Heh Heh... There's a NAME for what I do!

[Frank Lee]

Food poisoning: trash the toilet, take a few swigs of Pepto Bismol, good to go another round!

What doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger.

[bestclimb]

Originally Posted by SentraSE-R

I like your attempt to quantify the risk, but some of your assumptions are incorrect. The risk of food poisoning is much higher than you think. This Wiki article puts it at 30% of the population each year, even in industrialized countries. 76 million cases in the USA every year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5000 deaths. 2.1 million deaths worldwide in 2000. Those are frighteningly high figures. Peter and Christ and Frank are either incredibly lucky, remarkably careful, remarkably tough, or are under-reporting their illnesses - likely attributing food poisoning to "flu" or indigestion.

I didn't link most food poisoning to commercially packaged food, because most of it comes from mishandling food in the home.

I was attempting to quantify the risk of contaminated food coming right out of the packaging. My guess is that you are right in not linking it to packaged food, and attributing it to miss handling in the home or restaurant. In which case "expired" food would still be safe (i'm thinking days or a few weeks past due not a couple years).

[SentraSE-R]

Most expiration dates on food relate to quality, not safety. The bakery or chip manufacturer doesn't want its reputation sullied by stale food on the shelves. So its distributors and route men dump out-of-date food into the trash. That food is safe to eat, of course.

Other foods, like egg sandwiches, milk, bratwurst, and cottage cheese, are likely bacterially spoiled when they reach expiration dates, and are unsafe to eat. Since some food poisoning bacteria can produce odorless and tasteless toxins within a matter of hours (others just multiply to dangerous levels), any of those products can be unsafe if mishandled, even within their expiration dates.

I've posed the scenario before, where a customer picks up an egg sandwich or a package of bratwurst and heads to the checkout counter. His wife calls him on the cell phone or barges in the door with an emergency, so he puts the food on a nearby shelf, unrefrigerated, but never returns. Hours later, a store clerk finds the food and tosses it in the garbage. Along comes a scavenger, puzzled at the waste of a perfectly good egg sandwich. Two hours or three days later, he gets Montezuma's Revenge. If it's two hours later, he realizes it's food poisoning. If it's three days later, he'll never connect it to the egg sandwich. The incubation time of many food poisoning organisms is 36, 48, up to 72 hours. It's an old story, but it bears repeating every time a dumpster diver implies his is a safe practice.

[Peter7307]

Originally Posted by SentraSE-R

I like your attempt to quantify the risk, but some of your assumptions are incorrect. The risk of food poisoning is much higher than you think. This Wiki article puts it at 30% of the population each year, even in industrialized countries. 76 million cases in the USA every year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5000 deaths. 2.1 million deaths worldwide in 2000. Those are frighteningly high figures. Peter and Christ and Frank are either incredibly lucky, remarkably careful, remarkably tough, or are under-reporting their illnesses - likely attributing food poisoning to "flu" or indigestion.

I didn't link most food poisoning to commercially packaged food, because most of it comes from mishandling food in the home.

Yep,
I was also impressed with the detailed quantification of the food poisoning possibilities and Yes I have to also agree with your comments on the aspect of correct food handling being a major contributing factor to the incidence of food contamination.

I am scrupulous about cleanliness for the food I prepare and eat and rarely eat out for that very reason but I am not sure about being either tough or lucky ! Frank and Chris may well fare better on those points !

Pete.

[Christ]

Noone said it was safe for everyone, we said it was safe for people with enough intelligence to determine what is and is not OK to eat.

BTW - I've never had any illness that could be attributed to food poisoning. The flu that I went to work with was due to a qualified diagnosis by a doctor, and unsolicited. Approx 3 days later, the person I was working in the clean room with also was diagnosed with flu illness, and we were both quarantined from clean room duty for 2 weeks.

