Stew meat was left out all night

[BeLoftyTurtle]

At relatives house and they have stew..... However they did the first phase of the stew last night by boiling the meat last night and left it on the stove. Today they added veggies and reheated/cooked veg in the stew.

Aibu in not eating it

@AAria999 Yes, I work in food safety, so the terminologies are very normal and familiar to me. I'm currently writing a food safety e-learning course, so I have to ensure everything is factual, hence why I'm sure in what I'm saying.

These threads are always like this, I don't expect people to know the ins and outs, but it is quite scary how people believe certain things with such certainty and give it out as advice 😱

The "sniff test" is usually mentioned too to determine if its safe to eat, but even when you tell them food poisoning bacteria is microscopic and cannot be seen/smelt or tasted, they still argue they've been sniffing stuff for years to tell if it's safe.

That reads a lot like a ChatGPT summary!

And I absolutely agree that there's a question of personal risk tolerance.

Re. traditional practices, though, if BorisJohnsonsPhysique is correct (as they do seem to be), modern meat is more unsafe than meat of a few generations ago, due to industrialization of farming, so risks from reheating meat that has been kept at room temperature are considerably greater than they may have been for our grandparents.

i use it to edit my spelling and grammer and structure as ive got adhd and terrible english when left to my own devices

How can we possibly know this though? People used to die from diarrhoea which could well have been from food poisoning but nobody would have ever known.

I wouldn't eat it because I agreee with @HotCrossBunplease it sounds a disgusting recipe! Boil meat and then add seasoning and vegetables?!

I would not eat it

Genuine question although I am aware that it could be judged as goady I am honestly puzzled.

If meat that is fully cooked can't be left out for more than 2 hours without being refrigerated for fear of food poisoning why are restaurants allowed to serve meat that is rare or medium rare? Beef and lamb can be served almost raw so the bacteria will not have been removed. The beef will have been hung for over 28 days. Meat should be brought to room temperature before cooking so plenty of time for already present bacteria to grow. But then you are essentially eating raw meat whose bacteria has not been destroyed by cooking.
The beef in the stew will have been stored the exact same way as a fillet steak before purchase so what is the difference?

I really don't understand the mindset that if something is stored in a cool kitchen (not talking about high summer - we had snow on the hills last week) for more than 2 hours it is deemed dangerous and should be disposed of despite being previously cooked for a long period of time. The genuine fear that you will be poisoned so you are ultra vigilant must be exhausting and extremely expensive.

The people that do this, do you steam clean your floors and carpets daily for fear of bacteria being brought in? Children touch things then put their hands in their mouths constantly. The chance of them catching something through that is much higher than through food properly cooked but sitting in a cool room and not a fridge. Where do you draw the line? Do you wash the container you stored your food in in boiling water to sterilise it before you use the container? That container was previously handled with hands that had bacteria on them which would have transferred to the container, do you use food storage bags straight out of the box? What informs these decisions?

I like to think I apply common sense. I wash fruit and vegetables. I watch use by dates but I certainly would not dump food that had been cooked and then thoroughly re-cooked. I don't spend hours terrified. My children all made it to adulthood without ever suffering food poisoning. They played outside, got dirty and rarely got ill. Do you think I got it wrong?

I feel for you.

In the realm of the web, there are few situations more frustrating than a Mumsnet thread that concerns one’s area of expertise, so you have to sit there watching people trotting out ill-informed and mistaken views with an air of sage authority that has no basis in fact. In some circumstances, it’s actually dangerous.

It’s not that they’re wrong that irritates. It’s that they’re so blithely convinced that they’re right.

@RRoseshavethorns With steak, the bacteria lives on the surface of the meat, so that's why you can just sear the outside surface of the meat to destroy the bacteria and still have it raw inside. Mince, on the other hand, obviously can't be eaten raw because as it's minced, the bacteria from the surface is all mixed in.

With bacteria, it's not so much that it's there per se, and we consume it all the time. Even cooking to 75% doesn't always destroy it completely it just reduces it to a safe level, and that's the key point, a safe level. You might have cooked something, and any surviving bacteria are eaten, but the number (and its toxins) aren't high enough to cause illness. Where as if you give the surviving bacteria the correct conditions, i.e., ambient temperatures and enough time, it will multiply to unsafe levels.

When children touch things and put them in their mouth, they might be consuming bacteria but again not to an unsafe level. Bacteria on a toy, for example, most likely won't contain the right conditions for it to multiply to unsafe levels. They are more likely to pick up viruses though, which don't need specific conditions as they don't multiply.

The misconception is all bacteria need to be eliminated everywhere or you will get sick. That's not the case. Bacteria just need to be controlled in food handling to avoid its multiplication or cross contamination from raw to ready to eat foods.

The Asian method of cooking rice does not leave any water to drain. It’s all absorbed.

YABU. What do you think people did before fridges. Hilarious how over obsessed everyone is on MN about food hygiene.

What about steak tartare then?

@jenjen337 only few restaurants will serve steak tartar as there's very specific steps and safety measures they have to do to prepare it safely. They sear the outside of the beef and use properly sterilised equipment to cut away the cooked exterior and prepare the dish.

Really? So this recipe supposedly from Gordon Ramsay Restaurants is not what they actually do in the restaurant because you are saying that would be a health and safety violation?

www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com/recipes/steak-tartare/amp

also this allegedly from a 5 star hotel in London

https://youtube.com/shorts/8i_B6klkYwA?si=1k3ej4-HGMCrV7Zt

@HotCrossBunplease to be honest after I posted I thought actually, some don't sear and shave, it depends on the restaurant. But it is all about really high quality meat from reputable suppliers, strict temperature controls, and strict hygiene rules to ensure equipment is clean throughout the process. It's really something I'd like to eat 🤢

Why the queasy face, did you mean “not” really something you’d like to eat? I love it, always order it in France.

Yes "not" something I'd like to eat! But then I like medium rare steak but blue I draw the line at! 😃

I wouldn’t order a blue steak either. Steak tartare is very different to eating a raw steak though as it is mixed with spicy flavours and finely chopped vegetables. The flavour and texture are totally different. It’s a bit like a Bloody Mary in flavour. Usually topped with a raw egg yolk too, to bind it together.

French restaurants serve burgers which are pink inside.

I am very wary of raw chicken, but a stew which has sat on a counter overnight and is then reheated for 40 minutes will be fine. Cooking kills bacteria ( never heard of these additional toxins that PPs are referring to !)

@HotCrossBunplease I guess it's what our tastes are 😃 I did notice the Gordon Ramsey one was mixed with various other ingredients, including high acid ones. I imagine that's due to flavour but also additional safety as high acid ingredients don't support the growth of bacteria.

It's the toxins that cause illness. If the bacteria has been left to multiply and release toxins, you can cook it/reheat it all you want, but that won't kill the toxins.

If the pan has been boiled and a lid put on while boiling, then, with the lid still on, allowed to cool, I have no issue with the same pan being reheated to boiling the next day as how would sufficient bacteria to multiply and cause an issue enter the lidded pan in those few hours?

It's the toxins that cause illness. If the bacteria has been left to multiply and release toxins, you can cook it/reheat it all you want, but that won't kill the toxins.

That is not true for all toxins. Botulinum toxin has a half life of around 5 minutes at 80C, will be even shorter at higher temperatures. The most common of the heat stable ones is the Staphylococcus aureus toxin but S. aureus doesn't make spores so won't be in this particular stew.

With botulinum, it would be the spores that you would have to control, so cooking is fine, but if they aren't eating it straight away, they'd need to ensure rapid cooling/cold storage or hot holding.