[thechat] food question: chicken

Erika Meyer ekm at seastorm.com
Fri Jan 30 21:18:48 CST 2009


Conyers, Dwayne wrote:
> My mom left cooked food on a cold stove overnight... and we never got sick.  Of course, we doused everything with hot sauce... maybe that killed the germs?
> 

My daughter's dad does it all the time.  However, I *do* think she's 
gotten food poisoning at his house a couple of times.  But considering 
how often food gets left on the stove, the incidents of illness are 
pretty random.

I heard somewhere that part of it is acclamation. That some people are 
more sensitive than others to food poisoning.

In the end, I decided to trash the chicken. :(  But amusingly, I did the 
exact same thing the next night, with beef stew.  In that case, I 
decided just to turn up the stove, make sure to boil it for 10+ minutes, 
and we ate it all the next day and we were fine.

My dad, who is a biologist w emphasis in microbiology/bacteriology (and 
an awesome homebrewer), and far braver on eating leftovers than I, said 
that that boiling food controls the bacteria growth.  Thus the old rhyme 
"pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot nine 
days old."  (but still, ew!)

Erika



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