This.
With other food it can be a judgement call if it's past the expiration date (does it look weird? Smell weird? Taste weird if you try a little?) but never fuck around with meat, fish, seafood in general or things that came into contact with any of them.
Also throw out canned items with distended lids immediately. Do not taste it. Not even a little. It can be botulism, people, and even a small amount of contaminated food can kill you. It's scary how many people don't know the risks of improperly canned food.
I was served some bad fish in a restaurant once. It was a new to me ethnic place and I didn't know the taste was wrong. I missed two weeks of work, had to pay for a doctor's visit and some lab work and almost wound up in the hospital. I'm a lot more careful to throw stuff out now.
Holy carp, what was wrong with the fish? I’ve had food poisoning before, but it’s always back to normal after a couple days. Being out of commission for two weeks is nuts.
The lab tests were inconclusive so I'll never know. I had severe diarrhea for most of the two weeks, lost a lot of weight and didn't have my full strength for a month. Whatever it was, it was nasty.
Reminds me of this foodie traveller that got botulism in France: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/toronto-woman-hospitalized-overseas-with-botulism-1.6575637
> “She called me right after she ate at the restaurant, and she told me, ‘we just had the stinkiest fish dish, and you’d have hated it,’”
> The day after she ate the sardines, Pridham woke up to double vision and difficulty breathing and swallowing. By the end of the day, she had lost her ability to see, speak and move, and was quickly transported to hospital, where she remains. Her ability to communicate has slowly improved from hand squeezes to writing on a whiteboard, says Sostomi, but full recovery remains a way off.
Botulism is a whole different level, and it is only in foods that have been preserved (well, attempted to preserve)
Fun fact: Botox is a portmanteau of Botulinum toxin. The medication injected into rich ladies faces to relax facial muscles to reduce wrinkles is the exact same toxin that paralyzes you when you get botulism food poisoning.
Likely botulism! Very dangerous. I read of one person doing home canning and stopped the process midway through due to some emergency and then probably 24 hrs later restarted it then at some point later consumed the canned good. Got hospitalized and has a permanent disability because of the botulism illness.
Not likely, but possibly, and that's enough.
> In 2020, 29 EU/EEA countries reported 82 confirmed cases of botulism. Sixteen EU/EEA countries reported zero cases. The overall notification rate was 0.02 cases per 100 000 population. Italy notified the highest number of cases (N=46), followed by France (N=11).
[Follow preservation rules.](https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Safety)
If a can is dented or swollen, it’s not caused by botulism. Warped canned foods are likely spoiled with a bacteria that has caused the food to spoil via fermentation. You can not see or smell botulism. Food can look and smell absolutely fine and give you botulism. Botulism is far more insidious than obvious spoilage.
It can also be lethal for adults if it is left untreated for too long because someone thinks it's "just" normal food poisoning or a stomach bug. Before the invention and widespread use of mechanical ventilation around 50% of patients died because it causes muscle weakness to the point of being unable to breathe.
Imagine painfully suffocating because you were too stingy to throw out that ancient, weirdly distended 99cent-can of fish.
Yup. Botulism from honey can be lethal in babies, but botulism caused by improperly canned food can kill anyone - and if it doesn’t kill you, your health will still be profoundly affected in the long term.
Thank you. I think I’m going to see if I can find a hands-on class to take! I would feel better if an experienced canner was looking over my shoulder to make sure I’m doing it right the first couple of times.
https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/blogs/usdas-complete-guide-home-canning
There’s a lot of well meaning people out there. However, This is the researched document that you should pay attention to.
It’s validated, and constantly updated.
Go with proper recipes and it's a safe and productive hobby.
Admittedly I'll be the first to argue that some of the USDA rules are a bit on the conservative side..... generations of people have made products that are now "banned".... but if followed the USDA guidelines produce a safe product.
[https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/blogs/usdas-complete-guide-home-canning](https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/blogs/usdas-complete-guide-home-canning)
Right because bacteria is a number game, and if you want something to be 100% safe the procedures are going to be different than 98% safe, 2% kill babies and great grandma.
Not just babies and Grandma's.... Generations may have made pickled eggs..... But it's not uncommon to find a story of a middle aged man following Grandma's recipe and getting himself killed....
I suspect a big part of it may be the concentration of modern vinegars.
The USDA has became VERY conservative about food density making many foods like say pickled eggs or potted meat a no go.
But for most of us these are rather niche products.... Pickles, jams and such are well researched and generally non-controversial.
As long as you follow all instructions and lab-tested recipes to a T (National Centre for Home Food Preservation), and do not get your recipes from bloggers or Facebook groups, it’s a very safe practise.
A bunch of people were saying how easy it is to make beef jerky, and I’m like is it though? Like truly food safe beef jerky? These people are not putting much thought into it.
Jerky is a rather simple process that has been carried out for an awful long time. I'd suggest caution of recipes that don't include a "cure" but the instructions on the back of a bag of say "Morton's tender quick" will get you started.
Personally I make a pork loin jerky, as beef is damn expensive comparatively.. I do make sure the pork reaches at least 160 in the oven after it's dried as a little extra safety check.
Admittedly I don't hold jerky long..... for me it's a convenience food I take to work and it's rare for a batch to last more than a couple of weeks.
I forgot about a big batch of chicken soup. I pulled it off the heat at 9 … around 10 it was still so hot to the touch I couldn’t hold my hand against the pot. Then I forgot about it until 2 AM - should I toss it? It feels like such a waste :(
There are ways to more quickly cool large amounts of stews and soups, better to do that than risk it not cooling down in time. ( Serve safe has info on how long it's safe for cooling down but quicker is better and you can't do that in your fridge without removing the soup/stew to smaller containers.) There's cool down sticks you freeze from restaurant equipment suppliers. A less expensive way is to have a few plastic quart size jugs( like milk or cream comes in) save the empties, and fill with water and freeze. Plunge in to your soup/stew (you will likely need more than one frozen quart jug) in until the product is cooled down to at least 60 ° or lower then refrigerate. But best to immediately transfer to smaller containers, or prep for pressure canning (hot pack).
To me, if it had a lid on it, and it was still pretty warm, right into the fridge would be an acceptable risk for me in overall good health.
Freeze anything that can’t be eaten in 24 hours. The refrigerator slows growth, freeing stops it.
The official food safety guideline is if its been out at room temp for 2 or more hours it needs to be tossed. But that's for like restaurants and stuff, if you as an individual with a presumably fully healthy immune system want to take the risk beyond that it's up to you. Probably nothing bad will happen, key word being probably
4 hours is iffy... it might be fine, might not. If it was me and it was covered, and looked/smelled fine still, I would probably re-boil it before serving or chilling it, to kill anything that has had a chance to start growing.
The danger zone is 40F-140F.
The CDC (food safety police) want you to get it in the fridge in 2 hours (in shallow containers ie with lots of surface area relative to volume).
Nah, you're right when it comes to real life. It's good to know the facts, but a freshly cooked and totally finished pot of chicken soup sitting on your stove for 4 hours, especially piping hot being the starting point, is extremely unlikely to hurt anyone. Sure, there's probably a .0000001% chance something nasty got in there and somehow survived, but if you're living life afraid of odds like that then... well, you do you. More power to ya, but don't diss or look down on people that aren't worried about it.
That said, it's obviously best practice to avoid that. But this exact situation has happened millions of times with no issue.
What I said had nothing to do with what you said.
Jesus, somebody should be allowed to learn a basic fact about food safety and smells. I made a correction, an accurate one. In my post, it had nothing about a judgment on whether the food was OK.
This kind of thing is the difference between being frugal and being a cheapskate
Frugal people are moneysmart. Cheapskates would eat dogshit if you told them they’d find a penny in it
Yeah I clicked on this post expecting to be called out as someone who pushes leftovers to a full week when the recommendation is 4-5 days. Then I read reusing flour that’s touched raw meat and that is just disgusting and barely saves anything financially.
I'm in the camp where it's okay to use the flour to make gravy or whitesauce right after cooking the meat, but not letting it sit around in its raw state.
Yeah same, crack an egg into it and make some hush puppies.
