Paranoia and poisoning

"Peter H.M. Brooks" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'm making a curry for my father's 85th birthday party tomorrow. Not that
that's particularly relevant to the post, but still...

My sister works for a food retailer and is consequently paranoid about
various matters related to food - as, of course, any good food retailer
must be. I'm not sure that quite the same level of paranoia is required at
home though.

My sister is of the opinion that it would be dangerous to re-heat the
curry tomorrow morning, then travel over to her house (a twenty minute
drive) and then heat it again for serving. She's afraid that everybody
will be poisoned if this happens. According to her re-heating the food
twice will be much more dangerous than re-heating it twice.

She might be right, but I'm interested to know exactly what the mechanism
is. If I heat food to boiling point then only bacteria that survive at
higher temparatures will survive, during the cooling period it may indeed
be re-colonised, by bacteria from the air but again this would be killed
by re-heating to boiling (and keeping it there for a few minutes, of
course).

I can see that it is wise usually to keep food refridgerated and only heat
that which is required shortly before the meal, and I'm not advocating
re-heating the same curry many times over several days. However, I am
interested to know just how big the danger of food poisoning would be from
two re-headings tomorrow relative to only one. Would it truly create a
danger of poisoning or is it paranoid to worry about it?

If there's an URL describing bacterial growth and re-heating food showing
research results I'd be delighted to read that.

--
"You will not ask me what is the point of envy.--You are determined, I
see, to have no curiosity.--You are wise--but _I_ cannot be wise. Emma, I
must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next
moment." -- Emma, Jane Austen
* TagZilla 0.057 * http://tagzilla.mozdev.org

Your Sister is correct

N10 🙂

Peter H.M. Brooks NINCOMPOOP said:

I'm making a curry for my father's 85th birthday

My sister is of the opinion that it would be dangerous to re-heat the

Quoted message said:

curry tomorrow morning, then travel over to her house (a twenty

minute

Quoted message said:

drive) and then heat it again for serving. She's afraid that

everybody

Quoted message said:

will be poisoned if this happens.

According to her re-heating the food twice will be much more

dangerous than re-heating it twice.

Why do you repeat twice twice?

DUH! DUH!

Peter H.M. Brooks said:

I'm making a curry for my father's 85th birthday party tomorrow. Not
that that's particularly relevant to the post, but still...

My sister works for a food retailer and is consequently paranoid about
various matters related to food - as, of course, any good food retailer
must be. I'm not sure that quite the same level of paranoia is required
at home though.

My sister is of the opinion that it would be dangerous to re-heat the
curry tomorrow morning, then travel over to her house (a twenty minute
drive) and then heat it again for serving. She's afraid that everybody
will be poisoned if this happens. According to her re-heating the food
twice will be much more dangerous than re-heating it twice.

She might be right, but I'm interested to know exactly what the
mechanism is. If I heat food to boiling point then only bacteria that
survive at higher temparatures will survive, during the cooling period
it may indeed be re-colonised, by bacteria from the air but again this
would be killed by re-heating to boiling (and keeping it there for a few
minutes, of course).

I can see that it is wise usually to keep food refridgerated and only
heat that which is required shortly before the meal, and I'm not
advocating re-heating the same curry many times over several days.
However, I am interested to know just how big the danger of food
poisoning would be from two re-headings tomorrow relative to only one.
Would it truly create a danger of poisoning or is it paranoid to worry
about it?

If there's an URL describing bacterial growth and re-heating food
showing research results I'd be delighted to read that.

Your sister is a nut.

But... Why don't you take the curry over there cold? That will make
her happy, and it will be less work for you.

Best regards,
Bob

zxcvbob said:

Peter H.M. Brooks said:

I'm making a curry for my father's 85th birthday party tomorrow. Not
that that's particularly relevant to the post, but still...

My sister works for a food retailer and is consequently paranoid about
various matters related to food - as, of course, any good food
retailer must be. I'm not sure that quite the same level of paranoia
is required at home though.

My sister is of the opinion that it would be dangerous to re-heat the
curry tomorrow morning, then travel over to her house (a twenty minute
drive) and then heat it again for serving. She's afraid that everybody
will be poisoned if this happens. According to her re-heating the food
twice will be much more dangerous than re-heating it twice.

She might be right, but I'm interested to know exactly what the
mechanism is. If I heat food to boiling point then only bacteria that
survive at higher temparatures will survive, during the cooling period
it may indeed be re-colonised, by bacteria from the air but again this
would be killed by re-heating to boiling (and keeping it there for a
few minutes, of course).

I can see that it is wise usually to keep food refridgerated and only
heat that which is required shortly before the meal, and I'm not
advocating re-heating the same curry many times over several days.
However, I am interested to know just how big the danger of food
poisoning would be from two re-headings tomorrow relative to only one.
Would it truly create a danger of poisoning or is it paranoid to worry
about it?

