Storing Food At Room Temperature - Why?

[g00dgirl]

All Thai people I know store their cooked food and take-away food all day long at room temperature, often not even covered, to eat later at night without even re-heating it.

That goes for rice as well as seafood, chicken, meat dishes. Even if a fridge is stading next to it.

This does not make sense to me, I learned at cooking school in a food hygiene module that food should be stored at about or below 8 degrees Celsius to prevent bacteria from growing or it should be kept hot over 63 degrees Celsius for the same reason, if not it should be well re-heated to kill any bacteria before eating it. Any temperature in between allows for bacteria to grow that causes food poisoning. Not covering foods can lead to bacteria reaching the food for example through flies, cross contamination etc.

So the logical thing for me would be to store leftover Thai food in the fridge and re-heat it at night, but I get no sympathy for that opinion in Thailand.

Why do Thai people insist that everything should be kept out of the fridge all day long?

[lioness]

I also worry about bacteria, but then the Thai people never seem to get sick from eating left out food. The only theory I can come up with is that all the chillies keep the bacteria at bay, or maybe Thai stomach's are used to coping with it.

My Thai better half will eat all this with no problem, I will be ill within an hour.

[Ulysses G.]

Thais like to leave Tuna fish out for hours with no refrigeration. That really worries me!

[blue eyes]

Talking about not storing leftover food in a refrigerator. I thought some of you may like a look at our refrigerator.I call it an Issan refrigerator and the other photo is a closer look on the inside.It is rare for me or any of the family to get food poisoning.But it has happened.As for myself it could be because I lived in Thailand as a boy and our maids where from Issan.I ate the food they made for themselves more then the food my mom made.I was always in trouble with my mom for buying food with my allowance from the carts that would roll down the street.I guees I may have built up an immunity.We do also have a "normal" refrigerator for fresh meats and of course BEER CHANG!!!!! Sometimes I think that is all it is for is the beer.

[londonthai]

it's just lazyness - they argue, the foof changes the taste in the fridge and the like. Unfortunately they waste a lot of foods which are given to dogs or rats and mice feed on it.

I have seen fridges full of water bottles, tens of liters, as they all were needed - with no space for anything else.

Edited April 7, 2008 by londonthai

[Sam125]

So I am very curious is the consensus that food does need to be refrigerated or one is at risk for food poisoning?

I have a 2 small kids so I am very curious.

[junkofdavid2]

Somewhat related...

Locals in Mexico and India drink the water with no problems, but foreigners suffer immediate attacks of "Delhi Belly" and "Montezuma's Revenge".

Go figure.

[Jingthing]

I think this is just poor education, poverty, and mai bpen rai. Don't Thais have about 100 words for diarrhea?

[RueFang]

I thought it might be the chilli thing as well, although in my experience the food is reheated before eating. Most local village restaurants will always have their curries sitting out for 12 hours or so but do reheat them throughout the day. I've eaten this way for a few years and have only been sick a few times and on those times I could taste that the curry had turned. I didn't think it was that they insisted on leaving it out of the fridge, just that there was no thought to actually put it in the fridge in the first place.

[meadish_sweetball]

Reheating food which has already experienced substantial bacterial growth can cause large amounts of poison to be emitted in the food - some breed of bacteria emit poison when they die.

So reheating does not solve all problems, and some types of food poisoning are really just that - poisoning - your body reacts as it would to a dose of a poisonous substance, i.e. by fever, sweating, vomiting and diarrhea, in order to rid itself of the poison as quickly as possible.

Soup type curry has a thick layer of fat (or a crust if colder) on top. I actually think this can serve to protect the entire dish from going bad due to blocking oxygen from reaching the bacteria, but it is just a personal observation and may be wrong.

Here are two links to general advice regarding hygiene and food poisoning:

http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/food_hygiene.html

http://wikitravel.org/en/Food_poisoning

[cathyy]

For those used to temperatures in fahrenheit, the unsafe range is from 40 degrees to 140 degrees. Keep food colder than 40 degrees (in the refrigerator!) or hotter than 140 degrees. To make it easier, 140 degrees is about the same temperature as straight hot water from a tap in the US, as heated by the hot water heater. We all know that's hot enough to make instant coffee or instant oatmeal, even though it's nowhere near the boiling point of 212 degrees.