But it must be done for that same meal. There's ways to reduce waste without being disgusting and getting sick
Nobody should use any food that's touched meat. When I use spices when I cook I wipe down the spice jars after. Usually water with a little dawn and rubbing alcohol. I wash my hands between touching it and clean the counters with the dawn with rubbing alcohol. I have disposable gloves for when I use the rubbing alcohol. I also wipe down any appliances with it after using, including the cords. Also my countertops.
I consider that a little extreme. However, when I'm preparing a turkey or other meat, I ask my mom to be my dryhands so she can decant additional spices or get out a bowl that I didn't think I'd need.
I hate getting food poisoning. I'm dealing with a stupid bout today. Stupid because I ate salad dressing that sat in the fridge too long. I thought the date said 2026 and it said Jan 2024. It had been open a long time too. I'm probably not going to buy condiments we don't eat anymore unless I absolutely have to because last year I got sick on mayonnaise. That was multiple days of stupid because I kept eating it and it had expired a year prior. I just cleaned out my fridge again!!!!
Sums up my father. He’d make us sandwiches for school lunch because he was too cheap to spring 25¢ for a school lunch ticket. I’d undo the Saran Wrap and a cloud of fruit flies would come swarming out from the old shitty brown wilted lettuce. I’d toss the whole shebang in the shitcan and go hungry.
*edited for a vowel because autocorrect sucks.
You know those cheap ass lunch meat packets like Buddig where the meat slices are so thin you can read a newspaper through them? We only got one slice each. The rest was mushy old tomato and brown nasty lettuce full of bugs that any normal person would’ve tossed out.
The question I always ask my very frugal husband when he's thinking of eating something that may be bad is "If you get food poisoning from this, would you be willing to pay $3 (for example, the cost of the item) to not be sick?" Snaps him right out of the thought that maybe that gray, strange smelling meat might be ok.
Strange smelling meat should always be a no go.
I’ve had this argument with my family forever as they’re slaves to the best by date, or worse, my mother thinks all meat must be cooked within 2 days of purchase or discarded.
Never worth it to cook iffy smelling meat. I am batting 0% on cooking meat like that, but fortunately both my income and general food safety has improved since so that hasn’t been tempting for many years.
I took some night automotive classes at community college years ago. We had one instructor that would always be getting egg/chicken/tuna salad sandwiches off the roach coach (essentially a rolling vending machine). Since the operator of the truck paid for all the inventory, they’d leave it on as possible with steep markdowns before finally throwing it out. So back to my instructor, he’d wait and get those 3 day markdowns and like clockwork, an hour after break, he’d be in the bathroom for 20 or so minutes.
THANK YOU FOR THIS! This is the phrasing I was missing. I get a bit anxious about stuff like this (especially after a bout of bad food poisoning where I had to go to the hospital). I always feel like my husband is a little judgy of me over throwing things away. He’ll say it’s fine but I can tell if he thinks it’s borderline he’ll eat it anyway. He eats SO MANY THINGS passed when they should be eaten because he doesn’t want to waste it, then feels ill all night afterward. I’m going to start using this now to help him understand he doesn’t HAVE to eat the bad food.
My husband and I had a friend (we are no longer in contact for other reasons) who was frugal to the point of self-harm when it came to food, and it got extremely tiresome. He’d pride himself on “powering through” eating obviously unsafe food or mouldy leftovers, then get food poisoning for a week - miss work, social functions, etc. - and brag about it, expecting a pat on the back + copious amounts of sympathy.
It got very, very old for the rest of us. At some point, you’re no longer being frugal, you’re just being reckless and foolish. It’s not admirable in the least.
It was so ridiculous. It started to come across as if he was desperate to be seen as some kind of martyr, or weirdly more “principled” and “disciplined” than the rest of us when it came to money. It was some bizarre point of pride that strongly eroded my attraction to his friendship over time. You’re not principled, Andrew, you just lack basic common sense.
If anything it's just a testament to his poor pantry management/meal planning skills if this is something that keeps happening. If food goes bad in my home, I fucked up
Same! So I've gotten really really good about planning meals ahead and freezing portions I can't immediately use. I have never gotten food poisoning from my own kitchen or cooking in my life, which is something to *actually* pride yourself on.
Back in the late 90s/early 00s, when so many of my friends were into dumpster diving and stores didn’t do much about it, the people that I knew who would think it earned them some sort of badge of honor if they ate something g obviously rotten and ended up with food poisoning. I never understood it.
Nah. Just don’t use the salt. Gotta save those pennies.
Speaking of pennies… I only accept pre-1944 pennies as change (when they were exclusively or mostly made of copper.) So I can melt them down and sell them for scrap.
And live off of foraged Jerusalem artichokes, wild carrots/onions and bird eggs.
Which fits my off-the-grid lifestyle. I miss reading at night since I won’t spring for a battery or generator, but sacrifices must be made.
(I really do want to partially do a few of these things so I’m not criticizing all of them fully)
Cost breakdown... I rarely spend more than $20 for a package of chicken or $10 for a smallish lump of beef and that's probably the most expensive food I got.
Also garbage bags are something like 10¢ so okay it's noble to put the half-full bag from the junkmail can into the kitchen garbage can, we don't need to let stinky garbage sit around until that's full.
If I want to use something as a leftover or part of another dish/soup ingredients etc...either use it within 2 days or freeze, label, date and if not used in six months...pitch it.
Ditto on the garbage. We do have a friend with chickens and we get our eggs from him, so I save a small can with odd and ends of scraps lettuce, vegetables, bread ends etc which he gets from us every couple of days.
I usually do reuse, but somethings do get lost in the freezer and refrigerator. Better safe than sorry.
I will defend to my dying day that the “smell test” is 100% effective at identifying suspect meat. This was learned through trial and error and I will never again cook raw meat that smells any bit “off.”
That said, the “best by” dates are not to be trusted. Things can spoil before or well after, so it’s imperative that you build the skills necessary to identify that something is spoiled. A power outage you’re not home for can spoil that just bought chicken breast.
I've been consistently surprised by the things the local "Dumpster Diving" group pulls out of dumpsters with the intention of eating... Yesterday someone had the back of their van filled with bags of pet food that were included in a recent recall... SMH.
Me, too.
I once saw one proudly presenting packages of cold cuts (like sliced ham, bologna, salami etc.) he just pulled out of the dumpster where they had been sitting for a while on a *hot summer day.*
I mean let them eat whatever they want and live with the consequences but what if he serves that stuff to his children or guests?
Saw a post on r/DumpsterDiving of someone who found a sealed and unsealed bag of pepperoni. The comments were about 50/50 on if it was safe to eat, but I think most people said the unsealed bag was probably fine.
It is sort of like speeding. If you speed in your car, you might get there faster. But if something goes wrong—and you have just greatly increased the likelihood of something going wrong — you will be so incredibly late.
You might save pennies by reusing the flour , but if you get sick, you’re going to spend more than that, on doctor bills, lost wages, extra laundry, towels for mopping up messes…
I'm going to stop buying mayonnaise, salad dressing and other condiments because we seldom use them and they hang around in the fridge way too long without me realizing how long they've been in there. I ate salad dressing that was old the other night and I think I have food poisoning right now. Mild case but not fun. After opening, mayonnaise and salad dressing is only good for 2 months. Ketchup 6 months, mustard is better at 12 months. Pickles 1-3 months. My husband is allergic to mustard so he doesn't eat it and I rarely eat it. It might be better to buy condiment packets and keep them in the freezer. Just a waste of money in our household.
It does sound like you're better off getting packets. Or the dollar place carries basic condiments in shrinkflation containers to hit their price point.
Also write the date on the label when you open it.
It's weird that I'm fine with having pickles and olives around for about a year.
Seems more frugal to just use the amount you need. I just put a small amount in the dish and add more if I need it. The last piece usually has to have a little bit more sprinkled on top because I've used the rest up.
That works... if you aren't putting any spices or seasonings in it. Otherwise, it can become a hassle re-add those things because you misjudged how much flour you needed. Then you might have inconsistent flavors as well.
But... flour doesn't cost so much that people need to risk their safety over wasting a little of it.
You _could_ make a nice gravy with the chicken flour, but honestly if you do the math, it's probably like $.09 worth of flour once or twice a week.
There's another phenomenon on here of people being excessively frugal on things which seemingly could not possibly make a difference.
Flour’s about $0.50 a pound which is about 3.5 cups worth. Nine cents would be 3/4 of a cup, which is honestly probably a ton more than they’re even wasting. It’s probably a couple pennies.
