Salmonella

[Aleksander Krstic]

Why is it that you can heat dairy and poultry for eating, but can't leave it outside of the fridge.

[aelle]

1- Heat (hot enough to cook) will kill bacteria, while ambient temperature or a little hotter is ideal for bacterial growth;
2- You don't usually cook something for several hours, unlike when you leave stuff on the counter overnight.

[ginkgo]

Yes it is a matter of how long it is left out and ambient temperature, humidity and other things. There is a place in Mexico that is so dry, there is no life there, not even bacteria.

[funchy]

Originally Posted by Aleksander Krstic

Why is it that you can heat dairy and poultry for eating, but can't leave it outside of the fridge.

Cooking kills the bacteria, but only if you keep it hot enough long enough. Salmonella is a big cause of food poisoning, and in vulnerable people it can hospitalize them or in rare cases kill them.

Salmonella bacteria evolved to live best at body temperatures. The fridge greatly slows their multiplication, while room temperature lets them wake up and multiply. Even if you cook food but leave it out, the few remaining bacteria in the cooked food multiply and take over.

Be aware that some bacteria kill people not from infecting them but from the chemical byproducts (endo- and exo-toxins)that they produce. So if you had a food contaminated with Botulism and you heated it, the toxin could still be in the food to make you sick.

The bigger picture is that the microbes that are most likely to hurt people are the microbes which evolved to grow in/on/with animals & people. The few cases of food poisoning you might hear about from vegetables or fruit aren't from the fruit/vegs themselves; it's from livestock contamination, cross-contamination with animal products in food packing plants, or from dirty humans. This is just one of many reasons I don't eat meat and I try to stay away from dairy.

This may sound gross, but the processes that causes a dead person to bloat, smell, and decay are the same processes that go to work the moment an animal's heart stops beating. The longer the meat is dead, the more generations those bacteria have had to take over. Freezer or refrigerators slow bacterial growth, but decomposition is inevitable. This is why you can't keep meat around forever.

A little off topic: but did you know "aged beef" is actually slightly rotten meat that's been allowed to slightly decay from the dead cells' own decomposition enzymes plus fungal growth and some less pathogenic bacteria? Yummy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_aging

And because pathogens grow so easy on deceased animals, all meat sold in the US must be USDA inspected to control risk of sickening the public. Even so, there are still 76 million cases reported in the US (and even more not reported).

Hope this info is of some help to you...
Disease Listing, Foodborne Illness, General Information | CDC Bacterial, Mycotic Diseases

[liamona]

Originally Posted by Aleksander Krstic

Why is it that you can heat dairy and poultry for eating, but can't leave it outside of the fridge.

You certainly can leave raw milk out, especially if it's from clean grass-fed animals. People used to do this all the time to make clabbered milk. It's simply raw milk left in a container in a warm area (like the oven with the light left on) overnight. The next day you get a wonderful yogurt-like substance that tastes great by itself.

[joyfulgrowth]

Originally Posted by liamona

You certainly can leave raw milk out, especially if it's from clean grass-fed animals. People used to do this all the time to make clabbered milk. It's simply raw milk left in a container in a warm area (like the oven with the light left on) overnight. The next day you get a wonderful yogurt-like substance that tastes great by itself.

Well, you could also add cinnamon and some sugar... ;-)

[liamona]

Originally Posted by joyfulgrowth

Well, you could also add cinnamon and some sugar... ;-)

True! Although sometimes I like to add salt and lemon juice and savory herbs to my soured milk.