I just ate some left over taco meat that actually tasted great, but after I finished my second taco I realized this has been in the fridge since LAST Sunday. I guess it seemed like it hadn’t been that long! Uh-oh? How screwed am I? I feel okay now, an hour later. How long do I have to worry about this before I can assume I’m not going to shit and puke my guts out?
Food poisoning symptoms appear the next day.
If you nuked it in the microwave, you may have killed any bacteria. And if it tasted and smelled fine it was probably safe anyway.
I actually heated it up on a skillet on the range. It didn’t smell anything but great, and it tasted good, but after I googled it and everyone is like “after 3 or 4 days throw it out”. Hm.
It was less than a week old and has been in the fridge? Our ancestors would be gravely disappointed in your lack of manliness. This isn’t year-old rotting shark meat.
I wouldn’t be remotely worried. Unless your fridge temp is too high then it’s highly unlikely it went bad.
Edit - And you reheated it! Enjoy your taco meat. You’ll be fine.
Yeah, I think I’m just freaking myself out at this point. Thanks for the encouraging words guys!
Only way to be sure is post a stool vlog and get that URL into as many hands as possible to make sure the crowd sourcing doesn’t miss something. There’s no room for dignity when your health is concerned. Godspeed.
Appropriate:
But seriously, like everyone else said, a week in the fridge is really unlikely to be poisonous, unless a Black Widow got in there somehow.
Bacteria based foodborne illness has an onset time of 8-12 hours. You’ll know soon enough.
I ate preservative-free Greek catering leftovers for more than a week. Aside from the downsides of having consumed the limpest salad ever for 4 days straight, I was fine.
That was seriously awesome. And accurate.
I guess we’ll see how accurate it is… if you’re still around to post tomorrow!
At least if you disappear forever we’ll know what happened to you.
4 days is my cutoff for fridge meat of any kind but…IF it went into the fridge immediately after you decided you weren’t going to eat it all AND you warmed it up over 160 degrees in the skillet AND maybe used some decently hot sauce on it AND you washed it down with at least 80 proof of something, you should be okay.
At least you’ll know shortly, it shouldn’t take but a few hours for your body to protest one way or another.
Can I have your stuff?
Except now he has to deal with the possibility of psychosomatic reactions. I made muffins once (brie and raspberry jam) and kept em in an airtight container out on the counter overnight. Brought some to work the next day, took a couple of big bites and looked down to see that the inside was dark blue! Imagine my surprise. Figured it was some sort of mold. . . . fruit and cheese and all that.
Except I’m super allergic to penicillin. Started panicking. Started to feel my throat closing up, eyes watering, etc. Ended up going on a “bathroom break” at work (we were logged in during our entire shift and couldn’t go on an extended leave-the-building break except during set times, so I had to lie on my reason for being away and rush) and driving across the street to CVS to stock up on benadryll.
Turns out that raspberry jam can leave a blue-ish coloration on muffins when baked into them as I discovered the next time I made that recipe and had one fresh out of the oven.
-.-
My experience with food poisoning, based on 3 clear incidents, is that it can really vary and depends a lot on how and when the food went bad to begin with. My first experience had an onset of about 8 hours after I’d eaten the bad item. That was a delivery pizza. The second was about 3 hours and that was a ham I purchased for Christmas dinner. And the third happened within an hour or two and was from a fast food chicken sandwich. The first two cases were severe and lasted for about six hours or so of endless trips to the bathroom alternating between me huddling on my bed, while the third was an hour or so of increasing nausea and then feeling better as soon as I’d finally thrown up.
That all said, I join those who very much doubt that taco meat left in a fridge for a week would go bad. However, the safe answer (according to googling around) seems to be that after three or four days your risks increase so as a general rule that is probably what should be followed.
I’m still alive! Whew, crisis averted. Thanks guys!
Just to make sure, please gargle with hot sauce. Enough to kill any bad bacteria in your stomach!
Good. I thought we’d have to rename you BleedTheAnus.