I've been healthy for basically all of my 1/4 century, except natural gas poisoning when I was little, due to a faulty installation of a stove unit in a trailer park. Whole family was affected by it. Other than an annual cold, a few sinus infections, and an abnormal flu infection, that's about it.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Cd

Sort of off topic but 'sorta' along the same topic : At my job, we throw away tons of products each year that have virtually nothing wrong with them... O.K. back on topic. Sorry Frankie

No apology necessary; in fact you are squarely on topic!

Back in the day it never occurred to me to dumpster dive, especially with the intent of looking for things to eat. It all started innocently enough when I was out for a recreational walk. As per my usual practice of trying to leave a place better for my being there, I found some garbage in the street, picked it up, and was looking for a place to toss it. I happened to be walking behind the K-Mart and went to the open bin to toss the garbage. What did I see, but the pot at the end of the rainbow! The clouds parted and angels sang; there was no leprechaun, but there was about 1,000 packets of wildflower and garden seeds, everything you could think of, as well as plastic trays to hold and organize them! My theory is, they had a lot of their lawn and garden stuff set up outside and a little downburst came along and wetted the packets, prompting someone to declare them unfit for sale (again, just my theory). Well... I went home and came back with the truck and loaded that baby up. I gave seeds to family and friends for years and as far as I know all the seeds were good!

After that it just became a habit to walk by there and take a peek to see what else might end up in that dumpster. Next thing I found was a nice desk fan, it had a crack in the base and was filthy but I cleaned it up and oiled the motor and it works just fine. Then there were the discarded display cases, perhaps they were for jeans or clothes, with nice formica shelves, wow they are perfect in the garage! There was that kitchen chair that just needed some glue and screws... the taped up bags of kitty litter... and one of those times I noticed the food: bags upon bags of Doritos, gallons and gallons of milk, cartons and cartons of eggs, you name it.

The rest is history.

[Christ]

'bout the same here... first thing I ever found was an SNES game system new in the box. My guess is some brat kid wanted a Sega Genesis instead. Took that puppy home and played it for days on my curb-find TV.

Later, I got involved in a league of "bad" kids... we used to go through dumpsters and stuff just to cause trouble, but it would always yield interesting finds.

After that period in my life, it was just a matter of remembering all that stuff that I had found previously, and voila!

At some point, I introduced by wife to it by taking her for walks through Endicott, NY on garbage night. She started pointing out "stuff" that we needed in the apartment, so I'd just pick it up and carry it across town back to the apartment.

We still have a good bit of that stuff, even after giving away a large portion of the things we had.

[Peter7307]

A few years ago I went to an industrial estate on business and had to park on the street along from the company I needed to visit.

Walking back to the car there was a dumpster (called a "skip" here in Australia ) sitting outside a place which made lounge furniture with wooden frames.

There was so much in this thing the top would not close completely.
There were offcuts and end cuts from legs and arms and other frame components all around four inches long and about two inches square or two by three inches.

I went to the office and asked if I could take some to make a cutting board I needed and they told me "no problem" and even handed me a plastic supermarket bag to hold them all !

There must be damn near everything you need to live a very comfortable life being tossed out daily if you know where to go and look.

Pete.

[Frank Lee]

^Right!

I think the quantity of "garbage" thrown out daily in this country could support an army. If I lived in a bigger town (and if the compacters gave way to open bins again) it's quite possible I would never need to buy much of anything, ever.

[thatguitarguy]

In this resort area, there is a lot of treasure in the trash. Both from wealthy people who would rather throw something away just because they're tired of it, than to be bothered with the trouble of donating it to someone who could make good use of it, and from people who are moving back to wherever real life happens. When people move around here, they generally have a yard sale, and then whatever won't fit in the U-Haul goes out to the dumpster.

As far as food goes, I think it also depends on the local climate. In some places the food on your plate will be going bad by the time you finish your meal, whereas in a place like North Dakota, throwing something in a dumpster just means it will be flash frozen. Besides, things like Twinkies aren't "food" to start with, and any "expiration date" is only relative to the date of manufacture. They've been shown to be "edible" years, even decades after such "expiration date".

And if you don't regularly exercise your immune system, it will atrophy like unused muscles and brain cells.

Use it or lose it.