Not right. Look up biogenic amines; that’s the stuff that causes non bacterial food poisoning. Amines increase at room and cooking temps, they are not destroyed by heat nor chilling, though freezing slows the increase. Even if you boiled the used marinade (which I wouldn’t hesitate to do on the day I cooked the contents), saving it and introducing more amines with each protein added would be risky.
Of course.
Key word cooking
I challenge you to culture my Yoshida’s.
I also challenge your contention that some temperature-sensitive bacteria will survive sustained 165F cooking temperatures simply because there may be more of them at the start.
1 Like
I could try BBC Radio 6 for a few weeks 
I also challenge your contention that some temperature-sensitive bacteria will survive sustained 165F cooking temperatures simply because there may be more of them at the start.
I did say in my reply that getting to a 165F temperature uniformly across something being cooked is not straightforward. Cooking is often a balance between over cooking and undercooking different parts of a dish. Thus an added level of complexity.
Volume is important as it affects distribution. If you have more to start with then the chances are it can get to more places. I am probably misremembering my undergrad microbiology but IIRC then bacterial colonies don’t die off in a linear manner, there is a mortality curve, some bacteria diving early some surviving longer.
Volume of bacteria does two things, there are physically more to survive - if cooking reduces a population by 99% then if there are 10 times as many to start with it could mean that remaining 1% could be large enough to cause issues. And secondly a bigger colony offers greater protection to those in the middle.
Remember that in a lab an autoclave will run at 250F and 15psi for a least 30 minutes for fairly simple/standard sterilisation…so an oven at 165F and 0psi could take some time to kill al the bacteria present.
1 Like
Its potentially similar - but that doesn’t mean either is sensible. As both could be bacteriologically risky. I think the USDA say 2 days max for poultry in the fridge.
Depending on the type of marinade longer times can degrade the texture of the chicken, and for many marinades they don’t get better the longer they are marinaded for - with some you get peak penetration after about two hours so overnight is often a good rule of thumb for effectiveness.
So the logic of reusing marinade based on effectiveness is there. But you have added the risk of cross contamination you don’t hack with a sealed dish in the fridge.
Well of course not every speck of food reaches 165F at the same time. This is obvious.
Volume? We’re talking about a container of marinade. Assuming Chicken #1 was rife with bacteria, we can assume the entire kept container is uniformly rife (This charitably ignores the likely result that the marinade will itself kill any bacteria). The surface of Chicken #2 may be innoculated, but that surface is the very first place the temperature will reach set temperature.
Please consume all the raw marinade you wish and hope that Sam’s magic will continue to protect you.
I’ll continue to cook or discard mine, thanks.
LOL, raw marinade? What’s that?
As if you’re really increasing your safety!
You know. Raw, like in not cooked.
By bringing the marinade to a simmer before using it as a sauce, yes, actually you ARE increasing your safety.
Here’s an explanation from the old sandbox from a sciencey-kinda background explaining it with like actual science and stuff:
the 2nd response down is the one I’m specifically trying to link to – but they have apparently disabled the ability to link to a particular quote (which surprises me not at all…)
Yeah, I remember that post. Of course you’re safer boiling everything, but that’s not what we were talking about.
I don’t think you’re statistically safer doing a Chicken #2 with fresh marinade over marinating Chickens ##1 & 2 back-to-back in the same refrigerated stuff.
All this “danger” fades to insignificance considering what’s on our phone screens and keyboards. Safer to boil those, too, I guess…
So it’s amines we should be worried about more than bacteria? From what I understood, amines are primarily introduced into the equation with raw poultry – amines don’t multiply as rapidly as bacteria. If more amines are present, then the likelihood of food poisoning significantly increases. (Otherwise, it wouldn’t matter if there are a thousand amines or a million amines, because even a thousand would be enough to be dangerous.) And cooking isn’t going help you; whatever amines exist are pretty much going in your body and you just hope it’s a low enough number that you don’t get sick.
Amines accumulate very rapidly on all proteins, and especially fish, (with extremely rapid histamine accumulation) that’s what the surface slime is. Amines actually increase rapidly if not chilled or frozen in these cases. That’s what’s all over dry aged meat.
I didn’t say to worry more about amines, only that cooking inreases them, doesn’t reduce their accumulation or risk if excess is present.
In fact, even normal controls have allergy symptoms, even occasionally anaphylactic, to mixed meals of 75 mg of histamine, which is a pretty normal amount. Have it with any alchohol, which stops your ability to degrade histamine in your gut, and it’s easy for anyone to have a big reaction. That’s behind the phenomenon of folks who aren’t allergic to shellfish unless they drink alcohol with it. It isn’t true allergy, but the symptoms are the same to histamine overload.
No, you shouldn’t worry excessively over any of this.
Just wait, someone will bring up prions next.
I was actually thinking about prions when somebody posted eating brains on another post.
I will never, ever eat brains.
That’s exactly the point - food does not heat evenly and can take quite some time to get to a uniform temperature. The more bacteria you have the more difficult it is to ensure sufficient get destroyed during cooking. If you want to ensure that a food with a high bacterial load gets sterilised it probably won’t be edible.
I thought my explanation was quite clear. More bacteria more inoculation points, more inoculation points means greater numbers of bacteria, and a longer marinade time means longer for colonies to grow to greater sizes.
Some marinades inhibit bacteria some don’t. Salt brines do, strong sugar solution can, but there are a range of marinades and some are good at inhaling growth but others can facilitate it - and obviously weaker salt and sugar solutions may not inhibit growth.
And where the bacteria get to depends on what cuts you marinade - marinading whole Chickens would be different to tenders.
Yet food borne diseases are estimated to cause 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalisations, and 3,000 deaths in the US each year. If you just look at pathogens (bacteria and viruses) then there were 9.4 million incidents, 56,000 hospitalisations and 1,351 deaths.
I couldn’t find the stats for keyboards and phone screens…
I would suggest that you are pushing food safety to the edge with 3 day marinades and/or reuse of marinade. You could be fine but it maybe sensible to balance the risk reward of doing this.
Does a 3 day marinade give a greater benefit than a 12 hour one - the penetration of flavour into meat is finite so a longer time doesn’t mean a greater penetration. And if you use an acid or yoghurt to tenderise meat then too long means to lose texture i.e. cerviche should be marinaded for no more than 30mins.
So if the rewards are not significantly better is the risk worth it.
Why not just make less marinade? If you have so much left that you can marinade a second batch, why not just reduce the original amount?
3 Likes
THIS.
Mic drop.
1 Like
