stinky meat (not high meat)

[svrn]

If ii leave my meat outside to get to room tempurature and it start smelling a bit is it still ok to eat or fif i leave it out too long. I left some turkey overnight and and now it smells a little bit. ill probably just eat it if nobody says anything fast enough but id like to know what ppl think about eating stinky meat. It doesnt really smell bad but not good either.

[eveheart]

Was this turkey cooked or raw?

[LePatron7]

so long as the meat is high quality I wouldn't think much of it smelling. of course whether it's cooked or raw makes a difference.

[Alive]

I eat stinky or greenish grass fed lamb & beef all the time, though I don't eat chicken or turkey. I imagine it would be fine (only bad factory farming might cause a problem).

[svrn]

i ate it and felt great, thanks guys. this may require another thread but what do you guys think of fresh meat sealed in plastic. wouldnt it develop botulism eventually? how long should u keep it in a seal like that?

[eveheart]

i ate it and felt great, thanks guys. this may require another thread but what do you guys think of fresh meat sealed in plastic. wouldnt it develop botulism eventually? how long should u keep it in a seal like that?

Foods do not exactly "develop" botulism. The bacterium responsible for producing botulin toxin (clostridium botulinum) occurs in nature. Botulism from food can occur when the bacterium grows, which it does in the absence of oxygen. That is why we say that packaging food without oxygen is not a good idea. If air is present, clostridium botulinum is still there but does not produce the toxin. When the air is excluded, such as with canned food, the food must be heated sufficiently to kill the clostridium botulinum.

[raw-al]

Eveheart,
So if you put raw meat in a bag and evacuate the air as you do with these vacuum baggers you run the risk of botulism? How long would it keep before that risk arose?

[raw-al]

Also, if there is botulism present is there anything you can do or is it a case of off the circular file.

[eveheart]

I'm not a botulism expert. What I know comes from food preservation by pressure canning. Also, there have been other threads on this forum that discuss botulism. Here is my meager knowledge:

1. Botulism is the oft-fatal paralytic illness that comes from consuming botulin toxin.
2. Botulin toxin is the by-product of anaerobic proliferation of the bacteria clostridium botulinum.
3. In pressure canning (for non-acid foods), the temperature of the food needs to be raised for a sufficiently long time to kill the clostridium botulinum and the opened canned food must be boiled in an open pot for at least 15 minutes in case botulin toxin is present. So,

...if there is botulism present is there anything you can do...

means you can use the open-pot boiling method at your own risk. (My attorney made me say that.)

There are other anaerobic bacteria that form toxins, so the advice to let air circulate around raw meat does not only apply to prevention of botulism.

...if you put raw meat in a bag and evacuate the air as you do with these vacuum baggers you run the risk of botulism? How long would it keep before that risk arose?

I'd say that vacuum-bagged meat is supposed to be frozen, or at least refrigerated for a short period of time. I don't know what kind of time-frame we're talking about here.

[raw-al]

You answered my question.

I've heard stories of Inuit or Eskimos having lots of people dying from raw meat but was post-whitey invasion when they used plastic to store meat and it was unable to breathe, whereas if it was stored in a container made of some animal part, it could breathe.