Old meat and cooking?!
Old meat and cooking?
I put a frozen package of ground turkey in the fridge to defrost, and it's been there for three days. My first question is how long meat can stay in the refridgerator (either frozen or non frozen) before it would start to rot.
And I smelled it, and it didn't really smell bad, so I decided to cook it. If it was actually rotten, or in general, what are the consequences of cooking bad meat. Like, is it dangerous to do?
Answers:
Basic rules of thumb (which you did btw) if it smells the least bit funky, chuck it. And always cook meat completely thru (no pink) esp with poultry and pork.
As long as the temp in the fridge didn't get in the danger zone (41degrees - 140 degrees F) it should be okay. If it was fully frozen it would have taken at least a day to fully defrost. For any ground meat a week to 10 days is the limit, whole cuts of meat (like a steak, pork chops or whole chicken breasts) add a couple of days. If you don't think you will use the meat in 7 days, freeze it to be on the safe side.
and ALWAYS keep meat on the BOTTOM of your fridge. Cross contamination from meat drippings onto veggies and whatnot is BAD.
As for eating bad meat, would it kill you? No, but it would make you super sick (think reallyreally bad flu type sick) but that's if the smell didn't make you yak first.
Overall I think you'll be fine. Just don't tell anybody ;)
Source(s):
Serv Save and Illinois Sanitation classes (got the lil sani cert to prove it )
not to sure but if i have to think twice about eating it, better off to throw it away. I know frozen food stays good for along time in the freezer.
You'll be alright.
The meat was frozen for most of the thawing period. You figure, completely thawed meat it good for 3-4 days in the refrigerator.
Not to mention, you would have known if that ground turkey was bad as soon as you unwrapped it.
It really isn't recommend to eat rotten meat, the bacteria in it is not really tolerable by your digestive system - if you know what I gettin at.
You did the right thing by letting it defrost in the fridge. Three days was fine. You wouldn't be able to stand the smell of cooking bad meat, so chances are you wouldn't eat it. Luckily we have that retching instinct that takes over. It would taste horrible, too. You prpbably wouldn't die if you were healthy and ate it, but you would have one bad case of the poops and pukes.
trust me if the meat was rotten or starting to rot, you would have know when you opened the package. the smell would have knocked you over. i cooked some turkey sausage last night that was in the frig since sunday and it was fine. at some last night and this morning.
if you ate bad meat vomiting and the runs would hit you fast like a ton of bricks. the smell would gross you out while cooking and you probably wouldn't want to eat it. yes it's dangerous have you heard little things called e-coli or salmonella. you can die from that stuff.