yay for food poisoning

[Willis]

Oh how wrong I was. It wasn't over. This wasn't a migraine-throw up. It was my body trying to rid itself of something. I won't get into the icky details cos they were pretty gross but... in a nutshell I was (almost violently) sick until I had nothing left. I even managed to bruise my chest on the toilet.


We're pretty sure it's the mutton that did it - cos it was the only thing I ate that day that my BF didn't have.

The bruising your chest on the toilet sounded like the worse thing besides the food poisoning. I got food poisoning several years ago at a fast food placed named after a children's toy. It was the deli trio sandwich. While I was driving on the highway with a friend in the passenger seat the next day, I suddenly felt completely empty inside. It was a combination of me needing nourishment very soon and needing to throw up. I say nourishment instead of just eating because I didn't feel just hungry, I felt weak and hungry. As if some parasite in the food had sapped almost everything out of me except my bearings. I instinctively grabbed a towel from the backseat to cover my mouth because I knew I was about to throw up. Got half on the towel and the other half on my steering wheel. We both knew it was from the fast food because that was the last thing that I had eaten the night before. I wouldn't eat at that chain for a couple of years afterwards. I still will only eat there here and there. Yea food poisoning sucks.

[Tama]

I've heard that that place actually had quite a few such incidents, and that they have since tried to clean up. How long ago was this incident?

[PepperElf]

There was the case of this one lad that I saw on Forensic Files, I think his name was Damien, and I believe it took more than a day for his food poisoning (E. Coli) to develop.

And he was sick for well over a month. I'm glad you didn't have to suffer through that.

Ya. in the link i posted above it said the e.coli recovery period was about a month.

[Tama]

That poor kid ended up in the hospital and with a hole in his colon. (From a slurpee or something. Seriously, how does that blow a hole in your colon?)

Edited for grossness. Highlight to read.

[Pagan]

Food poisoning doesn't have to wait 12 hours before you get sick. I speak from personal experience.

I was a kid, and Mom made me some egg drop soup with a can of Campbell's chicken broth that had gone bad. She knew it was just past the expiration date, but thought it would still be good. I got sick really quickly after I finished that soup.

Since then, we've always been careful with expiration dates.

I tend to be paranoid about them, myself. In part, for fear of this happening...In part, because I have known (and lived with) people who felt that it was OK to disregard them entirely ("it's just a scam to sell more food, man!"), leave raw meat out on the counter to thaw for the better part of a day (without submerging it in cold water or taking other (theoretically effective) precautions), etc etc >_<

Those dates aren't expiration dates. The food does not magically go bad at midnight on the date printed on the can. Except for infant formula and some baby foods, there is no federal (US) requirement for dating anyway. Milk, if stored properly, is good for a week after the date on the container. Eggs keep 3-5 weeks.

With a very few exceptions, most of them are simply for stock rotation. The manufacturer is simply trying to keep it's freshest food out there.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets...ct_Dating/#top

If you've gotten sick from canned food, it was bad when it was canned. Unless you've been eating from cans that were bulging? A general rule of thumb, if it looks/smells/tastes funny or bad, get rid of it.

(I've been eating meat thawed at room temp my whole life and have never, ever gotten sick from it. The few times I've gotten food poisoning have been after eating out.)

[Jay 2K Winger]

Those dates aren't expiration dates. The food does not magically go bad at midnight on the date printed on the can. Except for infant formula and some baby foods, there is no federal (US) requirement for dating anyway. Milk, if stored properly, is good for a week after the date on the container. Eggs keep 3-5 weeks.

Well aware of that, but the point is that the can that I got sick from was used after the "good by" date that was on the can. Can was not bulging-- Mom's savvy enough to know better than to serve a can that might have been bulging.

[Tama]

Same here. We see a can or other food container bulging, we double-bag it and throw it away.

[EricKei]

(I've been eating meat thawed at room temp my whole life and have never, ever gotten sick from it.

Fair enough -- but, do you mean, thawed for, say, 2-4 hours, or more like overnight?

[PepperElf]

i see nothing wrong with thawing meat at room temperature, even overnight if it's frozen solid.

i mean it's going to get cooked after all.

[CoffeeMonkey]

The problem with thawing meat at room temperature is that by the time the inside has thawed, the outside has been sitting in the danger zone for too long (anything over 4 hours) and it allows bacteria to multiply more rapidly than is safe.

The fact that you are cooking it does not make it safe, because many foodborne illnesses don't come from the bacteria themselves, they come from the toxins that the bacteria produce as part of their life cycle. These toxins are not destroyed by cooking.

The best way to thaw meat is in the fridge for as long as it takes, or, for a faster thaw, in cold water. A barely dripping cold faucet will actually thaw frozen things faster than just putting it out on the counter, and a pot of cold water is a close second. More energy convection in the water than the air, even though the water is colder, and it keeps the whole mess below 41 degrees. Everyone is happy!

That's not to say that everyone who eats food that's been in the danger zone over four hours is doomed to a close personal relationship with their bathroom for the next few days. I have a friend who left cooked sausage out for a party for 8+ hours, then stuck it in the fridge and served it the next day, INSISTING that because he microwaved it that it was safe. fortunately, no one got sick. But the risk is significant, and although I'm willing to bet my immune system on some things, long stretches of time with raw meat is not one of them.

[sms001]

Since this thread already has a pretty high grossness factor, I'd like to chime in with a helpful tip: a kitchen sink, especially one with a garbage disposal, is vastly superior to a toilet for barfing. Cleans easier, no awkward kneeling, and of course, no sticking your head in a toilet.

PE - hope you don't have a problem finding a new bbq venue. And glad the incident hasn't put you off that type of food (as sometimes happens) ---no Q would be horrendous!

[EricKei]

Eep. Perhaps I should have qualified my statement ^_^

The IRL friend who insisted that there were NO health concerns with on-counter thawing stuff overnight was one of those lucky people who never, EVER seem to get sick. His entire rationale for "why this is safe to do" essentially boiled down to "HE never got sick from doing this" >_< Think about those two statements for a second. Hence, my taking his advice with a grain of salt.

Some people are lucky in this regard, some aren't. Let's just say I prefer to err on the side of caution.

Also, I worked in foodservice in my past, like many of us here, and one of the things drilled into us from the start was food handling, especially where thawing/leaving meat outside of refrigeration was concerned Thus, I suppose force of habit is part of it.

Addendum to the fun stuff -- People who have had science classes more recently than I/are in the profession can probably elaborate on this, or simply shoot me out of the water : Is it not the case that certain spores that can live in food, simply form a shell when the temperature (of the food) gets close to 150F, but do not actually die from heat unless the food is raised to temps well above those that one would reasonably use for cooking? Meaning, that they would theoretically emerge once the food cools off, and be none the worse for wear?

[Kanalah]

My mom thaws meat by putting it in a sink full of hot water.

Then again we all know how smart my mom is

[Tama]

My family thaws with a sink full of cold water. Or by sitting in the fridge overnight.

[wolfie]

Eep. Perhaps I should have qualified my statement ^_^

The IRL friend who insisted that there were NO health concerns with on-counter thawing stuff overnight was one of those lucky people who never, EVER seem to get sick. His entire rationale for "why this is safe to do" essentially boiled down to "HE never got sick from doing thisYET" >_< Think about those two statements for a second. Hence, my taking his advice with a grain of salt.

Some people are lucky in this regard, some aren't. Let's just say I prefer to err on the side of caution.

Fixed that for you. Just because he's always (so far) made his saving throw doesn't mean he won't get a "1" next time.