DD eaten chicken without reheating- will she be ok?!

[lancsgirl85]

Sorry posting for traffic as I'm panicking a bit.

On Friday night I made chicken fajitas and there was chicken leftover so we put it in the fridge in a Tupperware. DD(15) has just informed me she was hungry so made herself a wrap with the chicken on, but didn't reheat it, just ate it cold from the fridge.

Please tell me this safe?! 🙈

Jesus wept at the ‘science’ in this thread

Cold chicken is normal and safe if been in fridge, stored appropriately within time. Reheated chicken though ……. to reheat it enough to be on the safer side makes it go like chewy rubber so not sure why you thought that would be nicer for your DD?

🤣🤣🤣

😂😂😂

Meat has bacteria, chicken in particular has salmonella which causes food poisoning.

Cooking kills the bacteria, refrigeration slows the growth of bacteria, freezing basically sends the bacteria to sleep. Warm is ideal for bacteria to multiply.

Not all bacteria is bad.

So when you cooked the chicken you killed the bacteria on it, but when it started to cool bacteria could start to grow again, the fridge slows this down so when your DD ate the chicken it had no or little bacteria.

If you start to warm meat then the bacteria start to increase before they are killed, this is when meat is dangerous to eat.

Oh and please don't freak out about eating bacteria, it's normal and some are actually good for you.

Maybe you're remembering the advice for pregnant women not to eat cold cooked chicken. Still assume that doesn't apply to DD.

How is it possible that someone old enough to have a teenager does not know chicken can be eaten cold?

I don't know what my age (37, thanks for showing an interest), has to do with the way in which my brain and reasoning abilities are affected under the combined conditions of sleep deprivation and significant trauma?

Is there an age at which you are able to switch off your brain's automatic and often irrational responses under these conditions?

Wow. Please so tell me how. I wasn't aware.

Thanks for all the non-shitty, kind replies.

It is.

I won't ever risk reheating it now, either! I very rarely eat chicken in the first place, let alone reheat from the fridge (I don't actually think I've ever done that - maybe a handful of times in my life). But I knew it had to be piping hot heated through if you did reheat. I just didn't understand the specific science behind why it being partially reheated and warm was worse than cold (I do now thanks to some of the helpful replies). I doubt I will, but if I do ever risk pre cooked chicken from the fridge, I'll have it cold!

Maybe! I've very recently been pregnant myself so that's entirely possible.

I'm the complete opposite, OP I never reheat chicken. My husband thinks I'm weird but I don't want to risk it.

Have a chicken, salad and mayo sandwich and report back.

As a guide op - chicken is fine for 48 hours, pork 72 hours, beef 4 days, though in our house it's pretty lax, found dp eating cold leftover beef 11 days out to no ill effect. Make sure your fridge is set at 3 or 4 degrees and store meats towards the back

Chicken and stuffing sandwiches the best part of leftovers (and are nothing new...you can buy them in any shop that sells sandwiches).

I'm a bit 😱 that cold chicken shocks you so OP 🤦‍♀️

(Warm left over chicken though...unless really thoroughly reheated (which would dry it out beyond the point of being edible!) is a recipe for disaster 🤮)

I've never heard this despite being pregnant 4 times. I this the current advice in the UK?

Try a food hygiene course. Sad that you didn't know that cold cooked chicken is ok, it's when it is not reheated properly that the issues arise, as with rice.

OP I have similar paranoia about food to you. Mine isn't as traumatic as yours. It stems from being effectively repeatedly poisoned by my mum as a kid. She used to cook meat then store it for 2-3 days on the kitchen counter and keep feeding it to us. For a long time I just thought being sick and having diarrhea was just an after effect of eating meat.

So I am saying this nicely but educate yourself. Get a meat thermometer and learn about storing food, learn the proper science. My poor kids ate so much burnt dry meat due to my fear, I also wasted tonnes of food. Ironically reheating is one of my biggest fears and I would go the other way and make them eat cold things. When my oldest started cooking her undercooked everything as he was so worried about burning things due to being sick of eating burnt food. He isn't scarred for life or anything, it prompted me to learn about food hygiene and stop doing things "just in case" I shared this with him and he's a good cook now. Anyway learning about bacteria and how it works really helped me.

I love my mum dearly BTW she was generally a good parent just had bizarre ideas about food hygiene and presumably a stomach of steel.

And we wonder why we have such a problem with food waste in this country

The things people are missing out on because they wont have reheated chicken.

Chicken pie is amazing. You take a whole chicken, boil it sixth cloves and onion and carrots etc. Once it has boiled to fully cooked, use the liquid to make a sauce with some other stuff in it, do the pastry and add the chicken and sauce, put on a pastry lid and stick to in the oven. Yum yum yum.

??

@Hobnobswantshernameback

Not sure of the relevance of your comment to my OP?

Of course it is. Chicken is eaten cold in sandwiches and many other foods that are safe to eat cold.

There’s no advice in the UK to not eat cold cooked chicken, either cooked at home or pre-packaged, both are fine. There was guidance before to avoid places like subway as you can’t be sure that the meat hasn’t become contaminated or left out too long.

Who has wasted what or had any intention of wasting?

its relevant because you clearly cook meat and I'm guessing that if you don't know what to do with cold chicken you bin it
or do you eat the whole entire chicken in one sitting?
if people have such a poor understanding of what is safe or not to eat then inevitably food gets wasted
which is damn shame