uncooked pork left out overnight in original packaging

Question

My kids helped unpack groceries last night and left a bag of uncooked pork chops in the original packaging out overnight. They were still in the shopping bag on the floor of the kitchen. There was also ground beef that comes in the chub packaging left out. The chubs were frozen when I bought them. When I put them away in the refrigerator, they were still partially frozen. I am on a very limited budget and can't afford to replace these items. Are these items safe to eat?

Answer 1

Personally I think some of the people here enjoy throwing food away. As you state you are on a limited budget I can emphasise as I'm in the same position. I've been a chef for 10 years so I've done my fair share of food hygiene courses and top ups (boring) and I stick to the rules at work as I'm required to by law. However at home I have no issue at all with defrosting meat on the side overnight. And if I personally, accidentally left some pork chops in a vacuum packed package over night. I'd just give them a rinse and have them for breakfast. I know it's good to be safe but neither I my partner or our 2 children have ever had any sort of tummy bug never mind food poisoning. How do the people here think humans survived before fridges?

I expect I'll get some down votes for this...

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After re-reading my post I would like to emphesise, I would never intentionally put me or my family in danger. If it was the middle of summer and I'd left the pork on the side I would be more drawn towards throwing them out. Considering your Beef was still frozen I'm assuming your kitchen wasn't hot and the pork like the other post mention's likely never got into the danger zone because of it's cooling effect.

Answer 2

This sort of topic seems to engender no small amount of confusion and opinionizing. Let me encourage you to think of this problem as though you were thawing the meat, in other words as though you had been thawing the meat overnight, albeit accidentally. If by break of day the chubs of beef were still frozen, then obviously they're fine. This explains your seeming emphasis on the pork chops.

If the pork chops were 1)in the same bag as the chubs of beef, 2)lying directly beneath them, and 3)quite cool to the touch when you discovered the problem, then the chubs likely did a fine job of keeping the chops at or below 40°F for the night. If any of these conditions however were not met, I'm afraid it's not worth risking the sickness that could follow from exposure to the overnight growth of pathogens or toxins.

If all three conditions were however met, still you should prepare the chops at once, not store them any longer in the refrigerator. The parallel principle here follows from what it would have been if you were thawing out these chops in cool water, as per the FDA's pointers here, in which event you would have still been keeping the meat below 41°F even though outside the refrigerator. If all of the above (three) conditions were met, this is clearly the logical equivalent of having met the thaw by water terms. But again, cook them at once. And again, discard them if any of the three conditions were not met.