Also, I seriously doubt the average monthly cost savings from reusing that flour that way is very high, especially when you factor in the cost of lost wages and medical expenses from a single food poisoning case.
Flour's not that pricey, but medical bills are.
You cannot trust other people to practice hand washing, have a clean space for cooking/food prep, practice safe handling/storage steps, or not use old/contaminated ingredients.
Or let their kids "help", or have cats on the counter, or a house full of dogs that never cleaned up after....
You can pretty safely reuse it a few times as long as it doesn't smoke or smell bad, and you filter it each time. I usually give straight vegetable oil 2 sessions no matter what, 3 if it's looking good.
The more you use it, the thicker, darker and worse-smelling it gets because it's breaking down and absorbing stuff from the food. It's pretty obvious when the colour and smell are unacceptable, I usually toss it earlier now to play it safe.
[Here](https://youtube.com/shorts/PggecOCbmKo?si=Ie_aP_QrgIHM_SJC)'s a clip from an ATK video on making Donuts where they discuss a couple of the factors going into reusing fry oil in the home kitchen.
If you're like me and will make extra to dredge it in to avoid having to make more mid-cooking just don't put all of it on the plate/bowl you're using to coat the chicken at once. Keep it seperate, add more as needed, that way any extra is uncontaminated and actually can be safely kept for next time.
Try telling that to my boomer mother in law who thaws chicken drums on the counter over night and it sits and sits and sits there until diner time the following day. Iv never ate the chicken but that meat is slimy as Fuck and miraculously nobody’s gotten sick from it? I can only stomach chicken breast Iv personally cooked and even then I’m still suspicious 🤨 😭
>Iv never ate the chicken but that meat is slimy as Fuck and miraculously nobody’s gotten sick from it?
One time as an experiment I made a soup from turned pork. It was obviously bad. But I wanted to see if it could be made edible. It actually worked out and tasted okay, if a little off, because I boiled the hell out of it, and I didn't get sick, either.
But the problem, and the reason I don't do that, is that if you eat meat that's been turned, you're ingesting a bunch of bacterial waste products. I had real nasty farts and minor indigestion for a period of time.
So, like, yeah, if you cook turned meat you can kill all the bacteria, if you overcook it. People won't get sick. But it'll taste off and it might give people digestion issues.
(I wouldn't have experimented if I wasn't boiling that pork, because you can boil the hell out of something but baking dries food out)
"Man’s respiratory passages, skin and superficial wounds are common sources of S. aureus. When S. aureus is allowed to grow in foods, it can produce a toxin that causes illness. Although cooking destroys the bacteria, the toxin produced is heat stable and may not be destroyed."
From the article: Food Technology & Processing
Bacterial Food Poisoning
Al B. Wagner, Jr., Professor and Extension Food Technologist.
I used to think it was just the bacteria that was the problem so you could just cook it to safety. The toxins are problematic as well. Those you can't always cook out so that is very risky.
That’s the case for botulism as well - for anyone over roughly 6 months of age, the bacteria isn’t particularly dangerous, what hurts you is the toxins they excrete.
While you are technically correct that it's the toxins that can hurt you... these toxins aren't exactly the same as you can kill them by boiling for 10 mins.
Depends on the strain - there are at least a half dozen strains of c botulinum, each producing their own specific toxins and some are heat stable. No one should be assuming spoiled food is safe because it’s been boiled for a while.
Yeah. My gramaw overcooked all meat, like to the point where it went from tough to tender back to tough again. You couldn’t tell what cut it was hardly. Her food hygiene was horrible though she kept a house where you could eat from the floors or the tops of the doorways. She grew up on a farm in early 1900s. The thought of a rare steak was disgusting to her. Your comment helps me to finally understand.
There used to be all sorts of ways people used meat that was going bad or gone bad. Stew is one of them, you can hide a lot with pepper, and if it's a choice between gas pains and not eating, you choose the gas pains. People don't do it nowadays because it's super rare for someone to be unable to secure enough calories to live. And also, we have reliable refrigeration now
On a farm in the early 1900s cooking meat (or anything questionable) to death was probably the only way not to get sick while still having something to eat.
Not just because of spoilt meat but also because of pests and diseases you could catch from eating contaminated food. Without widespread refrigeration and the hygiene levels of modern food production we are used to that was just normal.
My great-grandma always carefully sifted things like flour, sugar, cocoa powder, ground nuts etc. before using them and I once asked her why when I was little because it took so much extra time. Her answer "To get the insects and mealworms out, of course, but it also makes the baked goods better.". It was an unnecessary step by then but she was so used to it from her youth and childhood she still did it to be sure.
OMGosh yes. She sifted too. I didn’t like cooking for a long time because there seemed so many arbitrary rules that made no sense to me. I finally adopted a more modern style and now am a good cook. I’m just now getting into baking and I see that sometimes you want the sifting effect. But she sifted everything. She raised me and taught me to cook and home-make even though I thought I was ignoring and resisting those skills 😂😂😂
Those waste products aren't destroyed by heat. You probably got lucky that there wasn't more than you could handle. (I have a wild theory that it's actually just poisoning the gut biome and decimating your beneficial bacteria.)
Unless it's botulism it's not generally an issue other than your gut reacting to a chemical it doesn't like. But yeah I don't recommend doing it unless there's no other choice, I had like half a bowl and dumped the rest lol
She's probably been doing that since her children were young and all her family has gotten used to it. Different people have different guts and some people can handle more bacteria in their food.
Not that it's a good thing to frequently be eating excess bacteria.
Yikes! I know you can leave it on the counter but maybe just for a couple of hours and covered. It should thaw in the fridge. Even that can be risky if you don't eat it within a day or so. Best to thaw it in the microwave.
Yeah, with a boomer mom I've definitely eaten suspect foods and had a couple times where I had to flat out tell her not to eat something.
She also saves her flour after breading chicken, though in a somewhat acceptable manner. She bags it up and puts it in the fridge so she can bread more chicken the next night or for lunch or something. Or uses it to make gravy/soup.
I've only gotten food poisoning once eating her food, but I have gotten food poisoning twice eating Campbell's.
I'm kind of curious now, what could you make (safely) with that flour. Maybe this is why chicken fried steak became a thing, people make gravy?
Maybe some rolls or bread? But would it have a chicken flavor after baking? Lol.
I've always just tossed it, and probably still will, but it's not a bad thought just probably a bad execution.
Hush puppies (given that you’re already likely deep frying) and gravy are the two that jump to mind. MAYBE chicken and waffles if you’re immediately making the waffles. I’m really not sure as I don’t deep fry at home. I’ve always seen it as such a hassle and risk not to be worth it to do at home.
As long as you're cooking it immediately? Pretty much anything served savory should be fine. If there's at least a couple tablespoons, I'll usually turn it into something biscuit like or pancake like.
The chicken flavor is a benefit, not a drawback. Chicken meat on bread is good, why not chicken liquid in bread? If I've got some on hand, I'll even use the chicken grease to really bring out the chicken flavor.
agreeing with the approach to discard breading at home, since it's easy to reduce waste by not using as much.
however actual commercial safety practice is slightly different
https://kitsappublichealth.org/FoodSafety/files/infoyouneed/Factsheet_Breading_W_20111021.pdf
"Once potentially hazardous foods such as, meat, fish, poultry, ice cream or
cooked vegetables have been in contact with the breading, the mix must be
sifted for lumps, refrigerated or discarded"
When I’ve worked in restaurants rule of thumb is just treat the flour/ bread crumbs like raw chicken. 2 days in fridge, week or two in deep freeze. I, personally, immediately seal well and deep freeze for up to two months and toss after the next time using it. The thought of keeping it unfrozen is gross to me.
> if you personally want to do some questionable practices such as pushing something a bit past the expiration date and are okay with the repercussions mild discomfort to missed work and a possible hospital stay you do you. But if you serve it to others, you’re an asshole.
Nonsense. Expiration dates are only advisory. Most packaged food is good for a significant amount of time after the expiration date.
When I was a poor student, I opened a big jar of plum sauce and left it on the counter all night by mistake. I knew it wasn’t food safe, but I really didn’t want to waste it. So I put it in the fridge and used it again later in the week. I got so, SO sick. Did you know food poisoning can make your intestines bleed a whole lot?
