Using out of date minced beef

[Monty27]

So the sell by date was 24 August. It was tbf slightly discoloured. It smelled fine.
I cooked it Bolognese style for yonks. A couple of hours probably, adding ingredients and stirring as I went along.
It tastes lovely but my picky 23 yo DS refused to eat it as he knew it was ood.
Would you?
Tia

No, I think 4 days past is too long. If you worry about waste so much, you should use it soon after buying or stick it in the freezer. You can still get sick even if you cook it for a long time.

I keep beef and mince for way past the date too. If it smells ok, I’d use it.

Remind me never to eat at any of your houses. The "it smells fine so is fine" theory is not scientifically correct. Some food poisoning bacteria is odourless.

Food standards agency: "The food could be unsafe to eat or drink, even if it has been stored correctly and looks and smells fine." Why even risk food poisoning?

The OP cooked it “for yonks”. There’s no risk.

I'd have eaten it too!

The OP cooked it “for yonks”. There’s no risk.

Cooking kills bacteria, but it doesn't remove toxins, even if cooked "for yonks".

As I understood it, even botulism to in is deactivated by proper cooking. Botulism toxin is killed by heating to 85 degrees for five minutes. A bolognaise usually boils and simmers for longer.

We are so very worried about the earth now, it seems kind of counter productive to bin perfectly good food a day after the date. What exactly happened at midnight the day before?

I know I may sound a bit preachy. But I just want to shout "get a grip". Why oh why is the meat or whatever fine one day and deadly the next? Really? I know we are all trying our best, but we need to be practical. A sell by date is not exact science.

Sorry meant to say botulism toxin.

It's not the next day though. It's 4 days past the expiry. I have mince that was 27 Aug and will use it in a curry today, but I wouldn't leave it longer than that.

Not all toxins are killed by cooking. If cooking made meat safe, then people would never get food poisoning from cooked food, which obviously isn't true as people do get food poisoning from cooked bad meat.

Also, if we want to help save the earth, we should buy less meat. Whether we throw out the bad meat or eat it, it doesn't make a difference to the planet as it has already been produced and bought.

If it helps, botulism requires an anaerobic environment (without oxygen) to produce the toxin. But heat kills the toxin. Meat in a supermarket is not anaerobic. It is exposed to oxygen. Something is added to keep it pink. Yuck, but not a food borne illness issue.

Botulism is most common in low acid foods that have not been canned properly. Meat and fish for example must be processed at high temperature and pressure. Tomatoes can be canned using a hot water bath, provided a bit of lemon juice is added to increase acidity.

It is true that the toxin is odourless and tasteless. But it is very very unlikely and probably unheard of in supermarket meat.

Please don't worry. A bit of knowledge can go a long way.

My answer to all of this is that we freeze basically everything we can when it arrives. Helps reduce waste. We even freeze Parmesan cheese now. Makes no difference that I can detect, and ensures we can finish it.

Dear blackcatsleeping,

I totally agree with you on eating less meat. I am mid 60s now, but in my late teens I read "Diet for a Small Planet". It had a huge impact on me, that has influenced my whole life.

Just saying. Us fogies and boomers are not clueless!

I used to manage to clear the dinner table debating with my Dad about the importance of recycling etc. In the 1970s. Freaky, huh?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DietforraSmalllPlanet

It's not just botulism though. What about staph? Heating will not kill all staph toxins.

I didn't mean to sound patronising. We don't eat a lot of meat, but what I buy, I also tend to just portion up and freeze or cook it quickly. It just saves the worry.

The OP will probably be fine, but why risk it?

The OP cooked it “for yonks”. There’s no risk.

Yeah, that's not scientific at all.

Many bacteria that are commonly found in meat produce what are called exo-toxins (e.g. enterotoxins), releasing them into the meat.

These are heat stable.

They are not destroyed by cooking, irrespective of the duration or intensity.

They can cause severe GIT damage (liver failure, pancreatitis etc.), meningitis, death.

I know I may sound a bit preachy. But I just want to shout "get a grip". Why oh why is the meat or whatever fine one day and deadly the next?

Er... Because bacteria multiply logarithmically.

100 toxic bacteria at 3p.m. can be 50 000+ toxic bacteria by 6p.m. Every single one of them with toxic components and producing toxic metabolites.

One day can absolutely mean the difference between mild nausea with minor, recoverable GIT damage, and liver failure, acute pancreatitis, death etc.

OP, it's your choice, but what you did is risky.

I'm a vegetarian so am very sympathetic to the notion of not allowing meat to be wasted when an animal has died to provide it.

I'm also very sympathetic to possible food insecurity etc.

But mince is not the meat to be taking risks with. The bacterial count in mince is significantly higher than in other meats - partly because mince as a product often comes from multiple original meat sources, increasing the likelihood of contamination, and partly because the mincing process itself forces surface bacteria through the meat mass which facilitates colonisation.

If you are going to risk serving meat cooked past the use-by date, you would be well advised to stick to single-source cuts from mammals (e.g. steak).

On that subject, OP, your son was well within his rights to refuse to eat a meal that could seriously injure or kill him.

If you knowingly invested time, effort and ingredients into cooking very iffy meat, that's entirely on you and you should rightly consider that investment your stupid tax.

It's not your son's job to put himself at risk to spare your feelings or retroactively justify your efforts.

That you would want him to do so to demonstrate 'appreciation' for the time and effort you put in is sort of blowing my mind.

It's one thing to choose to take on the risk of consuming risky meat for yourself, it's entirely another to presumd to serve it to other people.

Hi again,

I appreciate your education. I do have a fairly good understanding of microbiology having obtained a bachelors degree in biological science some years ago myself.

I bow to your superior knowledge and understanding. If bacteria in meat start increasing exponentially after the use by date I totally understand your point. I do not know anything to confirm or deny that assertion. It is indeed a good thing that we now seem to know when an exponential increase in toxic bacteria will occur.

You are correct that if an increase becomes exponential after the use by date, there is a problem.

Please know that I am no advocate of eating well out of date and/or questionable food, meat based or not. To do so would be foolish.

Pulling together would be good. I hope the OP is not freaked out now.

Cheers!

So are people on here saying they know better than this guy? Really?
"A lot of people rely on the sniff test, [but] that means nothing whatsoever," says Lydia Buchtmann from the Food Safety Information Council.
www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-06-07/can-you-smell-if-food-is-off/8594238
This thread confirms people really just make up their own reality.

Some of you would get a heart attack looking into my fridge. Majority of things get unpacked and so there is no date on it. 😁
Sometimes meat goes off before the date too. How do people know? Same way like if it's few days over. Look at it and smell it. Same way for vegetables and other things. There is a dijon mustard which says "use within 4 weeks of opening" and it's been there... Since Easter.

Such a shame about the food waste. This is like the freezer threads.

@Aroundnabout1 that's about leftovers. Leftovers are different. At least ime

No - and I’m very easy going when it comes to best before or use by dates. I eat lots of things past their use by, but raw meat is definitely not one of them.

The OP cooked it “for yonks”. There’s no risk.

So mouldy meat is fine to eat if it’s cooked ‘for yonks’ - this is news to me.

Has anyone had 100 day ages steak? You have to actually cut the mould off before you cook it. It is glorious.

Has anyone had 100 day ages steak?

Pretty sure there’s a difference between aged stake and mouldy mince - just like there’s a difference between Stilton and furry Philadelphia.