Cook it or toss it???

[FarmerJamie]

If you decide not to eat it, if you have chickens, feed it to them. Waste not, want not.

 

[me&thegals]

Cook it. OTOH, I am appalling lax about kitchen temps.

 

[pinkfox]

wow, i routeinly thaw meat countertop, it would have to sit in my fridge for DAYS in order to thaw, and sometimes i just dont have that kind of time...and nuking it in the microwave...eww...
if i threw out everything that had sat on the counter more than 2 hours...well id be throwing away alot of food...
mabe its a british thing, growing up EVERYONE i knew thaws countertop...it was just "normal" and noone ever got salmonelal or otherwise sick from it...
wasnt untill we moved to the us that people were all "eww you guys do what?!"

i can understand not thawing ground meats countertop, and i can understand not leaving meats and such countertop for more than a few hours when its realy hot and humid...
but the nice thing with most meats is assuming it smells and looks ok and you gook it properly it shoudl be ok unless you have some kind of weakend immune system or something...

 

[yourbadd]

It was super yummy and no one is green....yet!!!

 

[FarmerChick]

 

[terri9630]

Modern science can be a wonderful thing, however.....I think they've played up the whole" germs are bad" issue a little much. My cousin wouldn't let anyone touch her kids unless they douched themselves in hand sanitizer first and wiped every surface of her house with bleach non-stop. Her kids are always sick. Ear infections, UTIs, bronchitis, pink eye, you name it. I however, don't do those things. I let me kids get dirty and while I encouraged hand washing before touching one of my kids as babies, I didn't stand over people and squirt sanitizer on them. Guess what...my kids are rarely sick. My oldest has had 2 ear infections in her 13 yrs of life and other than her kidney stones brought on by dehydration all of my kids are in good health.

People forget that there are good bacteria that actually benefit your body's immune system.

People freak out when they come into my house and see eggs in a basket on the counter. It takes a while to convince them that the bloom on the egg is a barrier for germs and that it's perfectly okay to leave them out as long as they are NOT washed.

I probably would have tossed the roast had it sat out all day today as well as overnight. My family's health and safety are not worth the price of a piece of meat. But I really think the germaphobia that has swept the nation is ridiculous!!

Stepping down of my soap box now!!! Thank you!!

I agree about the germs. My youngest was really sick as an infant and all her doctors went out of their way to tell me to NOT use hand sanitizer and antibacterial soaps. It sounded wrong because she was so sick but they said it was the only way to build her immune system. I listened to them except for shopping carts. People thought I was nuts because I would wipe down the whole seat area with the bleach wiped. They aren't very sanitary and babies chew on everything!

 

[k15n1]

If it's been out more than 2 hours, I'd toss it. Very sad, but consequences are consequences.

Sorry but I think that's just crazy and wasteful. It takes a lot more than 2 hours for a roast out of my freezer to thaw. Days in the fridge, or at least 1/2 day in a water bath.

g

For the record, I've never thrown out a roast or any other chunk of meat. So the 2-hour rule isn't wasteful.

The MIL sets meat out on the counter to thaw, and her argument is that no one ever _______ (died, got sick, etc). Of course, she has no data to back that up, just her biased memory. Food poisoning happens all the time, even though it's mainly preventable. If you want the runs, fine, but I'll stick with a more conservative approach.

The hygiene hypothesis is something you can live by (I do), even if you choose not to incubate your raw meat at room temp. The idea is that your gut naturally has and needs a bunch of microorganism in it that help your digestion, immune system, etc. Getting a virulent strain of E. coli that gives you bloody poops is entirely different.

Granted, it is a roast, which makes it less of a problem.

Anyway, I hate to get into a religious argument, so this is pretty much the end of the conversation for me. But feel free to carry on amongst yourselves.

 

[pinkfox]

wel i can say, my mums mum room temp thawed her meat, and over the span of 40+ years had over 45 kids, not one got sick ever...
my mum raised me the same, and i do it that way myself now...and the only case of food poisening ive ever had was from a resturaunt...

so so far im either resistant to e-coli (ive left things out on the coutner for 6+ hours lol), super lucky (very unlikely given my other issues lol) or something else...
either way...im not too worried...

i cant imagine meat ever thawing enough on the counter to even be considered "dangerous" after 2 hours...
mabe after my first TN summer ill feel a little differently lol, but it takes about 3 hours for 1lb of ground beef to thawcounter top in CT in summer in a none AC house...

 

[FarmerChick]

there is no 'real' factual call on this debate actually.....cause alot of it comes down to gut feelings on food.
if in DOUBT...and everyone's doubt will always be different.

 

[myzanya]

In a food safe class I they said you shouldn't leave food out on the counter for more than 2 hours..(kept calling that "the danger zone")
or because of the temperature...the potential what ever can develope...so long as the food has not soured or gone...off you can just put it back in the fridge...where once correct cold temperature is reached it is safe to eat....think that they also can be killed off by high heat too...which may have worked in your case
glad all turned out well and you enjoyed it...