I need some help quick. I took a package of frozen chicken breasts out of the freezer yesterday around 10:30am or so. I just realized that I had left them out to thaw for over 24 hours.
The question is: Are they safe? They are completely thawed and now at room temperature. Should I open the package and cook immediately? Should I dump and stay on the safe & cautious side of the fence?
While I don’t want to dump it all out, I feel that it has spent too much time at room temp and possibly allowing some bio-nasties to fester. But isn’t that why we cook our food? From a visual inspection the chicken seems to be normal.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
HeWhoWon’tDoThisAgain
Though not a great situation, you have to realize that they stayed frozen for part of the day so they were not at room temp the whole 24 hours. That said, if they smell OK, I’d cook them immediately and cook them a little more well down to a slightly higher temp than normal and that should kill any nasties that may have started to grow. Cook in microwave in covered dish with a little water and nuke im good and all the steam formed in the covered dish should kill any bugs. Enjoy.
Its alright bro, they are alright to cook and eat. Next time thaw them in the microwave if you have one, takes less time and you can cook them immediatly afterward.
Toss them.They may be alright but, I don’t think it would be worth the potential case a food poisoning. If you do decide to try them cook the hell out of them. Next time plan head and defrost them in the fridge, defrosting at room temperature is dangerous in itself. If you need to defrost them in a hurry place them in a bowl deep enough that you can cover them with cold water, place them in the sink and let the water trickle into it. This works much faster than, leaving them out at room temperature, and it also is acceptable from a food safety standpoint.
It will be okay, people these days are totally obsessed with food poisoning, germs, bacteria whatever. With our good intentions in conjunction with stupid marketing I think we are just making ourselves weaker in terms of the stuff we can take.
If you are a normal healthy individual and I assume you are then unless the chicken has green shit growing all over it then you’ll be cool. The body is suprisingly tough in regards to this sort of stuff.
The general rule I think is obviusly stuff is save if kept refrigerated 0-4 degrees C. Bacteria does multiply quite quickly at an ever increasing rater from 4-60 degrees. If you cook it correctly though bacteria can not survive post 60 degree temps.
The main cause of food poisoning is incorrect handling AFTER it is cooked and this is called cross contamination. the mixing of raw materials with nice warm cooked food causes this so don’t put your cooked chicken on the plate it came off of when it was raw without washing it etc.
I opened the package. Smelled to be alright. Cut & trimmed fat and inspected each piece. Broke the package into 2 halves. First half got grilled. Second half got sliced & then stir-fried. While I haven’t eaten any yet, both seem to be ok and I believe that I cooked them thoroughly. I am thinking about eating the grilled ones later. I will probably microwave the hell out of both halves before proceeding on.
My computer showed and error when I tried to send this before, so sorry if this posts twice. If you ever had the stomach flu, or 24 hour flu, you actually had food poisoning. It is more common then most people know. Around room temp bacteria doubles every 20 minutes. Each and every microbe will turn into over 200,000 microbes in just 6 hours. And usually the problem is not the microbes, but their waste product (bacteria shit) is toxic to humans. Cooking can kill the bacteria, but not the waste. 4 hours at room temp is the max allowed by law in my state before a restaraunt has to throw food out. Hope you haven’t ate it yet.