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?

To be fair though when we were abroad i think italy we had burgers and they brought our very raw in the centre ones.
Also at burger for fireworks night about 10y ago i got a raw one and complained and got another raw one! Perhaps the bbq person was op dh?

It shouldn't be pink in the middle, it wasn't cooked properly. Sounds like you have food poisoning. Hope you feel better soon and maybe stay away from raw uncooked burgers 😉

I dont think you’re supposed to eat that type of burger pink in the middle ? Aren’t they supposed to be thoroughly cooked?

If it’s fresh ground beef / steak ie cooked within 24 hours after it was minced it’s ok to eat to eat red. They have it like that all the time in france but not the ready made supermarket ones.

I learnt not to do that in home economics ( uk school) many years ago.

Can only recommend investing in a thermapen

It was pink in the middle and you ate it!!

There’s no way whatsoever to know if it had to do with their product. Other options are that you have undercooked it, contaminated it during preparation, or just caught a stomach bug.

Your dh made you ill.

Are you in the UK? Is this a wind up or did you really think it was okay to have a barbecue last night?

Bright pink in the middle is not cooked. Not Morrisons fault that you didn’t cook the burger

OP, genuine question. Why did you think there was a difference between BBQd meat and meat cooked any other way?

Burgers that are bright pink in the middle are not cooked properly. Undercooked burgers are nasty because mincing meat mixes surface bacteria throughout the meat patty and it needs to be cooked right through to kill it. If you were using traditional charcoal, started the barbecue at 6.15 and were eating by 7 that also suggests you didn’t allow the barbecue to come to the right temperature for cooking - it would’ve been too hot, so everything sears on the outside and appears to be done, but hasn’t cooked through.

You’ve exposed yourself to E Coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter. Not everyone who ate them will have become ill for various reasons, but rather than blaming Morrisons I think you should count yourself lucky you’re still alive - E. coli can cause fatal kidney failure.

This ☝️

You're a little bit too Try Hard @TammiesBackHurts, I'd dial it back a little if you want to be really successful.

Food was in date.
You cooked it
You can't prove it was it anyway.

What do you want? A warning put on the package: "Warning: contains meat which if not cooked properly may cause illness. However any illness that occurs within 24 hours of consuming product cannot be assumed it's due to the idiot who failed to cook it properly."

Compensation?.
🙄🙄🙄🤣🤣🤣

Pink burgers from restaurants are usually fine because they buy high quality meat and mince them in-house. Some restaurants pride themselves on having a secret blend of different cuts of beef for their burgers.

Pink burgers eaten on the sell-by date from a supermarket is a death wish. The mince is the same as their other ones and you'll never think of eating pink spag bol sauce. It's also been proven in studies that many types of risky meat like mince or chicken are no longer safe to consume on their use by date unless heated very thoroughly. If you smelled the burgers before grilling them, they probably had quite a stench.

During a heat wave, it's also highly likely that the cool chain was interrupted at some point which shortens the sell by date. This summer, I've only cooked meat at a minimum of 2 days before expiry, ideally more.

YABU. This isn't America.

You are being completely unreasonable. A burger isn't a steak, it needs to be cooked thoroughly! How do people get to adulthood and not realise that mince needs to be properly cooked? The only exception would be mince that you've ground yourself from a cut of meat e.g. a steak.

I mean this nicely, do you have any kind of cognitive issue?

Hey. 🙂👋🍁YVR here. It's very smokey.

I once attended a church barbecue where I was served a breaded chicken burger which was black on the outside and raw in the middle. Needless to say I didn't eat it.

Maybe OP is in Scotland. We aren't covered by the alert.

I thought the current advice was no bbq’s?