Food safety: roast chicken left out?| Off-Topic Discussion forum |

ransom GRM+ Memberand UberDork
10/21/13 10:11 a.m.

So, we had this clever plan. It started with roast chicken for dinner yesterday. That part went really well. It was tasty.

Where things went awry is that tonight's dinner plan was to use the carcass and leftover meat in soup, but the chicken got left on the counter overnight.

It's really a question of time. It was out for eleven hours. I figure if it was two hours, it'd be a no-brainer; it can take that long to eat a nice dinner. If it was two weeks, that would also be a no-brainer, and I'd toss it.

Then there's the fact that everything's going to be simmered for an hour or so, so everything's going to be well and thoroughly heated to... Something close to 200 degrees? Now sure how far below boiling a water/soup-stuff mix simmers...

I don't think it's so much a raw chicken/salmonella question, as it's already been cooked. I guess it's now more just a general food question?

Why do I still have more of a paranoia than a working understanding of the mechanisms of food spoilage?

Anybody got any good links for practical questions like this without resorting to ask.com or yahoo answers? I don't want answers from yahoos...

Giant Purple Snorklewacker MegaDork
10/21/13 10:13 a.m.

In reply to ransom:

Will you be boiling the soup long enough to bring the carcass cores over saaaay 160F? I'd imagine that would murder any evils that could have fostered themselves in there.

I don't know if I'd go eating it cold off the counter though.

mtn UltimaDork
10/21/13 10:23 a.m.

My girlfriend is a dietitian. She has taken a whole slew of food safety courses. She would throw it out.

I have not taken a bunch of food safety courses. I am cheap. I would throw it in the pot and enjoy it. Did you ever get sick in college eating the cold pizza that was left on the counter all night?

z31maniac UltimaDork
10/21/13 10:36 a.m.

Look up the temperature danger zone.

A few dollars of meat would not be enough for me to risk food poisoning.

914Driver MegaDork
10/21/13 10:38 a.m.

3 hour rule?

Kenny_McCormic SuperDork
10/21/13 10:44 a.m.

Part of me says throw it out, another part says boil the E36 M3 out of it and enjoy.

mndsm UltimaDork
10/21/13 10:45 a.m.

I'd probably eat it.

Streetwiseguy UberDork
10/21/13 11:09 a.m.

Boil it and eat it.

ransom GRM+ Memberand UberDork
10/21/13 11:18 a.m.

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

Oh yeah, it'll be brought up over that temp and held up there. I have this faint recollection that after a certain point, it's not a problem of stuff that's living on the food, it's the toxins they excrete which aren't alive to be killed by heat; they're just bad compounds.

I had one really good go-round with food poisoning from some curried shrimp from a packet about eight or nine years ago.

I think I'm going to chuck it. It pains me, as we've gotten the leftover-chicken-carcass soup down to a tasty, tasty science. But I've got enough mayhem going on right now without taking three days of PTO to excrete explosively out both ends...

I was always a cast-iron-stomach type, pretty much up until the curried shrimp episode, and haven't ever been quite as robust since.

fritzsch HalfDork
10/21/13 11:19 a.m.

Would it be acceptable for a restaurant? No

Will it kill you? Probably not. Go for it

Mitchell SuperDork
10/21/13 11:23 a.m.

4 hours at 41 degrees and above is the food handling danger zone. If you bring it to a boil, then simmer for a few hours, will you be okay? Probably. It would be a severe infraction for a food service provider, though, and I wouldn't be comfortable serving it to others.

ransom GRM+ Memberand UberDork
10/21/13 11:26 a.m.

fritzsch wrote: Would it be acceptable for a restaurant? No Will it kill you? Probably not. Go for it

I think my greatest hesitation is that the last time food poisoning didn't kill me, it made me weaker, not stronger like the catch phrase said.

Then there was the really horrible discomfort and soiling myself, and feeling more or less like I had a bad hangover for three days after the worst of it.

Come to think of it, I probably should have gone to the hospital for that one...

At this point, I'm finding it a testament to selective amnesia and my own recklessness that I got as far as asking GRM before chucking it. OTOH, it's a lovely roast chicken, and it was going to be some awesome soup. I hate to waste good food, but I suspect the "good" is dubious now...

N Sperlo MegaDork
10/21/13 11:28 a.m.

I would toss it out if my dog wouldn't have eaten it already.

ransom GRM+ Memberand UberDork
10/21/13 11:49 a.m.

In reply to N Sperlo:

It may have been just far enough back on the counter to be out of reach, but I think I should probably give my dog some treats she won't know why she's getting for not making us come downstairs this morning to chicken carcass shreds all over the downstairs, and possibly a dog needing to be rushed to the vet with a chicken bone in her throat...

curtis73 GRM+ Memberand UltraDork
10/21/13 12:21 p.m.

It has nothing to do with killing bacteria with boiling, it has to do with the bacterial waste. Boiling it for a long time will kill most of the bacteria and prevent an infection, but what it won't do is dissolve or kill the toxins left behind by the bacteria.

Its one thing to eat bacteria and get a nasty tummy for a few days. But even if you boil it and kill all the bacteria, you aren't removing the toxins left behind by the bacteria.

1988RedT2 UberDork
10/21/13 12:30 p.m.

When in doubt, throw it out.

But I don't really know you, so you can eat it if you want!

ransom GRM+ Memberand UberDork
10/21/13 12:36 p.m.

Thanks, guys! As if there were any actual curiosity, the chicken is now in the compost bin... (We have a municipal all-food-waste compost system, which doesn't have the usual home no-fat-etc concerns; I think everything gets broken down pretty well)

Curtis, that was one of the faint recollections I had which I couldn't bring up specifically...