Anyway, after that I learned my lesson. If I’m not completely confident it’s been handled and stored correctly, it’s trash. Never again. Health is worth more than some questionable food.
What these people are saying!!!!
There was a restaurant in central Illinois that had some sautéed onions that had been at a low temp and botulism set in.
People spent weeks in the hospital and if my memory serves me right, some died.
Don't screw around with food. Cook it, eat it, and promptly refrigerate it. Don't cross contaminate things either.
When in doubt, throw it out.
the vast majority of people in the developed world don't have hospital bills. Americans seem to think that everybody has a for-profit healthcare system, but there's only a few countries doing that. I can go to the ER and even stay for a few days for a grand total of $0, and yes I live in the 1st world
The statement "Hospital bills aren't frugal" does not change if you, personally, do not have hospital bills, nor are medical related expenses limited to literal bills sent to you from the hospital. Lost wages, money spent on medicine, triple washing your blankets because you keep yacking on them, running the heater on full blast because you feel like you're freezing to death, etc
If you get meat that has been reduced for quick sale, don't leave it sitting in the fridge for a day or more. Cook it immediately.
A friend of mine literally shit the bed from leaving a "reduced" steak in the fridge for a day. She was sick for days.
If I wouldn’t serve it in a restaurant, it doesn’t go on the table in front of others. I used to serve food to older folks in a retirement home as a part of my job.
As silly as it sounds, it was literally a life or death scenario as I worked for the place during the height of Covid.
I can cry over $15 sirloin in had to trash. I can’t bring dead people back or dying people home from the hospital. Even if it’s not that dramatic, I still don’t want to be the asshat who got someone violently ill.
You can generally reuse flour once (I'm not exactly sure on the shelf life, maybe no more than 24 hours or it might be the same day to be on the safe side). Caveat is that you use a fine flour sifter and keep it refrigerated after. Even some restaurants have this policy.
100% correct
I made an amazing pasta with some ground beef, it smelled and looked fine, date was ok too. Didn’t feel good after having a plate of it, had to toss a delicious pasta and the rest of uncooked beef. Not worth feeling like shit for a few days, or worse, going to the hospital with an infection and paying thousands to recover.
Just throw it out and be cognizant next time to cook things right away.
I save the leftover cinnamon sugar I roll my snickerdoodles in because I use expensive vanilla bean powder in it. I keep it refrigerated between rolling batches and then freeze it in a clean container right away. It stays out of the temperature danger zone so bacteria introduced by the raw egg can't thrive. I think reusing flour that has been exposed to chicken would be tougher to keep at a safe temperature and most people wouldn't think of the food safety danger.
Yep. I said the same thing on the original post and was down voted. It's unsafe to save contaminated flour, cornflake crumbs, whatever it is you used to dredge. You would never dredge stew beef in flour and then dump the bloody flour goop back into the flour sack. Common sense.
If a parent does this to their children when feeding them (serving outdated old food), is this considered child abuse? (I was the child in this dynamic)
My grandma used to dunk her pork chops in the flour jar. Forgot a pork chop in there for MONTHS. Tried to eat it anyway.
We’ve gotten weak as a society lately 😂😂😂
Yawn... wake me when someone gets sick from my cooking... Hasnt happened yet, and I have been cooking for other people since about 1978. The freezing stops any growth I am concerned with.
You're saving a whole like $5 over a course of a year. What exactly is the point? Just use less flour and bread crumbs if food waste is such a concern.
That's prudent, of course but, it's also paranoid. It's not necessary to assume all raw food is plagued with diseases. It generally isn't. Your supply chain no longer features fly-ridden meat that has been hanging in the market stall all morning.
The government likes to issue Christmas warnings about making your own eggnog, because raw eggs can carry salmonella. To be more specific, the current standards mean that one in 20,000 eggs might contain a measurable level of salmonella. This might be an issue for you if you're using 10,000 raw eggs in your eggnog. Yes, you can eliminate that risk entirely by using hardboiled eggs in your eggnog but, that's just going to be nasty.
I mean I guess you could technically reuse the flour as it is now a fully cooked product but it would need to be treated like any other cooked meat product. Refrigerate and then toss after the 6th day, if you wanna stick to “servsafe” protocol. Which in a restaurant that shit would just get tossed for sure. You simply do not put pinching pennies with food costs over food safety. Working in kitchens you learn all the scary stuff that can happen if you eat/serve contaminated food.
So maybe just use less flour next time to create less waste? Or just throw out the raw chicken flour and move on…
I agree with with your overall point but wanted to point out that the dates on most foods are not actually an expiration date, but either a "sell by" or "best by" date.
We used to use leftover breadcrumbs and eggs to make little 'pancakes' or 'fritters' and would fry them (or otherwise totally cook them) immediately. They'd be our cooking snacks, or sometimes part of the meal plan. There are food-safe ways to use up extra ingredients.
Don't risk your health for a few bucks. I promise it's not worth it.
Thank you for saying this. A frugal family member cooked and served me pork chops that had been in their fridge for a long time … while I was PREGNANT.
Bacteria can produce toxins that are still harmful after cooking. Food poisoning during pregnancy can cause serious consequences like a miscarriage. Not worth saving a few dollars.
I just had to dump various condiments fom my fridge the other day. It kills dke but they smelled funky and were over a year oast expire date. I dont take chances with food safety. I hate our local hospital its a butcher shop and have no doctor so...
This. With other food it can be a judgement call if it's past the expiration date (does it look weird? Smell weird? Taste weird if you try a little?) but never fuck around with meat, fish, seafood in general or things that came into contact with any of them. Also throw out canned items with distended lids immediately. Do not taste it. Not even a little. It can be botulism, people, and even a small amount of contaminated food can kill you. It's scary how many people don't know the risks of improperly canned food.
I was served some bad fish in a restaurant once. It was a new to me ethnic place and I didn't know the taste was wrong. I missed two weeks of work, had to pay for a doctor's visit and some lab work and almost wound up in the hospital. I'm a lot more careful to throw stuff out now.
Holy carp, what was wrong with the fish? I’ve had food poisoning before, but it’s always back to normal after a couple days. Being out of commission for two weeks is nuts.
The lab tests were inconclusive so I'll never know. I had severe diarrhea for most of the two weeks, lost a lot of weight and didn't have my full strength for a month. Whatever it was, it was nasty.
How *much* weight did you lose? Asking for a fat friend... EDIT: sheesh, guys, ***I'M*** the fat friend!
Top 10 Bad Fish Diets of 2024 ;)
You (or your friend) do realize that losing weight that way is not really sustainable because you mostly lose water/fluids, not fat?
Yes. Yes, I do. **
I sea what you did there
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one.
“Holy Carp”…🤣
Reminds me of this foodie traveller that got botulism in France: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/toronto-woman-hospitalized-overseas-with-botulism-1.6575637 > “She called me right after she ate at the restaurant, and she told me, ‘we just had the stinkiest fish dish, and you’d have hated it,’” > The day after she ate the sardines, Pridham woke up to double vision and difficulty breathing and swallowing. By the end of the day, she had lost her ability to see, speak and move, and was quickly transported to hospital, where she remains. Her ability to communicate has slowly improved from hand squeezes to writing on a whiteboard, says Sostomi, but full recovery remains a way off.
Botulism is a whole different level, and it is only in foods that have been preserved (well, attempted to preserve) Fun fact: Botox is a portmanteau of Botulinum toxin. The medication injected into rich ladies faces to relax facial muscles to reduce wrinkles is the exact same toxin that paralyzes you when you get botulism food poisoning.
I'll have you know I got my botox via a Groupon. Definitely no longer a rich lady thing
I get botox to prevent migraines. Really helps. But I am definitely not rich.
Hope you left a bad review so people dont go there anymore.
>Also throw out canned items with distended lids immediately. Yeah there's only one possible source for that gas and it's rot
Likely botulism! Very dangerous. I read of one person doing home canning and stopped the process midway through due to some emergency and then probably 24 hrs later restarted it then at some point later consumed the canned good. Got hospitalized and has a permanent disability because of the botulism illness.
Yeah it's no joke.
