Reheating food

If you don't get stomach upsets from your normal routine with food, then that routine is OK. There is nothing different about the bugs these days, just the way food is handled.

It used to be that every house had a stockpot, which was added to and boiled up daily. It was restarted every week or so, but sometimes the same batch was added to and diluted for weeks without poisoning anyone - the frequent boiling killed off any incipient bugs and the flavour improved with all the reducing.

Unused food was covered at once and put in a cool larder, then reheated thoroughly next day, or eaten as cold meat. If it was turned into a different dish, it was cooked again.

Shopping for perishables was done daily, or every second day, from shops without refrigeration or freezers. How is it that now we have these and other ways of preserving food we are more worried than ever about food poisoning?

I am not scientific ,I have common sense. I do not need a higher education to teach me to use it.

Science is about the observation, and the acting thereon, of what actually happens. If you've never had a problem because of eating reheated food, the likelihood is that you'll continue not to have problems.

If you are scientific about it you'll go on the empirical (experimental) evidence of your own experience not on some high falutin (sp?) non-empirical hypothesis.

I am much more relaxed about reheating food. The rule is to heat it throughly to boiling point and treat it with care in-between.

I bought a leg of lamb for Easter. Not all of it was eaten so the cooked remains were in the freezer within an hour of the meat coming out of the oven. I took the joint out of the freezer and reheated the remains for lunch last Sunday, making sure that the meat was very throughly heated through. I then picked off what meat remained on the joint and froze it, again within an hour of the meat coming out of the oven, and I intend to use that up in as tir fry this evening. I also made stock from the large bone, not much, but that too went immediately into the freezer.

As you will gather from the above recital I never put left-overs in the fridge, they always go straight into the freezer, usually within an hour of being cooked, even if I intend to use them up within a couple of days. It is how you treat the food between reheatings rather than the reheating itself that causes problems. I certainly have no concerns about reheating dishes containing ham, bacon, tuna or any other tinned or commercially pre-cooked food.

I think that most things are safe to reheat. I wouldn't have a problem with pea and ham soup. As long as it's defrosted properly, and brought to the boil and simmered for a while I would eat it with relish! Same with tuna pasta bake, I would reheat that in the oven. Do you have a food thermometer? They are useful for ensuring that food has reached the correct temperature. here is an article from Michael Mosely about reheating leftovers.

I don't understand the attitude that if something that you've done for ages, which has never had any detrimental effects, then you should still stop doing it now because someone said it might cause problems.

We are so scared of everything nowadays.

In answer to the question at the end of the OP, yes. I do. I always have. I've never had a problem.

I apply the same reasoning as I apply to soup stock that takes several days to prepare (because I collect ingredients for it bit by bit, including meat and/or bones): if you boil it every day, it's fine.

I guess it 'could' be dangerous, but that's only if you don't heat it enough, I think. Also, could be is not equal to will be. Clearly, or I and other members of my family would have been ill by now.

Yes, Jomarie, I had a very casual attitude to reheating food years ago - I don't think we had any idea then of the dangers. I used to cook a joint, say a leg of lamb, on a Sunday, then make a pie from some of the leftovers on Monday. On Tuesday it would be a stew, which would be reheated on Wednesday - and even Thursday if there was any left. And the stewpot never went in the fridge in between servings, but was just left to cool slowly on the hob where it remained till the next reheating . I don't remember ever making us ill though, so I do wonder if all the warnings and my cautiousness these days are a bit over the top?
I'm not about to take a chance though!

I am so much more careful nowadays than I used to be. Only because I have now been made very aware of the dangers hidden in reheating, rehashing, reconstituting re-whatevering than I was back in the day when I had little money and a family to feed. I didn't think twice about reheating leftovers and giving it to OH when he got home late from a shift. The only food poisoning that I have experienced, over the years, was a dodgy prawn sandwich in a reputable hotel establishment and, a few years later, a dodgy lasagne from a well re-knowned pub. Both of which made their disagreement with my internal organs very quickly - say so more!!! I am not aware that any of my children (or their friends/partners etc.) have suffered food poisoning at my hands, although my Sil (early on in the relationship) accused me of poisoning him when he fell ill after having been fed at my table - but no-one else had a problem (delicate constitution mayhap?)