Failure to get sick from eating food that has been left out is a matter of acquired immunity.

[DP25]

I don't bother putting Thai food in the fridge. I'm not gonna sick from something being left out for a few hours. A lot of food stalls have their stuff sitting outside all day and I never get sick from them. The fridge is for cheese, uncooked meat, beer, juice, etc. If leaving food out makes you sick, then obviously don't do it.

[katana]

I saw a TV program once where they took 2 Petri dishes and placed a smear of a bacterium responsible for food poisoning over both of them. One dish was place in the fridge at +4c, the other left at ambient temperature outside the fridge overnight at ca +25c.

When they checked for bacteria growth the next day, the bacteria on the room temperature one had multiplied and covered the whole Petri dish. The one left in the fridge at +4c hadn't grown at all.

I think in the West with our stricter food hygiene standards we have a lost some natural immunity to the bugs that the Thais still possess.

[dee123]

Reheating food which has already experienced substantial bacterial growth can cause large amounts of poison to be emitted in the food - some breed of bacteria emit poison when they die.

So reheating does not solve all problems, and some types of food poisoning are really just that - poisoning - your body reacts as it would to a dose of a poisonous substance, i.e. by fever, sweating, vomiting and diarrhea, in order to rid itself of the poison as quickly as possible.

Soup type curry has a thick layer of fat (or a crust if colder) on top. I actually think this can serve to protect the entire dish from going bad due to blocking oxygen from reaching the bacteria, but it is just a personal observation and may be wrong.

Here are two links to general advice regarding hygiene and food poisoning:

http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/food_hygiene.html

http://wikitravel.org/en/Food_poisoning

curry's last a little longer than other foods as they are packed with spices which give them a preserving factor,but really all foods should be immediately eaten or refridgerated but the Thais probably have built up an immunity to low levels of bacteria.But for very young or old stomach bugs can be dangerous....which I've just noticed Cathy has just said; sorry Cathy .....so it may be allright for the owner of the "Issaan fridge" to happily eat that food but don't invite me around......Futhermore if your in an area that has quite a few farangs and you have got the basic hyiene cert(uk,europe etc) ,...why not advertise that to the farang community as I' sure it would attract more customers....if your in the food business....

Edited April 15, 2008 by dee123

[crowbait]

It should be remembered that refrigeration was an invention of the late 19th century and was not common until the latter part of the 20th. In all the preceding centuries, mankind cooked, cooled to room temperature, reheated and consummed food as a matter of course. Inevitably, some got sick and some got sick and died, the vast majority flourished and that's why we have the population problems we are struggling to live with.

The point of this ramble is to say that while leaving cooked food in the open does increase its bacteriological load, the human gut, particularly the stomach, is remarkably effective at killing pathogens (you should see what neat stomach acid does to a piece of paper).

We have been suckered by the house-cleaning product industry into believing that all bacteria are lethal and just waiting to get you.

True food poisoning (salmonellosis, botulism etc.) on the other hand, is very, very unpleasant but thankfully, quite rare

[dee123]

It should be remembered that refrigeration was an invention of the late 19th century and was not common until the latter part of the 20th. In all the preceding centuries, mankind cooked, cooled to room temperature, reheated and consummed food as a matter of course. Inevitably, some got sick and some got sick and died, the vast majority flourished and that's why we have the population problems we are struggling to live with.

The point of this ramble is to say that while leaving cooked food in the open does increase its bacteriological load, the human gut, particularly the stomach, is remarkably effective at killing pathogens (you should see what neat stomach acid does to a piece of paper).

We have been suckered by the house-cleaning product industry into believing that all bacteria are lethal and just waiting to get you.

True food poisoning (salmonellosis, botulism etc.) on the other hand, is very, very unpleasant but thankfully, quite rare

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

[Jangot]

blue eyes...

Those photos could have been taken in my wife's kitchen - exact situation.

My (Thai of course) wife is almost neurotic about cleaning fresh food before cooking it, and about general cleanliness in the kitchen. So it isn't laziness or slovenliness.

