AIBU for wanting compensation from Morissons after getting ill from BBQ?

[TammiesBackHurts]

Had a BBQ at ours last evening. It was me, DH, our two DC, my MIL and FIL, my sister and her partner. DH popped into Morrisons at about 2:30 to get the food, including a packet of their own-brand burgers.

We started the BBQ at 6:15 and ate at about 7ish. DH was cooking while I was getting everything else ready, so I wasn’t really watching the BBQ. Luckily… it was sweltering next to it. Got my burger straight off the thing, nothing wrong with it, just that normal brown edges and that bright pink in the middle just like you get from a BBQ burger. At about 10 I started feeling really unwell and was vomiting during the night. It’s now 7pm the day after and I still feel awful. This morning I looked at the burger packet and noticed the eat by date was 14/08/26, which is the exact day we ate them.

What is making me suspicious is that it was Morrisons own-brand food, so presumably Morrisons are responsible for making sure the date printed on their packaging is correct. If the date is wrong, how are customers supposed to know whether the food is actually safe? I relied on the date when I ate it. Nobody else who ate the burgers seems to have become ill, but I don’t think that necessarily rules them out because people react differently and I may have eaten more than everyone else. I still have the packaging and the receipt from Morrisons, so I have proof of exactly what I bought and when.

I’m considering contacting Morrisons and asking them to investigate the batch and explain why I’ve become ill after eating something on the actual use-by date. I’m also wondering whether I should be asking for compensation, because if their date was incorrect then surely that’s quite a serious food safety issue? AIBU?

Burgers should not be pink in the middle. Where did you get that idea from?

Almost 20 years ago my DB was then still married to a French woman, she had a PhD from Pasteur, they were visiting my grandparents in Paisley, where they went food shopping. She was shocked to see (it was July) a cold meat counter server slice and handle food with her bare hands, she could not stop talking about it - she kept saying 'somebody will die, somebody will die in this heat. She immediately complained to the store manager, and even (!!!!) wrote to their head office. Everybody told her not to be silly 'we have a clean hands policy' - and sure enough, several people died, I remember seeing it on the news, but I don't remember if it was Morrisons or Safeway. She was shocked by our cold meat counters and butcher counters.

Does Morrisons really use the words ' eat by ' ?
rather than ' use by ' and ' best before ' .

With it being that day's date, I am surprised the burgers were not ' reduced ' maybe Morrisons start their reductions later in the day.

I have voted YANBU assuming this is a wind up and no one is really dumb enough to eat raw burgers

I misunderstood your description as what it looked like raw which is clearly very dodgy but dodgier still that it really was of a cooked burger! Hope you feel better soon!

If they were short dated surely they should have been in the reduced section? Why didn't your husband check the use by date? Also if no one else got ill how do you know it was definitely the burgers?

How long did you have the barbecue pit for?not long enough if your burger is raw in the middle

There are extremely strict hygiene measures in food manufacture including on use by dates and storage. It is orders of magnitude more likely that the problem is you and not Morrisons

You are always supposed to cook burgers made with minced meat all the way through-they are not a steak! The outside of a steak contains ecoli so when mixed as an ground, you need to ensure it is fully cooked

Yeah that will happen when you eat raw meat.

FYI for the future, burgers aren’t supposed to be eaten rare because of the chance of bacteria present in the middle of the burger. A slab of steak is all one continuous slab of meat, the only bacteria present (unless it’s rotten) will be on the outside and that will be killed with cooking. When you make a burger, it’s made from mince meat which has the potential to harbour bacteria on every strand and will also likely from different cows. When it’s pressed together that bacteria is present throughout the whole burger - hence why you should cook it all the way through to make sure it’s killed off.

Its not Morrisons fault, your husband can’t cook.

You ate a raw burger but it’s somehow Morrisons fault?

Invest in a digital food thermometer. They’re inexpensive and very easy to use and usually come with instructions about safe temperatures for different meats.

General good advice is to do most of the cooking in your oven and only finish them off on a barbecue for the outside bits. I'm sure that's sacrilege to some, but avoids this kind of problem.

Op it’s very surprising anyone can get to adult hood and not know that pink in the middle of a burger is raw meat. This can make you very unwell.m

either others were cooked correctly or they were and they didn’t get ill as it didn’t contain the same amount of germs in the undercooked bit

when you bbq burgers or chicken it needs to be fully cooked throughout. No pink, only steak is thr safer option if you wish pink.

is this a joke post? Surely everyone knows a burger should be cooked through. You must always cook mince/burgers until all brown. This is the problem you’ve made yourself I’ll not Morrisons

Its not meant to be pink at all. That just means it cooked quickly outside and didnt have enough time to cook inside.

I'm hoping you didn't BBQ chicken OP

You know that BBQ'd chicken shouldn't be pink in the middle too, right?

FML...

Cook your food properly (not pink)
Wash your hands
Bleach the toilet after each diarrhoea and drink a small glass of water (so you don’t dehydrate)

Of course it's a joke post, but plenty of people seem to be taking it very seriously. No idea why.

Are you very young? I'm trying to understand how you don't know to cook burgers thoroughly

I asked AI for you. HTH

Food Safety and Ground Beef

The bacteria risk: Bacteria like E. coli live on the outside of a solid piece of steak, so searing kills them. Grinding mixes the outside into the middle, so an undercooked center may still have germs.The temperature rule: Official food safety guidelines state that ground beef must reach an internal temperature of 160°F (71°C) to be fully safe.Color tricks: A burger can sometimes stay pink or red even after reaching a safe temperature due to chemical reactions with proteins like myoglobin. Conversely, it can turn brown before it is fully safe. Always use a digital meat thermometer rather than guessing by color.

Lol, you must not like flavor 😂 I understand that ground meat needs to reach a safe internal temperature, but “pink = unsafe” still isn’t how that works. A burger can be safely cooked and still have some pink in the middle. I know you Brits like to cook beef until it has the moisture content of a hockey puck, but that doesn’t mean everyone else eating meat that isn’t completely gray is doing it wrong.

You sound grabby
Wanting a pay out for chef s wrong doing
Too quick to point fingers at the wrong person

Hi Morrisons
I bought in-date food and didn’t cook it properly and got ill.
It’s your fault now compensate me.
Thanks
Op

Honestly I worry sometimes 😁

Not sure if the OP will be back or if they’ve been shown the door.