Bacon Curing at Room Temperature
- Thread starter tjkoko
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Dustin Dorsey
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I looked at that website trying to kind of research my answer. They seem kind of cavalier about the safety aspects and it never mentions weighing the belly before and after. I kind of get this "hippy-dippy" vibe from some of this stuff and that's why I'm not convinced. Say you have a terrible a/c in an old home that does a poor job of pulling humidity out of the air? Or maybe you are too dry. You gotta hope you don't have flies around. In Texas there there are some old stores that sell dried sausage. Its one of those things that probably fine, but still makes me a little nervous. But you basically have what's almost a jerky.
I think you have to be realistic about the differences between things that kill you and things that make you throw up.. this is where most people lose touch with reality.
Spoilage bacteria doesn't kill you it makes you throw up. Unless you're quite sickly to start with. For a very elderly person yeah case of salmonella could push him over the edge. You might get so sick you want to die but that's a different story.
Botulism can kill you but it doesn't with hospitalization today. Botulism exists on the surface because it comes from spores inthe environment. it's not within the meat unless you tenderize the meat with a utensil that pokes holes all through it or such, or Brine, with a contaminated liquid. Ground meats are especially at risk for something like botulism because you create so much surface area and expose all of the meat to potential contaminants not just the outer surface...... Whole cuts of meat, exposed to air, really are not.
Most cases of botulism come from home food canning. It would seem the risk for home meats has been substantially overplayed. In fact I think I read once there's not a single case of botulism that can be attributed to a meat that was prepared using nitrite or nitrate. Similar to how people are scared into cooking their poultry to 165 today, and refrigerating eggs, cheese, butter, etc that do not really require refrigeration for reasonable times. For thousands of years people use the criteria of the juices running clear from meat to indicate that it was cooked..... It's basically works cuz the juices begin to run at 150 f when the fibers contract and squeeze them out. And the slow time and temperature heating profile makes the meat actually pasteurized by the time it reaches that point. But the USDA has to make it a harder issue than it really is.
That said, a few weeks ago apparently I had severe food poisoning. I threw up for about 6 hours one night continuously and had the most intense stomach pains continuously for the whole time. I ended up going to the ER because I couldn't take the pain anymore. It was as painful and unrelenting as a kidney stone, but in my stomach. I couldn't take any pain medicines because I'd immediately throw up if I even swallowed a teaspoon of water, I tried to dissolve Ibuprofen under my tongue and that didn't work either.
What caused it, don't know I ate leftovers from the night before. Ground meat patties cooked in brown gravy over rice. The inside of it was a little pink. Maybe it never got hot enough on the very inside the whole time it was cooked and refrigerated and reheated etc. No problems the first night but maybe after it set out for a while and was put away and reheated etc that was too much. No way to know for sure but everything I ate that day got thrown away. I've had bouts of throwing up, but they never had stomach pain like this this was intense pain. I was glad I had already met my healthcare deductible so I could go to the ER and know it wasn't going to cost me much, 150 or so instead of 1500.
Spoilage bacteria doesn't kill you it makes you throw up. Unless you're quite sickly to start with. For a very elderly person yeah case of salmonella could push him over the edge. You might get so sick you want to die but that's a different story.
Botulism can kill you but it doesn't with hospitalization today. Botulism exists on the surface because it comes from spores inthe environment. it's not within the meat unless you tenderize the meat with a utensil that pokes holes all through it or such, or Brine, with a contaminated liquid. Ground meats are especially at risk for something like botulism because you create so much surface area and expose all of the meat to potential contaminants not just the outer surface...... Whole cuts of meat, exposed to air, really are not.
Most cases of botulism come from home food canning. It would seem the risk for home meats has been substantially overplayed. In fact I think I read once there's not a single case of botulism that can be attributed to a meat that was prepared using nitrite or nitrate. Similar to how people are scared into cooking their poultry to 165 today, and refrigerating eggs, cheese, butter, etc that do not really require refrigeration for reasonable times. For thousands of years people use the criteria of the juices running clear from meat to indicate that it was cooked..... It's basically works cuz the juices begin to run at 150 f when the fibers contract and squeeze them out. And the slow time and temperature heating profile makes the meat actually pasteurized by the time it reaches that point. But the USDA has to make it a harder issue than it really is.
That said, a few weeks ago apparently I had severe food poisoning. I threw up for about 6 hours one night continuously and had the most intense stomach pains continuously for the whole time. I ended up going to the ER because I couldn't take the pain anymore. It was as painful and unrelenting as a kidney stone, but in my stomach. I couldn't take any pain medicines because I'd immediately throw up if I even swallowed a teaspoon of water, I tried to dissolve Ibuprofen under my tongue and that didn't work either.
What caused it, don't know I ate leftovers from the night before. Ground meat patties cooked in brown gravy over rice. The inside of it was a little pink. Maybe it never got hot enough on the very inside the whole time it was cooked and refrigerated and reheated etc. No problems the first night but maybe after it set out for a while and was put away and reheated etc that was too much. No way to know for sure but everything I ate that day got thrown away. I've had bouts of throwing up, but they never had stomach pain like this this was intense pain. I was glad I had already met my healthcare deductible so I could go to the ER and know it wasn't going to cost me much, 150 or so instead of 1500.
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