Anyone with an iron stomach? page 5

[Neckhammer]

I have eaten all kind of raw stuff at home with absolutely no issue (not to mention questionable timing), and we don't use antimicrobial products to clean with in my house. Never have I or my family had any issues.

The ONLY two times in my life I had food poisoning was from eating out. Once from the college commons and once at a chinese place. May be the most malevolent microbes thrive on our mass produced, sugar laden, overly processed CRAP. I would venture that our systems are much more acclimated evolutionary wise to handling a bit of spoilage that may occur to real meat or vegetation left out for a bit (there are limits of course), than to the microbes and toxins selected for in the other crap.

[hamstercaster]

Not much of an iron stomach here but not a clean freak either. I let my meat, any meat thaw on the kitchen counter all day and cook it when I get home from work. I don't mind taking the mold out of a yogurt container and eating it's content.

Something that struck me from travelling in the 90s is that not everybody's hygiene levels are the same from country to country. I was in the south of Spain in the early 90s and all their cheeses and meats in the meat counter were at room temperature. In Morocco, they hang cattle, chickens and lambs outside in the sun at markets. Morocco is where I had the best steak of my life. It literally melted in my mouth when I ate it. I will wash my hands and clean the counter with hot soapy water after handling raw meat and would not eat raw chicken or pork and I do cook my steaks to medium rare or medium just because that's the way I like it. I just think we have to be a bit more careful in NA perhaps as our bodies now are so used to pasteurization, keeping everything in a fridge/freezer that a lot of us would get sick if we strayed away from these standards. I guess that by doing it a little bit a time to let your gut flora adapt accordingly would yield good results but sometimes I prefer to err on the side of caution as well. I mean, If I cook a big meal and I have leftovers for 7 days, I'll eat the leftovers for 7 days without giving it a second thought but 7 days after cooking is pretty much where I draw the line.

[Cryptocode]

In Germany they have a Master Butcher certifications and Apprenticeships. We have entirely lost all this knowledge, and now Germany is slowly loosing it also. I used to live in Germany and dream of having a Master Butchery in my town.

France also used to have the same system of Master Bakers. I think they've already lost it. The best bread is in Eastern (Central ) Europe. Ooooooh I wish we had that here.

[joelwlcx]

I can do raw eggs, and straight up garlic. And coconut oil can be swallowed in one go... But moldy stuff? Not for me, ever.

[naiadknight]

In our house, if the mold can be scraped away, the squashy/ brown/ black spot removed, or the freezer burn covered up with another flavor, it's considered safe. If liquid dairy isn't chunky, it's safe. I've eaten 3 month old grapes (well,raisins, by that point), questionable chicken, questionable meat (freezer burned beyond recognition with no label, I think it was a pot roast originally), fought the mold for the cheese, and accidentally grown my own sourdough by forgetting about the bread I was letting rise for a few days (tasted great!)
Raw garlic is common around the house, especially in salad dressings. I've only ever eaten raw eggs in cookie batter and homemade dressings/ hollandaise sauce.

[Crabbcakes]

You, sir, (er, miss?), are awesome

This gal thanks ye!

As you seem to have an entirely robust constitution, here is something to look up (but which I will NEVER try... found it a while back researching cheese varieties; I love cheese - the stronger and stinkier the better):

"casu marzu" on the Wikipedia

I do know my personal limits, though, and it has to do with eating bugs. Nuh uh, no way. I almost can't stomach watching the Klingons eat gagh/Ferengi eat tube grubs on TV, and that is just fiction. Which is why I say I have an iron stomach to a "decent" degree... there are some things I just won't do. I once watched Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs go to Minnesota and catch leeches from a lake up there with a couple of professional leech-gatherers - these crazy brothers then took some of the leeches and grilled them and one guess as to who had to sample... almost lost my lunch on that one.

[Crabbcakes]

In Germany they have a Master Butcher certifications and Apprenticeships. We have entirely lost all this knowledge, and now Germany is slowly loosing it also. I used to live in Germany and dream of having a Master Butchery in my town.

Just to give you a little hope... I am seeing more and more US books out now about sausage-making and charcuterie, the old and slow way. But you are right - lots of Germans are now going veg to some degree and it seems nobody wants to do the butcher thing anymore. Of my German cousins, one is pesca-veg, one is ovo-lacto veg, and another is vegan. In the upscale grocery in Frankfurt I saw a lot of Italian fleshy stuff and not as much German as I had hoped.

Seriously - why don't you go and do the training yourself? I betcha you would make an absolute mint over here if you did that and opened up a shop stateside.

[meeshar]

We don't use antibacterials in our house, and I'm pretty lax with most stuff. In fact, the milk in our fridge is a few days past expiration and we're still using it (it's from a local farm that does light pasteurization and doesn't homogenize), all the eggs are past expiry but I will use them until they start floating during the water test. Produce gets trimmed of mold/dark spots/etc. I take sell-by dates as a hint, not a rule. I wouldn't say we have iron stomachs, but we're certainly not germophobes.

That said, we bought a turducken roll (breast of turkey, duck, and chicken wrapped around cornbread stuffing) online last year for our Christmas dinner and we all got food poisoning from it. It came in a cooler with dry ice and was still frozen, so that wasn't the problem, I think it's just the thickness coupled with the stuffing made it easy to accidentally undercook it.

[sbhikes]

If I can get it past my tongue, I have an iron stomach for sure. One thing I have done often is eat food people have dropped on the trail. Like trail mix and m&ms. I found a candy bar on a bus once and ate it (it was still in the wrapper.) Street food in Mexico is better than restaurant food.

[WeldingHank]

Street food in Mexico is better than restaurant food.

There was a time when I would have disagreed. But the more disappointed I get with local restaurant food, the more I would believe it.