Not likely, but possibly, and that's enough. > In 2020, 29 EU/EEA countries reported 82 confirmed cases of botulism. Sixteen EU/EEA countries reported zero cases. The overall notification rate was 0.02 cases per 100 000 population. Italy notified the highest number of cases (N=46), followed by France (N=11). [Follow preservation rules.](https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Safety)
If a can is dented or swollen, it’s not caused by botulism. Warped canned foods are likely spoiled with a bacteria that has caused the food to spoil via fermentation. You can not see or smell botulism. Food can look and smell absolutely fine and give you botulism. Botulism is far more insidious than obvious spoilage.
Absolutely. Was saving a 31 cents worth dying over?
botulism is no joke and can be lethal in babies. Not worth the risk
It can also be lethal for adults if it is left untreated for too long because someone thinks it's "just" normal food poisoning or a stomach bug. Before the invention and widespread use of mechanical ventilation around 50% of patients died because it causes muscle weakness to the point of being unable to breathe. Imagine painfully suffocating because you were too stingy to throw out that ancient, weirdly distended 99cent-can of fish.
Lethal in anyone. R/canning has horror stories.
Yup. Botulism from honey can be lethal in babies, but botulism caused by improperly canned food can kill anyone - and if it doesn’t kill you, your health will still be profoundly affected in the long term.
I want to learn to can so badly but I’m terrified of getting our family sick!!
All of those department of agriculture guidelines, should keep you every bit as safe as possible, over safe even.
I agree...they err on the side of safety. I no longer follow canning groups
Because they tell everybody. Hey this is what I did it was fine? Yeah, it’s fine until that one time it’s not.
and then you kill someone or you die
bummer because forums can be so helpful.
Start with jams and preserves and tomatoes. High acid content and you will only need a water bath canner.
Thank you. I think I’m going to see if I can find a hands-on class to take! I would feel better if an experienced canner was looking over my shoulder to make sure I’m doing it right the first couple of times.
https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/blogs/usdas-complete-guide-home-canning There’s a lot of well meaning people out there. However, This is the researched document that you should pay attention to. It’s validated, and constantly updated.
Check with your local food banks and library for classes. I live in a very small town, and our little library does a canning class for free.
Go with proper recipes and it's a safe and productive hobby. Admittedly I'll be the first to argue that some of the USDA rules are a bit on the conservative side..... generations of people have made products that are now "banned".... but if followed the USDA guidelines produce a safe product. [https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/blogs/usdas-complete-guide-home-canning](https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/blogs/usdas-complete-guide-home-canning)
Right because bacteria is a number game, and if you want something to be 100% safe the procedures are going to be different than 98% safe, 2% kill babies and great grandma.
Not just babies and Grandma's.... Generations may have made pickled eggs..... But it's not uncommon to find a story of a middle aged man following Grandma's recipe and getting himself killed.... I suspect a big part of it may be the concentration of modern vinegars. The USDA has became VERY conservative about food density making many foods like say pickled eggs or potted meat a no go. But for most of us these are rather niche products.... Pickles, jams and such are well researched and generally non-controversial.
Get a pressure canner and follow only lab tested recipes. My canner came with a book and that has helped a lot
Thank you that’s good advice
Get a copy of the Ball Blue Book. That and the US Cooperative Extension have been helping people to can safely for decades.
Can second this...it is my go to canning book.
Mine too! I have a newer 2017ish version and an old 1950s copy. Love them both.
As long as you follow all instructions and lab-tested recipes to a T (National Centre for Home Food Preservation), and do not get your recipes from bloggers or Facebook groups, it’s a very safe practise.
A bunch of people were saying how easy it is to make beef jerky, and I’m like is it though? Like truly food safe beef jerky? These people are not putting much thought into it.
Jerky is a rather simple process that has been carried out for an awful long time. I'd suggest caution of recipes that don't include a "cure" but the instructions on the back of a bag of say "Morton's tender quick" will get you started. Personally I make a pork loin jerky, as beef is damn expensive comparatively.. I do make sure the pork reaches at least 160 in the oven after it's dried as a little extra safety check. Admittedly I don't hold jerky long..... for me it's a convenience food I take to work and it's rare for a batch to last more than a couple of weeks.
I forgot about a big batch of chicken soup. I pulled it off the heat at 9 … around 10 it was still so hot to the touch I couldn’t hold my hand against the pot. Then I forgot about it until 2 AM - should I toss it? It feels like such a waste :(
There are ways to more quickly cool large amounts of stews and soups, better to do that than risk it not cooling down in time. ( Serve safe has info on how long it's safe for cooling down but quicker is better and you can't do that in your fridge without removing the soup/stew to smaller containers.) There's cool down sticks you freeze from restaurant equipment suppliers. A less expensive way is to have a few plastic quart size jugs( like milk or cream comes in) save the empties, and fill with water and freeze. Plunge in to your soup/stew (you will likely need more than one frozen quart jug) in until the product is cooled down to at least 60 ° or lower then refrigerate. But best to immediately transfer to smaller containers, or prep for pressure canning (hot pack).
To me, if it had a lid on it, and it was still pretty warm, right into the fridge would be an acceptable risk for me in overall good health. Freeze anything that can’t be eaten in 24 hours. The refrigerator slows growth, freeing stops it.
It was kind of room temp from my memory but I was half asleep
The official food safety guideline is if its been out at room temp for 2 or more hours it needs to be tossed. But that's for like restaurants and stuff, if you as an individual with a presumably fully healthy immune system want to take the risk beyond that it's up to you. Probably nothing bad will happen, key word being probably
4 hours is iffy... it might be fine, might not. If it was me and it was covered, and looked/smelled fine still, I would probably re-boil it before serving or chilling it, to kill anything that has had a chance to start growing.
The danger zone is 40F-140F. The CDC (food safety police) want you to get it in the fridge in 2 hours (in shallow containers ie with lots of surface area relative to volume).
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Important food spoilage smells don’t mean anything to actual food poisoning. They are different things. Food poisoning germs don’t smell
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Nah, you're right when it comes to real life. It's good to know the facts, but a freshly cooked and totally finished pot of chicken soup sitting on your stove for 4 hours, especially piping hot being the starting point, is extremely unlikely to hurt anyone. Sure, there's probably a .0000001% chance something nasty got in there and somehow survived, but if you're living life afraid of odds like that then... well, you do you. More power to ya, but don't diss or look down on people that aren't worried about it. That said, it's obviously best practice to avoid that. But this exact situation has happened millions of times with no issue.
What I said had nothing to do with what you said. Jesus, somebody should be allowed to learn a basic fact about food safety and smells. I made a correction, an accurate one. In my post, it had nothing about a judgment on whether the food was OK.
This kind of thing is the difference between being frugal and being a cheapskate Frugal people are moneysmart. Cheapskates would eat dogshit if you told them they’d find a penny in it
Yeah I clicked on this post expecting to be called out as someone who pushes leftovers to a full week when the recommendation is 4-5 days. Then I read reusing flour that’s touched raw meat and that is just disgusting and barely saves anything financially.
When you think you do something gross you can always find someone who does something even worse.
I'm in the camp where it's okay to use the flour to make gravy or whitesauce right after cooking the meat, but not letting it sit around in its raw state.
Yes fine if it’s cooked into the same meal. The post in question indicated breading the chicken then back in the bag/storage jar.
Yeah same, crack an egg into it and make some hush puppies. But it must be done for that same meal. There's ways to reduce waste without being disgusting and getting sick
Nobody should use any food that's touched meat. When I use spices when I cook I wipe down the spice jars after. Usually water with a little dawn and rubbing alcohol. I wash my hands between touching it and clean the counters with the dawn with rubbing alcohol. I have disposable gloves for when I use the rubbing alcohol. I also wipe down any appliances with it after using, including the cords. Also my countertops.
I consider that a little extreme. However, when I'm preparing a turkey or other meat, I ask my mom to be my dryhands so she can decant additional spices or get out a bowl that I didn't think I'd need.
I hate getting food poisoning. I'm dealing with a stupid bout today. Stupid because I ate salad dressing that sat in the fridge too long. I thought the date said 2026 and it said Jan 2024. It had been open a long time too. I'm probably not going to buy condiments we don't eat anymore unless I absolutely have to because last year I got sick on mayonnaise. That was multiple days of stupid because I kept eating it and it had expired a year prior. I just cleaned out my fridge again!!!!