If there's an URL describing bacterial growth and re-heating food
showing research results I'd be delighted to read that.

Your sister is a nut.

But... Why don't you take the curry over there cold? That will make
her happy, and it will be less work for you.

That is exactly what I am going to do. My question isn't a request to
enable me to change my plans, but to satisfy my curiosity.

--
When we have got to the end of this chapter (but not before) we must
all turn back to the two blank chapters, on the account of which my
honour has lain bleeding this half hour--I stop it, by pulling off one
of my yellow slippers and throwing it with all my violence to the
opposite side of my room, with a declaration at the heel of it-- -
Tristam Shandy Chapter 4.LXXXIV.Laurence Sterne
* TagZilla 0.057 * http://tagzilla.mozdev.org

Dave Smith said:

Goomba38 said:

A case where a little knowledge will get a person
in trouble.
Don't you reheat leftovers at home and live to
tell about it? Most everyone does. What your
sister does, I can't imagine? She sounds like a
fruit loop to me.

The concern was not about reheating the dish. It was about reheating it,
transporting it approx, 20 minutes and then heating it again. This is a
situation where the food would spend longer in the temperature range where
bacteria thrives. I think there is some valid concern there. It really
doesn't take much of that stuff to make a person really sick, and if you have
ever hd a good case of food poisoning it's an experience that you don't ever
want to repeat.

People bring casseroles and dishes to potlucks all
the time. Transporting them directly from oven to
car to event. Perhaps additional heating on
arrival. A 20 min drive isn't terribly excessive
where I'd start to worry?
Goomba

Goomba38 said:

People bring casseroles and dishes to potlucks all
the time. Transporting them directly from oven to
car to event. Perhaps additional heating on
arrival. A 20 min drive isn't terribly excessive
where I'd start to worry?

That might explain why potluck dinners are one of the leading causes of food
poisoning in the US. It has been enough of a problem that some states have
introduced regulations to deal with churches and other groups who run those types
of functions.

I once ate something in a restaurant that likely started off as leftovers and got
reheated. I am sure that the people in the kitchen thought that they had kept it
properly and had reheated it properly. I got food poisoning from it. I thought i
was going to die. Seriously. I was that sick. It would have been a blessed relief
from the hours that I heaved my guts inside out.

Peter H.M. Brooks said:

That is exactly what I am going to do. My question isn't a request to

Quoted message said:

enable me to change my plans, but to satisfy my curiosity.

If it is a contained dish, heating it to boiling should sterilize
anything in there, and it will stay sterile as long as the container is
sealed. You may have some bacterial spores left (Bacilli, for example)
but the dish isn't going to cool enough in 20 minutes for any
significant amount of bacterial growth to occur. Most disease-causing
bacteria that can survive high temps via spores do so through the
production of secondary metabolites, which only are produced in the
later stages of culture growth, anyway.

-L.

In sci.bio.food-science on Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:29:26 -0500 Goomba38
<[email hidden]> posted:

Quoted message said:

Dave Smith said:

Goomba38 said:

A case where a little knowledge will get a person
in trouble.
Don't you reheat leftovers at home and live to
tell about it? Most everyone does. What your
sister does, I can't imagine? She sounds like a
fruit loop to me.

The concern was not about reheating the dish. It was about reheating it,
transporting it approx, 20 minutes and then heating it again. This is a
situation where the food would spend longer in the temperature range where
bacteria thrives. I think there is some valid concern there. It really
doesn't take much of that stuff to make a person really sick, and if you have
ever hd a good case of food poisoning it's an experience that you don't ever
want to repeat.

People bring casseroles and dishes to potlucks all
the time. Transporting them directly from oven to
car to event. Perhaps additional heating on
arrival. A 20 min drive isn't terribly excessive
where I'd start to worry?
Goomba

None of this describes the original plans of the original poster.

He wasn't going to take the food from the oven where he *cooked* the
food to his sister's, but from the overn where he reheated it. Nor
was he planning to reheat it to a high temp like boiling temperature
in the center of the food. That would just dry it out. People reheat
food until it is about 110 or 120 degrees F in the center, not 200+.

So whether his plan was risky or not, your comparisons are not valid.

Why would he reheat it before leaving home? It seemed pointless to me
but maybe it was so he could eat some of it? If that is the case, the
amount to be eaten can be separated from the rest and heated
separately, then eaten.

As to how many people are poisoned at pot-luck, or how many you've
seen at your hospital, it really doesn't matter. One is too many if
that one is eating at one's own house. Personally, whenever I get
sick, I figure it's another way to lose weight, but for people who are
already sick, or old, or young, it can be very bad.

Meirman
--
If emailing, please let me know whether
or not you are posting the same letter.
Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.