S/O How do you defrost meat & poultry POLL:

amother

Anemone

Thu, Feb 01 2024, 11:18 am

Not only do I defrost it on the counter, if I ended up defrosting too much I put it back in the freezer. Totally fine, no one ever got sick and I'm doing this for 30 years including everyone in my family including with guests. At some point after doing something thousands and thousands and thousands of times, I think we're pretty secure in knowing that it's safe. Not a greater risk than getting out of bed and falling down the stairs.

InnerPrincess

Thu, Feb 01 2024, 3:28 pm

amother Razzmatazz wrote:

Many people are unaware of food safety; many others assume that since they haven't yet killed their loved ones by thawing food at room temp, this practice is safe. And indeed most of the time, people who thaw food at room temp go on to cook it for a while and all is well. But it takes only one bout of food poisoning to make a person into a food-safety advocate. It's like crossing the street against the light: You can do it a million times and get away with it. That doesn't make it safe--it means you have more luck than brains. You risk disaster every time you engage in risky behavior, and it's the same risk every time. Does this mean that you WILL eventually get hit by a car, get pregnant when you don't want to, be stopped by police when you speed, or enjoy a hospital stay while you recover from food poisoning? Of course not--but why risk it? Venishmartem me'od lenafshotechem doesn't mean just your spiritual well-being.

You see, people think freezing kills spoilage germs. It doesn't. It just slows them down. When you thaw on the counter, the inside of the food is still frozen while the outside has reached room temp. That means that any microbes that were in the food when it was frozen are having a field day, reproducing and producing their toxins like a bunch of hooligans on a spree.

When you thaw food in the fridge, the outside stays at refrigerator temp even after it's thawed, while waiting for the inside to thaw. Food-spoilage germs don't do well in the cold, though of course if you give them enough time they will eventually multiply and do their thing anyway. But one hopes that you would have cooked the food long before then.

Thank you for explaining the process. I think your first paragraph came out a little harsher than you intended. Did you consider that people might not know this? I never was taught that its better to defrost chicken in the fridge, and just heard about it on this thread and the mother in law's food safety one. And yes, I grew up in a very functional, healthy home that never had food poisoning. Please be kind to others... Thank you! Smile

Last edited by InnerPrincess on Thu, Feb 01 2024, 4:11 pm; edited 1 time in total

Tzutzie

Thu, Feb 01 2024, 3:53 pm

All of the choices. I've been cooking and handling food since I'm a young teen so close to 20 years and I've never had any issues.

If I want to defrost extra fast, I'll put the container in warm water, then cook the food withing 30 minutes or so. Never had an issue.

Like now I immersed a 64 oz container with raw mixed meatball mixture. As soon as I'm don't w the post I'll take it out, scrape off all the thawed mixture around. Cook the thawed, then put frozen center back into container and let it thaw some more and bake the second shift as fushirt in yhe betty for the kids who don't like meatballs....

But usually I try to remember to thaw 2 days before I'm fridge. It never thaws overnight in fridge unless it's a very small container/flat pk of cutlets.