So this mesh sided "doo" storage, when we have a large fridge available puzzled (and worried) me initially.

But...no one in the family, me included, has suffered any problems over the last 8 years.

When my family (farang) members started coming over for holiday, I thought "oh oh!!"

And my sisters did express some surprise over the arrangement!!!, but no-one suffered any ill effects.

My sisters remain puzzled, but are now unconcerned.

J.

[dee123]

blue eyes...

Those photos could have been taken in my wife's kitchen - exact situation.

My (Thai of course) wife is almost neurotic about cleaning fresh food before cooking it, and about general cleanliness in the kitchen. So it isn't laziness or slovenliness.

So this mesh sided "doo" storage, when we have a large fridge available puzzled (and worried) me initially.

But...no one in the family, me included, has suffered any problems over the last 8 years.

When my family (farang) members started coming over for holiday, I thought "oh oh!!"

And my sisters did express some surprise over the arrangement!!!, but no-one suffered any ill effects.

My sisters remain puzzled, but are now unconcerned.

J.

I noticed the difference in the "Toilet dept"...when I first started visiting I had stomach problems,but then got used to eating issaan fridge food, but after setting up home and being hygenic... I didn't have to make any of those 100 yrd dashes.

Edited April 15, 2008 by dee123

[popshirt]

I just returned from four days at the family farm in Isaan, where food is always left out, covered by fly mesh. During my visit, 3 different family members asked me for charcoal tablets and immodium pills which I always carry when I travel. The toilet was the most visited room in the house. I said nothing about the food left out all day in 33 C temperatures as I have learned that farangs know nothing about such things.

[PadThaiGuy]

Thais do get food poisioning. It's normal here to get sick from bad food.

You think they would learn about keeping food out all day.

[cathyy]

It should be remembered that refrigeration was an invention of the late 19th century and was not common until the latter part of the 20th. In all the preceding centuries, mankind cooked, cooled to room temperature, reheated and consummed food as a matter of course.

Horse puckey. Before common refrigeration there were ice boxes; before ice boxes there were springhouses; before springhouses there were dairy barns; and even before that people kept food chilled by keeping it in a container chilled by a running creek or stored underground utilizing the natural coolness there. People have known about chilling food for many centuries, like even in Roman times.

At the other extreme, the old wood cookstoves had a "warming oven" where the food was kept all day at a safe temperature; before that they simply kept it in the original cooking pot hanging over the fire, just swung away a bit to not burn while still keeping warm. Prior to fire I expect people consumed all their food raw and immediately.

[crowbait]

It should be remembered that refrigeration was an invention of the late 19th century and was not common until the latter part of the 20th. In all the preceding centuries, mankind cooked, cooled to room temperature, reheated and consummed food as a matter of course.

Horse puckey. Before common refrigeration there were ice boxes; before ice boxes there were springhouses; before springhouses there were dairy barns; and even before that people kept food chilled by keeping it in a container chilled by a running creek or stored underground utilizing the natural coolness there. People have known about chilling food for many centuries, like even in Roman times.

At the other extreme, the old wood cookstoves had a "warming oven" where the food was kept all day at a safe temperature; before that they simply kept it in the original cooking pot hanging over the fire, just swung away a bit to not burn while still keeping warm. Prior to fire I expect people consumed all their food raw and immediately.

Thank you for your rather inellegant epithet, it bought a small, fleeting smile of appreciation to my cynical old lips.

Let us examine your arguments.

You are obviously far too young to remember this.............before there was refrigeration, ice was far too expensive for simply preserving food..........to have ice in the summer months, it had to be imported or sometime made using the salination method..............not within the pocket of the common man.

Springhouses and icehouses were again the refuge of the rich or those with land to spare and running water on it. Once again, not for the common man.

Cooled in running water...........where in an inner city was one likely to find running water one would wish to stick food in!!!

Storing underground certainly will cool food by a bit, but again I say most poor people did not have underground rooms (or if they did, they were living in them).

