Eli5: why are some foods not advised to be reheated, or heated more than once? Why do some have to be cooked from frozen and other defrosted
In: Other
The two big reasons:
* Some bacteria leaves stuff that makes you sick behind that can’t be heated away. So even if you kill the bacteria the food’s tainted. Think of it like if I poured poison on the food. You can’t reheat that and be safe. Not all foods attract this kind of bacteria, but “do not reheat” foods likely do.
* Some foods change their chemical composition when heated. So if you re-heat them it’s the same as overcooking them. They won’t be dangerous, but they’ll be less pleasant to eat.
The main problem is food labels don’t have to tell you the difference between “it is not safe to reheat this” and “it might taste bad reheated”. Sometimes they happen to tell you, but you might have to go look it up for each individual food.
(For example, my dog’s raw food says not to defrost it in a microwave, but explains it’s because if the food is cooked it loses a lot of the nutritional value for a dog. That means it’s not *unsafe* to defrost it, but that if I’m doing so every day carelessly my dog might end up with some deficiency.)
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