Reheating food - pot on the go

Rabbit

I have always thought you can only reheat food once after it's been cooked. We are making a soup tonight (veggie) and we have made a big pot full so we can use the leftovers tomorrow.

After much chattering about the old times and how people used to add things to a pot on the go and turn it into something else another night, is this safe? surely there would be some of it being reheated many times, it could cause some nasty bugs and give us food poisoning? or is this not the case ?

If I buy meat then freeze it, I thought that once you cooked it, it could only be reheated once but not refrozen.

I hope you can help as this could save me some money LOL.

Many thanks

Rabbit

Magentasue

I thought if you bought anything raw and froze it, then cooked it it could be refrozen. Including meat. When you cook something you're killing the bacteria that multiplied as it was thawed out.

As for a pot on the go, I make tomato sauce, use it for a ratatouille type stew, then liquidise the leftovers for pizza topping. I do bring it to the boil each time and nobody has died yet. I think you have to be more careful with meat and rice.

coffeebean

I remember back in the mists of time my Gran keeping a soup pot on the go all the time, it was just topped up with veg, dried peas, whatever every day, boiled - again - and dished up. None of us ever got ill, but I don't think there was much meat in it. And it tasted delicious. Don't know if I'd want to risk it now, her kitchen was not centrally heated so much colder than our kitchens are now.

tru

Magentasue wrote:

I thought if you bought anything raw and froze it, then cooked it it could be refrozen. Including meat.

Yeah, that's what I learned on my food hygiene course.

You're only supposed to re-heat things once, and never re-heat rice. I don't understand the rice thing, you can buy ready meals with rice in that's been cooked and you can re-heat that

I smell it, it if smells fine then I'll eat it

MATH

My grandparents had a pot on the go 5 days out of 7. I wouldn't dare risk it nowadays tho. We are nowhere near as robust gutwise are previous generations.

Rabbit

troo wrote:

You're only supposed to re-heat things once, and never re-heat rice. I don't understand the rice thing, you can buy ready meals with rice in that's been cooked and you can re-heat that

I have heard that too Troo - what you said above about rice, a friend of mine insists it is safe but I heard it wasn't so I avoid that one.

Thanks everyone for all your helpful replies.

Magentasue

MATH wrote:

My grandparents had a pot on the go 5 days out of 7. I wouldn't dare risk it nowadays tho. We are nowhere near as robust gutwise are previous generations.

Speak for yourself! I've eaten meals cooked by my children and still have my sight and hearing.:D

Bossyboots

troo wrote:

Yeah, that's what I learned on my food hygiene course.

You're only supposed to re-heat things once, and never re-heat rice. I don't understand the rice thing, you can buy ready meals with rice in that's been cooked and you can re-heat that

I smell it, it if smells fine then I'll eat it

Anoher FM posted about this a couple of weeks back. I will see if I can find the thread.

I regularly re-heat rice. When I have a busier than usual week I will make a huge tub of rice and freeze individual meals of meat/sauce with rice and it is then just re-heated in the microwave. In addition, I made some rice for a BBQ a couple of weeks ago and we reheated what was left the next day to go with our dinner. We were all fine.



Edit: Found it. This is what Curry_Queen said

"Rice contains a particular bacteria called Bacillus cereus, which gives off toxins that cause food poisoning. It should either be cooked and eaten immediately (unless you can keep the rice above 65C) or cooled rapidly and refridgerated and even then re-heating it can pose a risk."

Quackers

troo wrote:

Yeah, that's what I learned on my food hygiene course.

You're only supposed to re-heat things once, and never re-heat rice. I don't understand the rice thing, you can buy ready meals with rice in that's been cooked and you can re-heat that

I smell it, it if smells fine then I'll eat it

:rotfl:I do the smell thing too!!

We often cook a big pot of rice. Fridge what we dont eat, reheat the next day with a meal. If there's still some left it usually gets made into a 'special fried rice' (whatevers in the house at the time, the rice and a couple of eggs)

I've also always reheated food more than once - fully aware that I'm not supposed to. I really think its down to how you've been brought up. I lived with my grandparents and we also always had a pot of something on the cooker. I'm convinced it was left there overnight and reheated the next day. And I'm sure it had meat in too (if meat had fallen off the lorry my Grandad was driving that day!). I am not as bad as this - I do always refridgerate the food.

I've got 2 girls. I took my 10yr old to the Docs a couple of months ago to have a verruca removed cos I couldnt shift it and the Doc was gobsmacked - he hadn't seen her for 8 years. She gets 100% attendance most years at school.

My Sister in Law is forever cleaning and is really really over the top fussy in her kitchen. Her kids are always getting colds and 'virus's' and stuff. They are always off school.

Does make me wonder!

BTW - I am clean - honest - just not 'immaculate'

squeaky

There is a theory that you should "challenge" your immune system to keep it on its toes. That's not to say you should go so far as to risk food poisoning, but being superclean might not be as good for you as you might think. I've looked on google to try and find where I picked this idea up from and the first sixty out of over a hundred thousand hits don't help at all. Has anybody else heard this anywhere?

Magentasue

squeaky wrote:

There is a theory that you should "challenge" your immune system to keep it on its toes. That's not to say you should go so far as to risk food poisoning, but being superclean might not be as good for you as you might think. I've looked on google to try and find where I picked this idea up from and the first sixty out of over a hundred thousand hits don't help at all. Has anybody else heard this anywhere?

It might not be on Google 'cos it was my nan's theory. I think it was the 'You Gotta Eat a Bit of Dirt Before You Die Theory'.

What's the betting that in five year's time, all these antibacterial cleaners will be withdrawn and something else will hit the shelves with a big marketing campaign.

When my kids were babies I didn't sterilise anything, never been as good about handwashing with them as I should have been (always noticed too late) and never take much notice of use by dates. But like Quackers, my kids don't know who their GP is 'cos they don't get ill.