Hot answers tagged food-safety
43
Not safe enough for me to try it. Potatoes actually contain a very dangerous toxin called solanine. This toxin is concentrated enough in the green parts in the plant to cause solanine poisoning. This includes the sprouts/eyes, and the potato itself if it's green.
This article from the New York Times health guide indicates that it is something to be taken ...
40
Back in the 70's, the folks at Mother Earth News performed an egg storage experiment. They stored them in a variety of ways, both refrigerated and unrefrigerated, to see how long they could keep. They concluded that unwashed eggs (aka, "hen fruit" or "cackleberries") stored in a sealed container, and kept at 35° to 40°F, were still perfectly edible after ...
33
I might disagree a little with rumtscho - traditionally cured bacon is one thing, what you get in packets from the supermarket is another. It looks similar and it tastes similar, but commercial products are processed rapidly and not tested for immediate consumption without cooking.
Products like Parma ham and Schwartzwaldschinken are proven to be adequately ...
32
Yep. Rotten eggs float, fresh eggs sink.
This is because eggshells are porous, so over time water vapour and gases leak out, reducing the egg's mass.
A fresh egg will lie on its side on the bottom of a glass of water. The older the egg, the more it sits up, until it's floating.
32
Chicken juices contain a soupy mix of proteins including haemoglobin (which gives blood its red colour when mixed with oxygen), and some myoglobin (which gives red meat its red colour when mixed with oxygen). Up to about 140F, they are unchanged, but heat them to between 140F and 160F and they lose their ability to bind oxygen and so their colours change. So ...
30
First, do not eat that. Regardless what color the beef is, two weeks is entirely too long to refrigerate ground beef. It is unsafe and should be thrown out. Raw ground beef only keeps in the refrigerator for 1-2 days.
Ignoring storage time, regarding color, brown meat is as safe to eat as red meat. As others have indicated it is simply oxidation occurring. ...
29
I think it would depend on the cheese.
For a reasonably hard cheese, like cheddar, I have done it, and never gotten sick (your results may vary).
If it's pre-grated, then I would not touch it anymore.
For a softer cheese, like a brie, I would not risk it.
28
It's perfectly safe to cook it, as long as you don't plan to eat it. The exception is if the water was at or below fridge temperature to begin with. When food temperature enters the "danger zone" of 40-140F/4-60C, there's a lag time of 2 hours before bacteria go into exponential replication. Any longer, and the bacteria counts start to increase ...
28
Time to apply a bit of healthy skepticism here:
The blog post:
Is (so far) the first and only one I've ever seen stating mold to be a practical problem in coffee - in the sense of being present in a high enough quantity to matter (mold grows everywhere).
Uses all kinds of weasel words to describe symptoms ("edgy", "cranky", "useless mentally").
Describes ...
27
Steps to put out a grease fire
Turn off source of heat (burner / element)
Do NOT pour water on it
let me say that again, Do NOT pour water on it
Attempt to remove all oxygen from the flame. You can cover with another pot, or baking pan
If you can't cover it, dump baking soda on it. (lots of it)
Secret step number 6, if all else fails, use a fire ...
27
In such a case, for any food item, ask yourself a question: In a 19th century household, would it have been kept in the cellar, or eaten immediately?
For bacon, it is common knowledge (or at least I think everybody knows it) that it was kept in a cellar for long time. So this is definitely not a food which perishes too quickly. You can eat it raw. (In ...
26
A lot of bacteria grows in the range of 40-100F (i.e. room temperature). It's definitely not recommended to defrost meat at room temperature. In fact, you are not supposed to leave meat at room temperature for more than an hour.
However, defrosting in the refrigerator can take a long time and require you to plan at least one day ahead of time. I'm not so ...
26
If you're at all like me, you are reassured by hard numbers and measurables. This should help.
In this situation one of the likely pathogens would be one of the Salmonella species. Salmonella is killed by temperatures in excess of 130 F (55 C). However, it's not an instant death. The time to kill Salmonella decreases exponentially as the temperature ...
25
Capsaicin is oil/fat-soluble so try washing your hands with a little whole milk, or rub with sour cream or vegetable oil and see if that helps.
Just as you can get it in your eyes if you rub them with your fingers, I'm sure you can easily transfer it to your baby.
I'm just surmising here, not speaking from experience so if you try any of these, be sure to ...
