The guy that survives on no money.

[SentraSE-R]

The bad part is you can't see most adulteration in food that's unfit to eat. Yes there's waste. Yes, there's risk in salvaging food.

Some of the food adulterants I've encountered that you wouldn't want to eat: maggots, metal shavings, carcinogens, the big three bacteria, rodent urine, rodent excreta, beetle larvae, caterpillars, bird poop, prescription pharmaceuticals, antifreeze, unlisted food colors, and that's just off the top of my head. Can you spot them all visually? I can't.

[Frank Lee]

The easy stuff is in unmolested, original packaging that simply arrived at it's "due date". You can hardly go wrong there. I just scored several packages of brats. Packing intact? Check. Pass the visual? Check. Pass the smell test? Check. Heat one up and try it? Passed.

Gas station/convenience stores are the worst (best?). They have all these individually packaged sandwiches and whatnot, and when they hit date into the dumpster they go.

[SentraSE-R]

Customer pulls egg or tuna sandwich from refrigerated case in gas station/convenience store, forgets his wallet. Puts sandwich on shelf with his bag of chips to go to car to get his wallet. Kids and wife distract him. He drives away. 24 hours later, store clerk discovers unrefrigerated egg sandwich and tosses it in dumpster with outdated sandwiches for the day. When you go through the dumpster, how do you know which sandwich has the 5 million Salmonella bacteria/gram, or the preformed Staphylococcus enterotoxin? All will pass the intact packaging, visual, and smell tests.

Let's see. Start with 10 bacteria/gram. Fifteen minutes later, there are 20/gram. After an hour, 80/gram. Two hours later, that's 80-160-320 - 640/gram. Three hours, 10240/gram. Four hours, 163,840/gram. My guess of five million/gram appears to be very low. since we passed that at 5-1/4 hours. Well, maybe you'd smell a difference after 24 hours. But maybe you wouldn't, and maybe the clerk discovered the sandwich after 8 hours. The bacterial population could be Staphylococcus aureus, and it could have peaked and crashed odorlessly, after producing the enterotoxins that will make you very sick, very fast.

[Frank Lee]

Basically, I don't care. Out in the real world, germs and stuff happen. Hasn't caused me any harm. In fact, studies suggest the pussification of mankind is happening because of our efforts to completely sterilize our environment.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

In fact, studies suggest the pussification of mankind is happening because of our efforts to completely sterilize our environment.

It's also happening because we care too much about pussification, among other things.

[Frank Lee]

Er... what?

[Christ]

That was in agreement with you, Frank. And I totally agree as well, as do several scientists and even dermatologists. "Keeping clean" is just causing bio-orgs to "get stronger".

It's a losing battle, at the worst part, as well. You can only take so much anti-germ crap before your system just says "enough is enough" and shuts down, and that's when you become even more vulnerable, to the extent that you get infected and die.

Isn't that pleasant?

To add to the "bad food is bad" debate - I've said before, and I'll say again - I'd rather be full and have an upset stomach than be sick as a dog because I haven't eaten. As far as bacteria and such on meat - COOK IT DUMMY.

[SentraSE-R]

Where do I begin? These claims are so unscientific and generalistic, they're dangerous. You guys are confusing or oversimplifying antibiotic microbial resistance with cleanliness, antimicrobial surface treatments, viral antibody defense, and wussliness. They ain't the same animal, folks. Pathenogenic bacteria have developed resistance to several antibiotics, but not to basic time-temperature limitations.

Your gut hasn't got a chance against bacterial enteroxins with the help of antibiotics or not. Nor does it harden up against pathogenic bacteria in the absence of antibiotics. You don't get tougher when wusses take their antibiotics.

Your body might do better against common cold viruses if you live like a pig and get exposed to every bug that's out there. But then again, if you're exposed to every bug, that means you get sick a lot, doesn't it?

And resistance to colds has nothing to do with eating a Salmonella-laden sandwich (which you aren't going to cook). When you eat that sandwich, or one that's loaded with Staph enterotoxins, you're going to spend a few very unpleasant hours on the toilet, or hunched up over a pot heaving your guts out, whether you're a wuss or a real man.

[Christ]

So you don't eat things like that... if you can't verify that it's OK to eat, you don't eat it. How smart do you have to be to figure that out?

I know from working with the FDA in a meat plant that the "expiration date" isn't a concrete date.. (common sense would tell you this as well). It's more of a suggestion, frankly. It doesn't mean that it's bad because it's expired, it just means that it "might be" or could soon go bad. The actual inception of the expiration date required that enough lee-way be left for the average amount of time it would take the consumer to aptly prepare the item, either for storage or for consumption.

Nobody said that we'd be stronger for some other fool taking his antibiotics. What was said is that dermatologists, scientists, and the general public have found evidence that our attempts to sanitize the world, as it were, are only causing more and stronger strains of the same biological enemies.

Maybe what they're really finding is that people sterilize themselves so often that when something finally gets them, it gets them 100x harder than it would have if they had a healthy immune system?

Are you aware that mothers who breast feed pass their immunities to their baby? Are you not aware that in this natural sense, the vast majority of homo sapiens could actually be immune to many millions of biological pathogens? How about that when a baby becomes ill, his breast feeding mother, through contact, will normally contract the same pathogen, in an effort to "double team" the ailment? The mother's immune system is obviously stronger, so with a small dose of the pathogen, she makes antigens, which are then passed to baby through her milk.

This has nothing to do with some fool taking his immuno-hype pills, and everything to do with the fact that people, as a general group, do not allow themselves to build immunity, rather relying on "science" and synthetic medicine to keep them "healthy". (Or at least pseudo-healthy.)

The Human race, if not so dependent on "modern medicine" could probably already have succeeded in immunizing ourselves against known biological pathogens, excepting the major strains, and those which mutate regularly, such as influenza and the common cold.

Then again, you're suggesting that we take the advice of the same doctors who, in the early-mid 20th century, suggested that synthetic milk (baby formula) was actually better for baby than mother's milk. Those same doctors suggested that when mother is ill, she should "pump and dump" her milk, so as not to make the baby sick... like the baby wouldn't have gotten sick from contact anyway.

Give me a break, and at least grant the benefit of the doubt that those of us who do these things might have some inkling of a clue about what we're doing, and how safe it may or may not be.

Obviously, you're not an advocate, and that's fine.

[alohaspirit]

If it smells rotten or looks really off color I dont eat it.

(And I have a pretty iron stomach)

But lets say its past expiration date by 2 days and its still in the fridge.

Chances are Im eating eat.

(Soy Milk keeps 2 months past expiration if kept really cold in the fridge)

You pick and choose.