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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2686 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for February 8, 2023

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Is anyone here knowledgable about food safety? I really hate getting food poisoning. I've been in Asia for a few months and I'm surprised to see prepared foods including seafood and meat being left at room temperature at grocery stores and food markets all day long. I've seen this in Thailand, South Korea and Japan. In the US prepared foods are required to be refrigerated or heated at all times for food safety reasons.

I did some googling but didn't find any satisfying answers as to whether I personally (as an American) can safely eat food that's been left at room temperature for hours in grocery stores in Asia or not. One forum I read said that food producers (i.e. farmers) have much more strict regulations in East Asia than the rest of the world so it's not a concern. (They also said that in the US and other countries, food safety falls more on the end seller rather than the producer as in East Asia.) Another forum said that Asians are just more used to the contagions that would be present than foreigners so they don't get sick. Another forum mentioned something called "fried rice syndrome" which is a common food poisoning from leftover rice that hasn't been stored properly. If either of the latter two cases are true I think I should avoid eating food that's been sitting out but I'd like to get some advice here.

In my experience, western visitors to Asia are more likely to get diarrhea from poor quality water than to get any sort of food poisoning, so as long as you are confident in the drinking water I wouldn't worry. Something to consider is that there is a big difference between leaving out raw meat and prepared food because many herbs and spices act as antimicrobial agents. This is sometimes cited as one of the reasons that cuisines from tropical regions are more heavily spiced than in colder climes.

I leave out food at room temperature in my home for much longer than safety guidelines suggest, never got food poisoning.

As far as I understand, most food safety guidelines are orders of magnitude safer than they should be because they are for professional kitchens that cook 1000's servings a day and 1 bad batch would have drastic consequences, the probability of that any single serving actually goes bad is quite low.

Similarly for example, the suggestion to cook chicken meat to 165F kills most bacteria instantly. But you can cook it to a lower (tastier and more tender) temperature and hold it for some period of time and achieve the same result. https://blog.thermoworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ChickenBreastDataLoggers-1024x632-1.png

I wouldn't worry about it. First World East Asian countries are hardly known for giving foreigners the shits, Developing ones such as India on the other hand you will shit your intestines out.

I'm surprised to see prepared foods including seafood and meat being left at room temperature at grocery stores and food markets all day long.

It may be cured or preserved in some way or high salt content . You sure as hell would not keep milk at room temp

Actually, milk in grocery stores is kept at room temperature in Europe.... https://www.thehealthyjournal.com/faq/why-isnt-milk-refrigerated-in-europe

Granted it's kept refrigerated after opened in Europe. You should still refrigerate unopened milk in the US.

I would be careful about generalising statements like that. They keep the UHT milk in room temperature, not pasturised milk and What is more common varies from country to country with UHT being generally more popular on the continent (but not in all countries) and pasturised being more popular in the UK and Nordics. If you go to "Europe", don't assume that milk can be left out, look at the carton.

UHT milk is available in most/all countries i would imagine with the most widely recognized form being the small portable milk cartons for coffee milk.

Safety of food left sitting out after cooking doesn't depend on anything the farmer did, it's all local bacteria growth.

A lot of American buffet and deli food sits at basically room temperature all day, and while I don't eat it, if people were getting sick you'd expect a lot more lawsuits. I guess the real question is do you trust that it's only been sitting out today, rather than every day this week?

Rice sitting even covered in a fridge for a few days can end up with red and blue mold, or other lovely things. It's amazing how quickly it goes off.

American buffet

American buffets are the poster child of food poisoning. Spent 23 years in India, the land of food-poisoning stereotypes without being poisoned. Went to my first Indian buffet in Boston and got the most horrifying case of violently-releasing-food-from-all-orifices.

I now refuse to eat at low-turnover buffets in the US. I only visit ones that serve so many people in 1 day that food never gets cold and a case of food poisoning would likely force them to shut down.

Yeah, I turned around and left the last time I saw one. Some of that stuff looked like it'd been there for days...

A lot of American buffet and deli food sits at basically room temperature all day, and while I don't eat it, if people were getting sick you'd expect a lot more lawsuits.

I dunno about this. When someone gets sick, is the first response to call a lawyer? The vast majority of people who get food sickness do nothing. Usually only when it req. hospitalization is a report made, because hospitals are legally req. to.

Ngl I'm really just working on the stereotype that Americans sue whenever anything bad happens to them, so if there's no lawsuits nothing bad must be happening. See the class action suit against chipotle for making people shit themselves.

I am no expert, but I got a food handling certification when I worked for Domino’s. I can’t speak to standards of cleanliness in East Asia or relative strengths of immune systems, but the reason we’re required to keep food that isn’t shelf-stable either refrigerated or hot is because ambient room temperature is a perfect sweet spot for bacterial growth. I’m both unaware and skeptical of there being anything on the food producer side that would so thoroughly sterilize the food as to completely remove those pathogens.

That was my understanding as well. If that's the case I don't understand why everyone in Asia isn't getting sick all the time because I see massive amounts of food sitting in the room temperature sweet spot for bacterial growth all day long

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