Jaye Lewis said:
VeraBlue,
The guidelines you share seem quite strict for a home setting. I'm sure they are appropriate for a professional setting, where legalities and reputation are concerned, and much appreciated! I also recognise it's all based on a gamble; to get sick or get away with it. But as long as good kitchen hygiene and food prep is practiced, I can't see the need to sound alarms. My 20+ family on Thanksgiving would faint if I cleared the counters in the middle of the day. Dairy does go to the fridge but there's no room for anything else.
The only food-borne illnesses I've ever witnessed were pegged to restaurants, not home kitchens.
Jaye (long-time nurse)
I have to admit I'm in full agreement here, however, VeraBlue I also want to assure you that YOU would be my caterer of choice presuming you 'do as you preach' because I definitely want to know that food I eat from 'foreign hands' has been handled as you propose, i.e., conservatively, erring on the side of safety.
But, I still feel there's a valid point being made by any number of us -- like Jaye, above, and like a group of us who live outside of the U.S. for whom USDA & CDC guidelines are just plain ... not irrelevant, not impractical ... I suppose, foreign?
On the canning forum I was involved in discussions regarding USDA guidelines, and, specifically, "USDA-approved for safety" recipes, and I'm sure many similar discussions preceeded those, food safety discussions being popular here, I gather. Still, canning or leaving food on the counter to cool, the root issue's the same -- avoiding being harmed by the food we handle.
Here's my thought: the U.S. has become one mighty litigious place to live, surely that's a fact we can all agree on (and no, for those of you who haven't lived outside the U.S., it's NOT that way elsewhere!). Because of that fact, instructions have popped up all over the place, instructions meant primarily to safeguard the manufacturer (or advisor in the case of the USDA) from being sued for negligence. Don't misunderstand -- any number of these are good and valid ... however ... there are also any number of them which go overboard (we've all received the lists as e-mails, priceless ones like shirt labels which suggest ironing, but NOT ironing WHILE you're wearing the shirt!), providing "idiot-proof" instructions which the majority of us, not being idiots, don't need to engrave on our brains as irrefutable facts.
Seems to me no doubt that the safety guidelines we're hearing which would have us all icing down and taking the temperature of our leftovers, are meant to protect us all. A Good Thing.
However, there's also a school of thought which would say that getting a little bit of bacteria into our systems in order to build immunity is also A Good Thing. What seems key here is that the systems into which we're getting that bit of bacteria need to be fundamentally healthy systems, not immune-compromised systems -- not old people, not infants, not ill people. Those people are the few for whom the ultra-strict USDA guidelines should be adhered to to the letter, certainly by restaurants and caterers and the like, who can't possibly know the health of each person they feed.
It doesn't seem to be correct scientific method if a theory is proposed and then accepted as fact IF any number of real-life examples which counter that theory are simply discarded as irrelevant. They may be inconvenient, but they're fact -- bacteria multiplying in food left on the counter
should theoretically make people sick ... but infact, in many cases, most certainly doesn't? How do you deduce that therefore, without a doubt, it's a fact that that food is dangerous? Is it a fact that bacteria has multiplied? Yes, probably it is. Is it a fact that therefore the presence of that increased bacteria WILL cause illness? I'd argue no.
If generation after generation has handled food in a certain way, and each generation has lived long enough to breed the next generation (who, no, aren't some kind of mutation), surely that counts for something, doesn't it?? Perhaps immunity builds up in each generation, and/or perhaps genetically over generations immunity is built up (however, foreigners like me moving into a community which cools its food on the counter and yet not getting ill, argue for the former).
With leftovers, including rice, certainly people should do as they believe, and if they're more comfortable with icing them before quickly refrigerating them, then by all means do. However, with the canning rules having been so strictly interpreted that generations of fine recipes will die out because they're not "USDA approved" ... that strikes me as a real pity, a true loss of culture, and truly unnecessary. Some common sense is in order, isn't it?
