You’re not supposed to defrost meats in warm water due to harmful bacteria growth, you’re not supposed to leave food at room temperature for long without being refrigerated because of harmful growth but, when you go to a buffet, food can sit out for hours under heat lamps and be fine?
In: Biology
Chefs are required to have a much better understanding of how food go bad and are therefore able to follow different rules then what you are advised to at home. The big difference in a buffet and whan thawing out meats at home is that in the buffet the meat is cooked beforehand. This kills all the bacteria so that it takes a lot longer for any new infections to populate the meat. However if you do it to raw meat it have already spent a lot of time at room temperature since the animal was butchered as a lot of the meat processing takes place above room temperature. So it already have a high population of bacteria and fungi on it, although not toxic levels. But leaving it out on the counter even longer may cause it to go bad.
The advice you get about how to avoid spoiling food is also erring on the side of causion. Meat will not go bad immediatly as you put it in warm water but you should try to avoid leaving it thawed for long periods of time. A lot of people might be tempted to get meat from the freezer in the morning and either put it in warm water or just leave it on the counter so that it will be thawed when they get home from work which is obviously a bad idea. They might also be tempted to thaw some meat and cut a portion off it before freezing it again and doing this multiple times. Do not think so much about the rules themselves but rather just try to avoid doing anything stupid.
Latest Answers