a question regarding off meat

[cave_dweller]

There are times I'm incredibly glad I'm vegetarian

I understood that it's not so much the meat decaying that's the issue but the toxins that the decay vectors produce, 'and' whether or not the decay vectors are influenced by disease, and the personal hygiene involved in both the butchery and the cooking.

That's exactly my understanding. Toxins are produced while the bacteria reproduce on the meat. Boiling doesn't 'kill' the toxins, since they were never alive to begin with, so even if you boil it you'll potentially end up with dangerous meat.

Personally if it doesn't smell right, I'd avoid it! Dehydration resulting from food poisoning is likely to present a more immediate danger than hunger if survivial is at issue.

 

[Hoodoo]

Meat has a problem. Botulinum. Botulinum is not killed off by boiling - which cannot reach a temperature of above 100C in an open vessel. Its the reason that I pressure can meat to store it at ambient temperature - kill the botulism micro organism and prevent re-infection - pressure canning uses heated steam which attains a temperature higher than boiling.

So definitively, boiling will not always render meat safe.

Red

Have to disagree on this. You use a pressure canner to kill the spores. The toxin itself is easily denatured by boiling. We consume the spores all the time. They are ubiquitous in the soil and you breathe them in. But if they end up in a can, they hatch out, reproduce, and then produce the toxin which is deadly if not denatured. If you eat the spores, the high acidity in the stomach is generally protective and they pass through your digestive tract without a problem although newborns with low acidity levels MAY be negatively affected. SOMETIMES the spores may find a pocket in the gut where they can survive and grow but this is not common.

Wiki botulism.

 

[British Red]

I am starting to wonder if the flesh eating zombies of the apocalypse are already among us!:yikes: Now where's that kukhri?...

Z

Human bodies are made of meat. Some of these mummies etc. illustrate how long meat can be preserved. I wan't suggesting we cracked open a pyramid and went for sweet and sour Egyptian!

 

[Bushwhacker]

You must be doing something seriously wrong if you have to resort to eating things like that.
If you've found a dead 'whatever' more than likely there's a live 'whatever' in the area too. Trap that and eat it.

 

[Toddy]

Human bodies are made of meat. Some of these mummies etc. illustrate how long meat can be preserved. I wan't suggesting we cracked open a pyramid and went for sweet and sour Egyptian!

And as an archaeological/historian's aside.......do you know what happened to most of the mummies ?
They were sold to physicians and apothecaries who ground them up and sold them as medicine from the 1100's onwards apparantly.

Really, really glad I'm vegetarian right now. Double

However, those Egyptian mummies were eviscerated and their organs removed and stored in canoptic jars kept beside the sarcophagus............To get back to the OP....gut bacteria is an issue to consider when considering ingesting sommat dead. The e-coli that is endemic in sheep flocks can make the healthy very ill, very quickly.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[British Red]

Have to disagree on this. You use a pressure canner to kill the spores. The toxin itself is easily denatured by boiling. We consume the spores all the time. They are ubiquitous in the soil and you breathe them in. But if they end up in a can, they hatch out, reproduce, and then produce the toxin which is deadly if not denatured. If you eat the spores, the high acidity in the stomach is generally protective and they pass through your digestive tract without a problem although newborns with low acidity levels MAY be negatively affected. SOMETIMES the spores may find a pocket in the gut where they can survive and grow but this is not common.

Wiki botulism.

Ahh that makes sense completely - and I will bow to the science knowledge involved.

So - are there any products produced by rotting meat that do not become safe with a good boil?

Red

 

[Hoodoo]

Ahh that makes sense completely - and I will bow to the science knowledge involved.

So - are there any products produced by rotting meat that do not become safe with a good boil?

Red

Not sure but I do believe it could be dangerous. There are certainly toxins produced by bacteria that are not destroyed by heat. Off the top of my head though, I can't say much more. But I have read of old timey explorers getting sick from eating spoiled meat even after cooking.

 

[British Red]

Mmm I have read the same - can't say where either

I guess that why I assumed the canning and so forth was connected - but clearly not - (I only argue with medical doctors - which isn't a doctorate anyway )

 

[Hoodoo]

Mmm I have read the same - can't say where either

I guess that why I assumed the canning and so forth was connected - but clearly not - (I only argue with medical doctors - which isn't a doctorate anyway )

Just to piggy back on the canning, one of the reasons you can can tomatoes in a boiling water bath instead of a pressure cooker is because of the acidity in tomatoes. And I remember back in the late 60s and early 70s, it became a concern when low acid tomato varieties came out. Not sure how those are canned. I think some people still do the bath but add ascorbic acid to the can.

 

[lannyman8]

How does drying and smoking affect rotten meat ? Does that make it safe to eat ?

I'm curious now, more just for information tbh.

cheers,
M

when you change the PH of something it stops bacteria growing, ie add salt or sugar, it takes quite allot, just think about salting beef etc

also if you remove the oxygen it does the same, think of jars or veg in brine.

liquid/moisture, air dried hams for eg.

also more modern ways are ultra violet rays and radiation which kill the bacteria, the item is then vacume packed, this can be contaminated again though, for eg salmonella bacteria on the cooked meet from cross contamination, this would be less effective on say cured smoked beef, due to the high alkali of the salt...

hope this helps a bit....im not the best at explaining things...

regards.

chris.

 

[spiritwalker]

cadaverine and putrescine are two of the toxins ive found via googling the topic. It was not something id aim to do i was just mulling over the possibility if it was the only option perhaps baking it instead of boiling would have a better effect as it would be a higher heat...

I think the idea stemmed from lofty's survival manual in the sense that boiled animal stomach contents can be a good meal for invalids / sick as its partially digested and does not need to be chewed.

It was purely out of scientific interests really it would seem following your nose is very important as putrescine is known as the foul smell associated with decay / spoilt.

So on a similar note the old dead sheep upstream of collecting water i guess the unboilable toxins would be sufficiently diluted not to cause a problems with this principle...

Cheers for all the comments though a good mug of teas worth of reading

 

[spiritwalker]

on a further note is there a similar reason why not many carnivorous animals are eaten by humans we all seem to eat herbivores?

 

[Toddy]

Well, dogs and bears were eaten in the past, and dogs still are in other cultures. Like horses, that aren't eaten in the UK but are elsewhere in Europe.
I think the predator/prey thing might just be more the numbers game tbh. More deer in a herd than there are wolves in a pack sort of thing.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[spiritwalker]

maybe and a damn sight easier to farm / raise herbivores i guess

 

[santaman2000]

Bears still are eaten in some places. They aren't true carnivore though (Except for Polar Bears) Rather they are omnivores as are pigs which are widely eaten in Western Culture. I know of some people who also eat mountain lion. Racoon (another omnivore)

I think our tastes probably developed when we were still incapable of killing large predators other than fish.

 

[santaman2000]

maybe and a damn sight easier to farm / raise herbivores i guess

Yeah. If you already have meat to feed the carnivore, what's the point?

 

[lannyman8]

maybe and a damn sight easier to farm / raise herbivores i guess

try a fox burger, nom nom nom....

 

[_mark_]

Bacterial Protein Toxins aren't always destroyed by boiling.

 

[Hoodoo]

Bacterial Protein Toxins aren't always destroyed by boiling.

Sorry but the World Health Organization disagrees.

 

[_mark_]

Sorry but the World Health Organization disagrees.

Sorry, I wasn't talking about botulism, I'm on about Shiga-like toxins and the endotoxins produced by E. coli etc. Both are heat resistant.