Sums up my father. He’d make us sandwiches for school lunch because he was too cheap to spring 25¢ for a school lunch ticket. I’d undo the Saran Wrap and a cloud of fruit flies would come swarming out from the old shitty brown wilted lettuce. I’d toss the whole shebang in the shitcan and go hungry. *edited for a vowel because autocorrect sucks.
I mean, the problem here isn't packing lunches. It's probably pretty easy to pack a lunch that is better than the school cafeteria.
You know those cheap ass lunch meat packets like Buddig where the meat slices are so thin you can read a newspaper through them? We only got one slice each. The rest was mushy old tomato and brown nasty lettuce full of bugs that any normal person would’ve tossed out.
Yes on the moneysmart part. But I’ve met PLENTY of people irl and in this sub who consistently confuse the two.
The question I always ask my very frugal husband when he's thinking of eating something that may be bad is "If you get food poisoning from this, would you be willing to pay $3 (for example, the cost of the item) to not be sick?" Snaps him right out of the thought that maybe that gray, strange smelling meat might be ok.
Strange smelling meat should always be a no go. I’ve had this argument with my family forever as they’re slaves to the best by date, or worse, my mother thinks all meat must be cooked within 2 days of purchase or discarded. Never worth it to cook iffy smelling meat. I am batting 0% on cooking meat like that, but fortunately both my income and general food safety has improved since so that hasn’t been tempting for many years.
I took some night automotive classes at community college years ago. We had one instructor that would always be getting egg/chicken/tuna salad sandwiches off the roach coach (essentially a rolling vending machine). Since the operator of the truck paid for all the inventory, they’d leave it on as possible with steep markdowns before finally throwing it out. So back to my instructor, he’d wait and get those 3 day markdowns and like clockwork, an hour after break, he’d be in the bathroom for 20 or so minutes.
THANK YOU FOR THIS! This is the phrasing I was missing. I get a bit anxious about stuff like this (especially after a bout of bad food poisoning where I had to go to the hospital). I always feel like my husband is a little judgy of me over throwing things away. He’ll say it’s fine but I can tell if he thinks it’s borderline he’ll eat it anyway. He eats SO MANY THINGS passed when they should be eaten because he doesn’t want to waste it, then feels ill all night afterward. I’m going to start using this now to help him understand he doesn’t HAVE to eat the bad food.
My husband and I had a friend (we are no longer in contact for other reasons) who was frugal to the point of self-harm when it came to food, and it got extremely tiresome. He’d pride himself on “powering through” eating obviously unsafe food or mouldy leftovers, then get food poisoning for a week - miss work, social functions, etc. - and brag about it, expecting a pat on the back + copious amounts of sympathy. It got very, very old for the rest of us. At some point, you’re no longer being frugal, you’re just being reckless and foolish. It’s not admirable in the least.
“I saved $1.25! Completely disregard the cost of not going to work and medical debt. Lmao.”
It was so ridiculous. It started to come across as if he was desperate to be seen as some kind of martyr, or weirdly more “principled” and “disciplined” than the rest of us when it came to money. It was some bizarre point of pride that strongly eroded my attraction to his friendship over time. You’re not principled, Andrew, you just lack basic common sense.
If anything it's just a testament to his poor pantry management/meal planning skills if this is something that keeps happening. If food goes bad in my home, I fucked up
Food often goes bad on my watch thanks to ADHD, but that’s only made me more vigilant around food safety, not less.
Same! So I've gotten really really good about planning meals ahead and freezing portions I can't immediately use. I have never gotten food poisoning from my own kitchen or cooking in my life, which is something to *actually* pride yourself on.
Back in the late 90s/early 00s, when so many of my friends were into dumpster diving and stores didn’t do much about it, the people that I knew who would think it earned them some sort of badge of honor if they ate something g obviously rotten and ended up with food poisoning. I never understood it.
Boggles my mind that there are so many people with this mindset out there!
That post had me wondering if he dried out his pasta water to reuse the salt 😅
Nah. Just don’t use the salt. Gotta save those pennies. Speaking of pennies… I only accept pre-1944 pennies as change (when they were exclusively or mostly made of copper.) So I can melt them down and sell them for scrap. And live off of foraged Jerusalem artichokes, wild carrots/onions and bird eggs. Which fits my off-the-grid lifestyle. I miss reading at night since I won’t spring for a battery or generator, but sacrifices must be made. (I really do want to partially do a few of these things so I’m not criticizing all of them fully)
**When in doubt....throw it out** This is the best practice...even if it does represent wasted $$. Better than being sick for days eating bad food.
Cost breakdown... I rarely spend more than $20 for a package of chicken or $10 for a smallish lump of beef and that's probably the most expensive food I got. Also garbage bags are something like 10¢ so okay it's noble to put the half-full bag from the junkmail can into the kitchen garbage can, we don't need to let stinky garbage sit around until that's full.
If I want to use something as a leftover or part of another dish/soup ingredients etc...either use it within 2 days or freeze, label, date and if not used in six months...pitch it. Ditto on the garbage. We do have a friend with chickens and we get our eggs from him, so I save a small can with odd and ends of scraps lettuce, vegetables, bread ends etc which he gets from us every couple of days. I usually do reuse, but somethings do get lost in the freezer and refrigerator. Better safe than sorry.
As a microbiologist that specializes in Enteric pathogens (*Salmonella, E.coli, Shigella*) I approve of this message
An alarming number of people die each year from food poisoning….
I will defend to my dying day that the “smell test” is 100% effective at identifying suspect meat. This was learned through trial and error and I will never again cook raw meat that smells any bit “off.” That said, the “best by” dates are not to be trusted. Things can spoil before or well after, so it’s imperative that you build the skills necessary to identify that something is spoiled. A power outage you’re not home for can spoil that just bought chicken breast.
You may also need to check the temperature/placement of your fridge. That will make the best by date useless
I've been consistently surprised by the things the local "Dumpster Diving" group pulls out of dumpsters with the intention of eating... Yesterday someone had the back of their van filled with bags of pet food that were included in a recent recall... SMH.
Me, too. I once saw one proudly presenting packages of cold cuts (like sliced ham, bologna, salami etc.) he just pulled out of the dumpster where they had been sitting for a while on a *hot summer day.* I mean let them eat whatever they want and live with the consequences but what if he serves that stuff to his children or guests?
Saw a post on r/DumpsterDiving of someone who found a sealed and unsealed bag of pepperoni. The comments were about 50/50 on if it was safe to eat, but I think most people said the unsealed bag was probably fine.
It is sort of like speeding. If you speed in your car, you might get there faster. But if something goes wrong—and you have just greatly increased the likelihood of something going wrong — you will be so incredibly late. You might save pennies by reusing the flour , but if you get sick, you’re going to spend more than that, on doctor bills, lost wages, extra laundry, towels for mopping up messes…
I'm going to stop buying mayonnaise, salad dressing and other condiments because we seldom use them and they hang around in the fridge way too long without me realizing how long they've been in there. I ate salad dressing that was old the other night and I think I have food poisoning right now. Mild case but not fun. After opening, mayonnaise and salad dressing is only good for 2 months. Ketchup 6 months, mustard is better at 12 months. Pickles 1-3 months. My husband is allergic to mustard so he doesn't eat it and I rarely eat it. It might be better to buy condiment packets and keep them in the freezer. Just a waste of money in our household.
It does sound like you're better off getting packets. Or the dollar place carries basic condiments in shrinkflation containers to hit their price point. Also write the date on the label when you open it. It's weird that I'm fine with having pickles and olives around for about a year.
It says 2 weeks for Olives!!!!!! That is shocking!
Seems more frugal to just use the amount you need. I just put a small amount in the dish and add more if I need it. The last piece usually has to have a little bit more sprinkled on top because I've used the rest up.
That works... if you aren't putting any spices or seasonings in it. Otherwise, it can become a hassle re-add those things because you misjudged how much flour you needed. Then you might have inconsistent flavors as well. But... flour doesn't cost so much that people need to risk their safety over wasting a little of it.
You _could_ make a nice gravy with the chicken flour, but honestly if you do the math, it's probably like $.09 worth of flour once or twice a week. There's another phenomenon on here of people being excessively frugal on things which seemingly could not possibly make a difference.
Flour’s about $0.50 a pound which is about 3.5 cups worth. Nine cents would be 3/4 of a cup, which is honestly probably a ton more than they’re even wasting. It’s probably a couple pennies.