24
I'm not going to comment on whether or not it is safe, because that could be any number of issues other than the brown coloring of the meat. However, the brown in and of itself is not an issue. When meat is exposed to air it turns a brown color. This does not effect the falvor of the meat, but the color turns a lot of people off. Grocery stores will actually ...
24
Two problems
Hot or warm food will briefly warm up food already in fridge, especially items immediately near it, and cycling temperatures doesn't not help fresh food quality or life
It is very power inefficient to do this, just let it cool on the bench until it reaches room temperature and then place it in the refrigerator
24
Let's call a spade a spade: if you're in one of many areas where people don't eat vegetables raw, it's because nightsoil or unsterilized animal manure is used to fertilize the fields. A quick rinse won't render these vegetables safe to eat, because you need to kill the pathogens.
To start out, you should wash all dirt and sand off produce; for this wash ...
23
It is absolutely OK to filter and reuse deep-fry oil.
It's not uncommon at some short-order restaurants for them to filter the oil daily and only change it once a week. Of course, it does start to taste a little "off" when you reuse it that many times.
There's also the matter of impurities lowering the smoke point; even when you filter, the result is ...
23
hobodave's answer is most of the way there but I think it understates the importance of protein toxins. With the vast majority of foodborne illnesses, the bacteria aren't particularly harmful at all; what you need to worry about is the protein toxins they produce.
E.Coli - probably the most well-known form of food poisoning along with Salmonella - is ...
23
This is perfectly normal, however, I find the common claim that "it is to prevent parasites" a bit dubious (I would think that it would have to be uniformly applied to the entire fish to have any measurable effect). The wasabi is really there to add flavor. In really high-end sushi restaurants in Japan, for example, it is relatively uncommon for the guest ...
23
It is perfectly safe to eat (when produced, transported, and so on under sanitary conditions, just like any other edible meat).
In some cultures it is considered a delicacy; in others, it is not considered appropriate to eat, but those issues of cultural norms, not of safety.
The news is because it is a violation of trust (truth in labeling) in a ...
22
You should throw them out. Mussels that don't open were quite possibly dead and decomposing for an unknown period of time prior to cooking. You don't want to take a chance here.
Just in case future readers don't know, mussels, clams, and other in-shell shellfish are still alive when you buy them, and they should be still alive when you cook them.
22
It is safe to eat a sprouted potato if it is still firm (source: University of Illinois); however, don't expect it to act the way an unsprouted potato would. Part of the starch will have converted to sugar.
Be sure to store potatoes somewhere cool and dry with good air circulation. Also, keep them away from onions.
22
Some facts seem to be getting mixed up here.
Hot food is going to remain "warm" (i.e. in the danger zone) much longer if you leave it on the counter rather than in the fridge. That's basic physics. If the ambient temperature is colder, then the food will stay warm for less time, leaving less time for bacteria to grow.
There are reasons not to pop a huge ...
21
One important thing to know is that heat doesn't instantly kill bacteria. At least not at temperatures that leave edible material behind.
Bacteria take both time and temperature to destroy. The higher the temperature, the less time required. Take Salmonella senftenberg for example, it takes 60 minutes at 140 F (60 C) to kill 99.9999% of the population. But ...
21
From a food safety point of view, no. There is no danger, because the meat contains no pathogens after overcooking.
From a "healthy living" point of view, it might be a problem, because you can have created carcinogens by charring. But we don't discuss such topics here, because nobody in the world knows how much eating charred meat contributes to the risk ...
20
It depends on the room temperature where you live. At 65F (18C) or below, butter is often barely spreadable and will last for weeks on the counter in a sealed container. At 80F (26C), it starts to get overly soft and doesn't last more than several days.
Our family goes through about a pound / week and we've never had any issues with keeping a half-pound ...
20
I think this is a problem with all oils. When something burns, it produces smoke. Smoke is generally indicative of something that isn't particularly good for us if inhaled. Same holds for oils. It seems that all oils will begin to produce toxins once they hit their smoke point. However, before that, they are completely fine. So pick an oil that will handle ...
20
As a health inspector for over 20 years, I am astounded by the lack of awareness that food safety controls are based on science and not on individual inspectors' personal fears and bad moods. Botulism control is based on some of the following facts: botulinum spores are commonly found in soil and on vegetable surfaces, botulinum grows in low or no oxygen ...
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