get an idea of what's safe that's realistic, scientific, but less conservative than the usual food industry's "OMG, it didn't get from 37 degrees to 165 degrees inside five minutes!", I'd love to see them.

Failing that, the "I'd have eaten it; we waste too much food" isn't particularly useful. I doubt you're going to convince anybody who's had one good bout of food poisoning to be any less careful (or paranoid, whatever).

We do waste too much food. My biggest current improvement on that front was to not sign up for the winter CSA, since we just can't keep up with our varying schedules. Most of the food I've thrown out recently wasn't stuff that was fine-but-scary; it was veggies gone liquid or fuzzy. The half-a-chicken was a bummer, but it was a drop in the bucket.

Mitchell wrote: Something else to note is that there is a latency period between eating contaminated food and feeling the effects. If you are feeling sick today, chances are, your stomach is reacting to something from at least a few days ago. Note: does not apply to alcohol poisoning.

actually, there is no hard and fast rule to this.

the majority of claims involving foodborne that I've seen are within the first 18 hours of consumption.

its really dependant on WHAT is going on with what you ingested. parasites could take weeks, but actual poisoning is usually very quick. major indigestion can take a few hours til it hits your colon.

if you're ever unsure if you can handle it, see a doctor, i'd say...

Mitchell wrote: Leftover pizza reheated on a baking stone makes it worth the wait.

Truth.