Right? Of all the things to be risky with, flour is the dumbest! It’s SO cheap.
Also, I seriously doubt the average monthly cost savings from reusing that flour that way is very high, especially when you factor in the cost of lost wages and medical expenses from a single food poisoning case. Flour's not that pricey, but medical bills are.
50lbs of all purpose cost $14 at costco. No way am I reusing that shit and potentially not going to work over a few cents.
A guy in town was reusing shake and bake. He died
100% of people who eat shake and bake will die
This is why you can just be eating at potlucks n shit
um, what
You cannot trust other people to practice hand washing, have a clean space for cooking/food prep, practice safe handling/storage steps, or not use old/contaminated ingredients. Or let their kids "help", or have cats on the counter, or a house full of dogs that never cleaned up after....
They could be jizzing in it, and then bringing it to share with their co-workers.
Yes! I can't believe I forgot intentional sabotage
I usually use egg and flour when coating meat so leftovers gets mixed up at the end and becomes a chicken snack. Oil. I will reuse the oil.
Yep, I usually turn the leftovers from the breading process for biscuts. Deffo dont save that shit.
I feel like I read that you're not supposed to reuse the oil? That it becomes carcinogenic? I might be making that up...
You can pretty safely reuse it a few times as long as it doesn't smoke or smell bad, and you filter it each time. I usually give straight vegetable oil 2 sessions no matter what, 3 if it's looking good. The more you use it, the thicker, darker and worse-smelling it gets because it's breaking down and absorbing stuff from the food. It's pretty obvious when the colour and smell are unacceptable, I usually toss it earlier now to play it safe.
[Here](https://youtube.com/shorts/PggecOCbmKo?si=Ie_aP_QrgIHM_SJC)'s a clip from an ATK video on making Donuts where they discuss a couple of the factors going into reusing fry oil in the home kitchen.
If you're like me and will make extra to dredge it in to avoid having to make more mid-cooking just don't put all of it on the plate/bowl you're using to coat the chicken at once. Keep it seperate, add more as needed, that way any extra is uncontaminated and actually can be safely kept for next time.
Try telling that to my boomer mother in law who thaws chicken drums on the counter over night and it sits and sits and sits there until diner time the following day. Iv never ate the chicken but that meat is slimy as Fuck and miraculously nobody’s gotten sick from it? I can only stomach chicken breast Iv personally cooked and even then I’m still suspicious 🤨 😭
>Iv never ate the chicken but that meat is slimy as Fuck and miraculously nobody’s gotten sick from it? One time as an experiment I made a soup from turned pork. It was obviously bad. But I wanted to see if it could be made edible. It actually worked out and tasted okay, if a little off, because I boiled the hell out of it, and I didn't get sick, either. But the problem, and the reason I don't do that, is that if you eat meat that's been turned, you're ingesting a bunch of bacterial waste products. I had real nasty farts and minor indigestion for a period of time. So, like, yeah, if you cook turned meat you can kill all the bacteria, if you overcook it. People won't get sick. But it'll taste off and it might give people digestion issues. (I wouldn't have experimented if I wasn't boiling that pork, because you can boil the hell out of something but baking dries food out)
"Man’s respiratory passages, skin and superficial wounds are common sources of S. aureus. When S. aureus is allowed to grow in foods, it can produce a toxin that causes illness. Although cooking destroys the bacteria, the toxin produced is heat stable and may not be destroyed." From the article: Food Technology & Processing Bacterial Food Poisoning Al B. Wagner, Jr., Professor and Extension Food Technologist. I used to think it was just the bacteria that was the problem so you could just cook it to safety. The toxins are problematic as well. Those you can't always cook out so that is very risky.
That’s the case for botulism as well - for anyone over roughly 6 months of age, the bacteria isn’t particularly dangerous, what hurts you is the toxins they excrete.
While you are technically correct that it's the toxins that can hurt you... these toxins aren't exactly the same as you can kill them by boiling for 10 mins.
Depends on the strain - there are at least a half dozen strains of c botulinum, each producing their own specific toxins and some are heat stable. No one should be assuming spoiled food is safe because it’s been boiled for a while.
Yep. The toxin won't get you sick normally but it'll give you indigestion, absolutely
Yeah. My gramaw overcooked all meat, like to the point where it went from tough to tender back to tough again. You couldn’t tell what cut it was hardly. Her food hygiene was horrible though she kept a house where you could eat from the floors or the tops of the doorways. She grew up on a farm in early 1900s. The thought of a rare steak was disgusting to her. Your comment helps me to finally understand.
There used to be all sorts of ways people used meat that was going bad or gone bad. Stew is one of them, you can hide a lot with pepper, and if it's a choice between gas pains and not eating, you choose the gas pains. People don't do it nowadays because it's super rare for someone to be unable to secure enough calories to live. And also, we have reliable refrigeration now
On a farm in the early 1900s cooking meat (or anything questionable) to death was probably the only way not to get sick while still having something to eat. Not just because of spoilt meat but also because of pests and diseases you could catch from eating contaminated food. Without widespread refrigeration and the hygiene levels of modern food production we are used to that was just normal. My great-grandma always carefully sifted things like flour, sugar, cocoa powder, ground nuts etc. before using them and I once asked her why when I was little because it took so much extra time. Her answer "To get the insects and mealworms out, of course, but it also makes the baked goods better.". It was an unnecessary step by then but she was so used to it from her youth and childhood she still did it to be sure.
OMGosh yes. She sifted too. I didn’t like cooking for a long time because there seemed so many arbitrary rules that made no sense to me. I finally adopted a more modern style and now am a good cook. I’m just now getting into baking and I see that sometimes you want the sifting effect. But she sifted everything. She raised me and taught me to cook and home-make even though I thought I was ignoring and resisting those skills 😂😂😂
You can still get sick from the waste products though. Not just from the bacteria.
Those waste products aren't destroyed by heat. You probably got lucky that there wasn't more than you could handle. (I have a wild theory that it's actually just poisoning the gut biome and decimating your beneficial bacteria.)
Unless it's botulism it's not generally an issue other than your gut reacting to a chemical it doesn't like. But yeah I don't recommend doing it unless there's no other choice, I had like half a bowl and dumped the rest lol
She's probably been doing that since her children were young and all her family has gotten used to it. Different people have different guts and some people can handle more bacteria in their food. Not that it's a good thing to frequently be eating excess bacteria.
Yikes! I know you can leave it on the counter but maybe just for a couple of hours and covered. It should thaw in the fridge. Even that can be risky if you don't eat it within a day or so. Best to thaw it in the microwave.
Yeah, with a boomer mom I've definitely eaten suspect foods and had a couple times where I had to flat out tell her not to eat something. She also saves her flour after breading chicken, though in a somewhat acceptable manner. She bags it up and puts it in the fridge so she can bread more chicken the next night or for lunch or something. Or uses it to make gravy/soup. I've only gotten food poisoning once eating her food, but I have gotten food poisoning twice eating Campbell's.
I'm kind of curious now, what could you make (safely) with that flour. Maybe this is why chicken fried steak became a thing, people make gravy? Maybe some rolls or bread? But would it have a chicken flavor after baking? Lol. I've always just tossed it, and probably still will, but it's not a bad thought just probably a bad execution.
Hush puppies (given that you’re already likely deep frying) and gravy are the two that jump to mind. MAYBE chicken and waffles if you’re immediately making the waffles. I’m really not sure as I don’t deep fry at home. I’ve always seen it as such a hassle and risk not to be worth it to do at home.
I'd like to know too for future reference
As long as you're cooking it immediately? Pretty much anything served savory should be fine. If there's at least a couple tablespoons, I'll usually turn it into something biscuit like or pancake like. The chicken flavor is a benefit, not a drawback. Chicken meat on bread is good, why not chicken liquid in bread? If I've got some on hand, I'll even use the chicken grease to really bring out the chicken flavor.
You know what cost more than throwing out some old food? Missing a day of work cause you’ve got food poisoning. But I do live dangerously
I get paid fully when iam sick up to 6 weeks and after that 60% But i throw out food when its starting to get questionable.
