Reheating food - pot on the go

squeaky

Ooh! I have a tagline that fits this perfectly. Hang on..

Mother's Dictionary: STERILIZE: what you do to your first baby's dummy by boiling it and to your last baby's dummy by blowing on it.

Luis

Must say - surprised I have not died of food poisoning before now. I am the world's worst for reheating, eating half cooled food etc.

I always make sure things are cooked very thoroughly (especially Chicken), but then leave the chook lying around to cool, then eat the cool chicken in butties, then sling the rest in a cassoulet or similar for the next meal I am stringent about washing my hands / utensils between handling raw meat and anything else.

Have been known in the dim and distant past to stagger in pished and scoff whatever had been left on the plate from earlier (probably been chewed by the cat too!).

Have only had food poisoning twice - BOTH times from takeaway food - once a chinese curry, the other by a cheese and onion pizza (obviously cook not washing hands between handling raw meat and my pizza). Both times also extremely unfunny, genuinely thought I was dying the second time.

My brother has cast iron guts, and nothing ever affects his digestion (which considering the state of his kitchen is just as well!)

crana999

Squeaky, it's generally known as the Hygiene Hypothesis, I think, but it's mainly brought up in relation to immune system disorders (excema, asthma) rather than "general bugs". If you google "Hygiene Hypothesis" you get loads of hits/

squeaky

Fascinating! Thanks.

crana999

It is all very interesting.

I think there was an article in New Scientist a couple of weeks ago. If you go to their website and use the archive search, quite a few of the things on there are free to read (if theres something you really want that isn't free, i can access all of it, so i can send it you if you want.)

BrokeBrokeBroke

I thought I'd heard that reheating previously cooked food kills all (well most) of the nutrients. I watched that program about the food served in hospitals and the main problem it seemed was that the food was cooked, then reheated however many times so there was no nutritional value in them.

Juicy_Tube

Bossyboots wrote:

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."

I have worked in catering for years. We do re-heat rice, but the thing is never to store it covered, always open?? Not sure why?

crana999

BrokeBrokeBroke wrote:

I thought I'd heard that reheating previously cooked food kills all (well most) of the nutrients. I watched that program about the food served in hospitals and the main problem it seemed was that the food was cooked, then reheated however many times so there was no nutritional value in them.

You can't kill nutrients, they're not alive

Seriously, storing and reheating food may damage some of the vitamin content, but think about it.

If you eat, say, a steak, most of the nutrition it contains is protein and fat. If those all vanished when it was reheated, you'd have no steak left, just a ...steak ghost, I guess.

lee_annef

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.

Made roast chicken yesterday, used bones for stock/stew base. having stew today (day 1) (chicken, potatoes, peas, carrots) adding sweetcorn, more potatoes and peas tomorrow (day 2). Day after (day 3) adding pulses and vermicelli. Has/will be on stove top for the whole time, will boil and then simmer for a while before serving and add extra ingredients when been dished up. Not sure about day 4 if there is any left??

JulieGeorgiana

Rice - You can re-heat but you HAVE to make sure it's piping hot... VERY VERY hot!

Meat - You can freeze, defrost, cook, freeze again! You can only re-freeze in an 'altered state' which means you cannot freeze it twice raw!

Reheating - you can reheat as many times and you want when it's got no meat in it. I go on the basis that you never reheat cooked meat more then once! So I always portion up meat dishes into serving sizes so we only reheat what we need!