The World's Deadliest Thing • Hacker News Board

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#211

Post by weaksauce » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

Arch-TK wrote: post #95

Stratoscope wrote: post #35

Pop quiz! Do you ever buy frozen vacuum-sealed fish? The kind where each piece is sealed in its own plastic pouch? It is convenient and delicious. To me it can taste fresher than some "fresh" fish. One reason is that the sealed pouch keeps oxygen out. Have you wondered why it says "remove all packaging before defrosting"? And ignored that advice like I did for many years? After all, the fish seems to defrost just fin…

Okay, so in the past we've used a sous-vide recirculator set to 30°C to quickly defrost fish which had been vacuum sealed (dodged a bullet apparently). I looked into it and the temperature at which it is safe to hold food without risk of toxin production is 3°C and less. What high-speed defrosting methods are there to replace this? is it okay to just open the fish for 30 minutes, re-seal it and then put it in the rec…

quickly defrosting like that is fine wrt botulism but i'm not sure it's great to do that for other bacteria. but you can also just quickly defrost it in a bowl of cool water and use it within a few hours.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#212

Post by anonnyj » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

soneca wrote: post #157

AussieWog93 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any people from developing countries reading this thread? What are your thoughts when you hear Westerners talking about the danger of leaving a meat out of the fridge for a couple of hours and stuff like that?

No thoughts about the fish, but I was recently very surprised to learn that some people exclude my country, Brazil, from “western” culture. Like you did opposing “developing” and “westerners”. Aside from geographical position, I certainly feel closer in culture to North America and Europe than to Middle-East or East-Asia cultures. Every time I hear a statement with ”in the western culture…” I always identify myself w…

So what do you, in your western culture, do with meat?

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#213

Post by rainbowzootsuit » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

Stratoscope wrote: post #35

Pop quiz! Do you ever buy frozen vacuum-sealed fish? The kind where each piece is sealed in its own plastic pouch? It is convenient and delicious. To me it can taste fresher than some "fresh" fish. One reason is that the sealed pouch keeps oxygen out. Have you wondered why it says "remove all packaging before defrosting"? And ignored that advice like I did for many years? After all, the fish seems to defrost just fin…

I think Douglas Baldwin's sous vide guide is a relevant aside to this discussion of pathogens on food.

https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#214

Post by namdnay » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 8:26 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #186

namdnay wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

some dired hams don't contain any nitrites. I know parma ham doesn't, for example

Yeah, genuine prosciutto is just salt and time.

And piggy

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#215

Post by rmbyrro » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #73

Stratoscope wrote: post #35

Pop quiz! Do you ever buy frozen vacuum-sealed fish? The kind where each piece is sealed in its own plastic pouch? It is convenient and delicious. To me it can taste fresher than some "fresh" fish. One reason is that the sealed pouch keeps oxygen out. Have you wondered why it says "remove all packaging before defrosting"? And ignored that advice like I did for many years? After all, the fish seems to defrost just fin…

Any people from developing countries reading this thread? What are your thoughts when you hear Westerners talking about the danger of leaving a meat out of the fridge for a couple of hours and stuff like that?

There are western developing countries.

And those who live there and read HN probably never faced the issues you have in mind for "developing countries".

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#216

Post by nradov » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #110

BoxOfRain wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is no substitute for fresh fresh fish. Well, maybe one ... high-quality smoked fish. While I take a bit less of a strong stance on this, I definitely agree there's nothing like properly fresh fish. I used to think I didn't really like mackerel but the truth is that supermarket mackerel can be a bit nasty even off the fish counter, mackerel straight out of the sea and cooked right away is absolutely fantastic.

> I used to think I didn't really like mackerel but the truth is that supermarket mackerel can be a bit nasty even off the fish counter Yes. Oily fish (e.g. mackerel) really doesn't keep well, as you say it has to be eaten as close to "straight out of the sea" as possible. Oily fish certainly is not well suited to supermarket supply chains.

For those in the Bay Area, the Hankook Korean supermarket in Sunnyvale always has good fresh mackerel.

http://www.hankooksupermarket.com/products.htm

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#217

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #214

ceejayoz wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, genuine prosciutto is just salt and time.

And piggy

Well, yes. Heh.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#218

Post by el_benhameen » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

ckastner wrote: post #128

nkrisc wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you’re buying your fish every morning in the fish market at the harbor, it’s probably been frozen. Even wild caught is typically frozen as soon as it’s hauled aboard. This will vary around the world, of course.

Supposedly, flash freezing (which is distinct from your average home freezer unit) preserves quality such that even trained sushi chefs can't tell the difference between fresh and previously flash-frozen fish. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/nyregion/sushi-fresh-from...

Indeed, there are some types of fish that are safe for "raw" consumption only after being flash frozen, due to parasites that live in the fish.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#219

Post by msdrigg » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:46 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #78

sho wrote: post #26

> The lethal dose when consumed orally is around 30 billionths of a gram, which if you want a relatable comparison, is about the same as if you cut a single poppy seed into ten thousand equal pieces and ate one of them. It is an amount so tiny, it really doesn’t make sense. That's right - it makes no sense. How could such a small amount of anything do enough damage to shut down your entire body? According to wikipedi…

It's a protease which matches key neural proteins. The key to recognise is that it's reusable: one molecule can keep breaking proteins, and as soon as it does that faster than homeostatic processes can replace them you're in trouble. Just how "rm -rf /" can destroy your whole system: it's a small character but it matches and destroys everything.

Its a simple spell but quite unbreakable

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#220

Post by ermir » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

sdfghderwg wrote: post #138

ermir wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The botulism spores are abundant in soil, but they don't get activated unless the conditions are met. The main condition is an environment without oxygen and the presence of proteins, which happen both in sealed oil-garlic containers.

I guess I'm having the same struggle as nfin. > The main condition is an environment without oxygen and the presence of proteins, which happen both in sealed oil-garlic containers. This seems such a general condition... in first approximation, sealed containers with anything at home are sealed containers with proteins...

Most factory-made food has preservatives and other stuff that stabilize the food and prevent botulism. In particular many foods use vinegar to increase acidity and make it impossible for botulism to bloom.