Of course, all the cooling methods you talk about were available, but because they were invariably a luxury they were used for adding value to high cost items - chilling champagne and german wines - cooling expensive fruits like peaches and pineapples - making ice-cream ............in the middle ages and through to the end of the eighteenth century when the principles of infection were beginning to be understood, nobody, but nobody used them to extend the life of cooked food.

As a corollary, I should mention the use of the tiled room in dairies, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to keep milk cool and stop butter from going rancid..................and when I was young, we had a pantry with a stone slab which would keep food placed on it a degree or so cooler and the meat-safe we kept in a breezy area outside. We had no refrigeration nor any of your methods of cooling food and so we stored, reheated and consummed cooked food on a regular basis for years without ever incurring food poisoning.

In Rome, in Roman times, there were statutes about keeping cooked food over a certain period of time and sever penelties for cook-shop owners who breached them..................but no refrigeration!

[IMA_FARANG]

All Thai people I know store their cooked food and take-away food all day long at room temperature, often not even covered, to eat later at night without even re-heating it.

That goes for rice as well as seafood, chicken, meat dishes. Even if a fridge is stading next to it.

This does not make sense to me, I learned at cooking school in a food hygiene module that food should be stored at about or below 8 degrees Celsius to prevent bacteria from growing or it should be kept hot over 63 degrees Celsius for the same reason, if not it should be well re-heated to kill any bacteria before eating it. Any temperature in between allows for bacteria to grow that causes food poisoning. Not covering foods can lead to bacteria reaching the food for example through flies, cross contamination etc.

So the logical thing for me would be to store leftover Thai food in the fridge and re-heat it at night, but I get no sympathy for that opinion in Thailand.

Why do Thai people insist that everything should be kept out of the fridge all day long?

You have the westerner's "Oh my god if it's not in the fridge it will spoil" sickness.

This sickness is spread by the manufacturers of the refrigerators they want you to buy.

It's true that bacteria can grow on uncovered food, but do you seriously believe that a few hours outside a fridge will spoil food? Well, it won't.

Once when I was up in Iceland, my friend who worked night shift had us take a ham out if the freezer to defrost. It was was wrapped in plactic cling wrap, and had been in the freezer frozen for a few days. He wanted us to leave it in the sink, in a pan of water. He intended to cook it when he got off shift in the morning. That night our female janitor came in about midnight, saw the ham defrosting in the sink, and decided it must be spoiled from being outside the refrigerator. So she took outside to the trash bin. The guy who was going to cook it showed up and found it missing at 7 in the morning. When he found out our janitor had thrown it away, he made her go out and dig it out of the trash (still wrapped in the cling film). He cooked it and we all ate some of the best ham we ever had.

[Jamie]

My fiancee does this all the time. I'm not worried so much about the food going bad as I am about attracting ants, roaches etc.

[blue eyes]

I said we have a real ice box and here it is.......

[feffejonsson]

Most thais seem to survive anyway. Strange.

[pampal]

To Cathy

In the old days,where would one find Ice in the desert , or alot of running water for that matter?

Maybe in frigid northern climates they had such things, but how about in Saharan Africa or the deserts of the middle east. Also about your comments regarding wood stoves, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of trees in deserts. People used air drying and smoking to preserve their meats, or alternatively they used salt and pepper to season and preserve their foods,subsequently pickling the foods in vinegar to keep them for long periods of time.

Edited July 11, 2008 by pampal

[siamesekitty]

The general understanding here is that pots of soup can be left outside the fridge as long as it is reheated to boiling temperature first. However, after it boils, you should not stir it, otherwise it will spoil quickly.

[englishoak]

As far as deli belly is concerned from drinking the water in places. I was advised by a tropical disease Doctor that when I travelled to a country, that although drinking bottled water was a good idea a better one was to clean ones teeth in the local tap water. In theory that allows a small amount of local bacteria into the system which then helps to act as a immuniser when eating local produce. I have to say it works a treat and I have been to many countries and at first I forgot and was very sick ( India ) after that I rememered and have rarely had problems since.

[mijan24]

My biggest astonishment is the open (24/7) meat shops - not necessarily at the market on any roadway, the sides of meat just hang there rain hail or shine and I think of our butchershops back home and the cost of coolrooms ????