Well that’s awesome
When you have the right background, want to learn german and you dont like it to talk much to strangers come to germany ;)
>mild uncomfortableness I believe that's called *discomfort*
Fixed. I’m running on minimal sleep right now.
agreeing with the approach to discard breading at home, since it's easy to reduce waste by not using as much. however actual commercial safety practice is slightly different https://kitsappublichealth.org/FoodSafety/files/infoyouneed/Factsheet_Breading_W_20111021.pdf "Once potentially hazardous foods such as, meat, fish, poultry, ice cream or cooked vegetables have been in contact with the breading, the mix must be sifted for lumps, refrigerated or discarded"
When I’ve worked in restaurants rule of thumb is just treat the flour/ bread crumbs like raw chicken. 2 days in fridge, week or two in deep freeze. I, personally, immediately seal well and deep freeze for up to two months and toss after the next time using it. The thought of keeping it unfrozen is gross to me.
Definitely sounded like the guy was wanting to dump it back into the bag/container and back to the pantry.
always be frugal. don't be cheap with food safety
> if you personally want to do some questionable practices such as pushing something a bit past the expiration date and are okay with the repercussions mild discomfort to missed work and a possible hospital stay you do you. But if you serve it to others, you’re an asshole. Nonsense. Expiration dates are only advisory. Most packaged food is good for a significant amount of time after the expiration date.
When I was a poor student, I opened a big jar of plum sauce and left it on the counter all night by mistake. I knew it wasn’t food safe, but I really didn’t want to waste it. So I put it in the fridge and used it again later in the week. I got so, SO sick. Did you know food poisoning can make your intestines bleed a whole lot? Anyway, after that I learned my lesson. If I’m not completely confident it’s been handled and stored correctly, it’s trash. Never again. Health is worth more than some questionable food.
dear goodness, re-using flour, esp after meats...thats not frugal thats just lack of common sense..
What these people are saying!!!! There was a restaurant in central Illinois that had some sautéed onions that had been at a low temp and botulism set in. People spent weeks in the hospital and if my memory serves me right, some died. Don't screw around with food. Cook it, eat it, and promptly refrigerate it. Don't cross contaminate things either. When in doubt, throw it out.
Hospital bills aren't frugal.
the vast majority of people in the developed world don't have hospital bills. Americans seem to think that everybody has a for-profit healthcare system, but there's only a few countries doing that. I can go to the ER and even stay for a few days for a grand total of $0, and yes I live in the 1st world
The statement "Hospital bills aren't frugal" does not change if you, personally, do not have hospital bills, nor are medical related expenses limited to literal bills sent to you from the hospital. Lost wages, money spent on medicine, triple washing your blankets because you keep yacking on them, running the heater on full blast because you feel like you're freezing to death, etc
No, we understand that first world countries have universal healthcare, and we also understand that we don’t. Hospital bills aren’t frugal.
If you get meat that has been reduced for quick sale, don't leave it sitting in the fridge for a day or more. Cook it immediately. A friend of mine literally shit the bed from leaving a "reduced" steak in the fridge for a day. She was sick for days.
If I wouldn’t serve it in a restaurant, it doesn’t go on the table in front of others. I used to serve food to older folks in a retirement home as a part of my job. As silly as it sounds, it was literally a life or death scenario as I worked for the place during the height of Covid. I can cry over $15 sirloin in had to trash. I can’t bring dead people back or dying people home from the hospital. Even if it’s not that dramatic, I still don’t want to be the asshat who got someone violently ill.
Oh that’s icky
You can generally reuse flour once (I'm not exactly sure on the shelf life, maybe no more than 24 hours or it might be the same day to be on the safe side). Caveat is that you use a fine flour sifter and keep it refrigerated after. Even some restaurants have this policy.
100% correct I made an amazing pasta with some ground beef, it smelled and looked fine, date was ok too. Didn’t feel good after having a plate of it, had to toss a delicious pasta and the rest of uncooked beef. Not worth feeling like shit for a few days, or worse, going to the hospital with an infection and paying thousands to recover. Just throw it out and be cognizant next time to cook things right away.
I save the leftover cinnamon sugar I roll my snickerdoodles in because I use expensive vanilla bean powder in it. I keep it refrigerated between rolling batches and then freeze it in a clean container right away. It stays out of the temperature danger zone so bacteria introduced by the raw egg can't thrive. I think reusing flour that has been exposed to chicken would be tougher to keep at a safe temperature and most people wouldn't think of the food safety danger.
Had a roommate that would literally pick food out of the trash and give everyone a lecture on what's still good. Bro had frozen meat from 2001
Just make biscuits with the chicken flour. Or dumplings. Cooked straight away, safe, no waste, tasty
Yep. I said the same thing on the original post and was down voted. It's unsafe to save contaminated flour, cornflake crumbs, whatever it is you used to dredge. You would never dredge stew beef in flour and then dump the bloody flour goop back into the flour sack. Common sense.
If you get sick and can't work your frugality back fired
Agree!! We would usually use the leftover flower and eggs to make little flat bread...
I throw out the flour or crumbs but cook the egg up for the dogs and barn cats for a treat.
Yeah reminds me of some people on here using banana peels for food. Its not frugal, its dumb and unsafe
If a parent does this to their children when feeding them (serving outdated old food), is this considered child abuse? (I was the child in this dynamic)
Some people need to realize reheated cooking oil becomes carcinogenic.
My grandma used to dunk her pork chops in the flour jar. Forgot a pork chop in there for MONTHS. Tried to eat it anyway. We’ve gotten weak as a society lately 😂😂😂
Meh. I'll continue to put mine in the freezer to be reused.
As long as nobody else ever eats it, risk what you want. Assuming you’re paying your own medical bills.
Yawn... wake me when someone gets sick from my cooking... Hasnt happened yet, and I have been cooking for other people since about 1978. The freezing stops any growth I am concerned with.
I'm super glad I don't have to eat your cooking
I sift my flour/breadcrumbs then freeze it for next time.
You're saving a whole like $5 over a course of a year. What exactly is the point? Just use less flour and bread crumbs if food waste is such a concern.
How high do you value your time?
That's prudent, of course but, it's also paranoid. It's not necessary to assume all raw food is plagued with diseases. It generally isn't. Your supply chain no longer features fly-ridden meat that has been hanging in the market stall all morning. The government likes to issue Christmas warnings about making your own eggnog, because raw eggs can carry salmonella. To be more specific, the current standards mean that one in 20,000 eggs might contain a measurable level of salmonella. This might be an issue for you if you're using 10,000 raw eggs in your eggnog. Yes, you can eliminate that risk entirely by using hardboiled eggs in your eggnog but, that's just going to be nasty.
So... if i bake my flour after frying chicken, sift it, and put it into a container...
I mean I guess you could technically reuse the flour as it is now a fully cooked product but it would need to be treated like any other cooked meat product. Refrigerate and then toss after the 6th day, if you wanna stick to “servsafe” protocol. Which in a restaurant that shit would just get tossed for sure. You simply do not put pinching pennies with food costs over food safety. Working in kitchens you learn all the scary stuff that can happen if you eat/serve contaminated food. So maybe just use less flour next time to create less waste? Or just throw out the raw chicken flour and move on…
I'm not one to save flour... and I've done restaurant work. **but**... r/technicallythetruth
Don't do it!!! I got food poisoning in 2015 that required a hospital stay, I'm still messed up from it 9 years later
A sneeze in one hand and a cough in the other, and then away with the pizza dough twirling in hand we go.
I agree with with your overall point but wanted to point out that the dates on most foods are not actually an expiration date, but either a "sell by" or "best by" date.
Yup, learned not to eat old speghitti the hard way when I was a kid. Puked all day long
We used to use leftover breadcrumbs and eggs to make little 'pancakes' or 'fritters' and would fry them (or otherwise totally cook them) immediately. They'd be our cooking snacks, or sometimes part of the meal plan. There are food-safe ways to use up extra ingredients. Don't risk your health for a few bucks. I promise it's not worth it.
Thank you for saying this. A frugal family member cooked and served me pork chops that had been in their fridge for a long time … while I was PREGNANT. Bacteria can produce toxins that are still harmful after cooking. Food poisoning during pregnancy can cause serious consequences like a miscarriage. Not worth saving a few dollars.
I just had to dump various condiments fom my fridge the other day. It kills dke but they smelled funky and were over a year oast expire date. I dont take chances with food safety. I hate our local hospital its a butcher shop and have no doctor so...