question. have you ever been food poisoned?

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It's kind of a well-known phenomenon in commercial food safety. It's the acid that does most of the work, but the minimal water activity also helps. Coating food with acidulated oil helps prevent the growth of many microbes that require water and more neutral pHs to thrive. Here's a link to the "ur" study. And the "nut" of the abstract:

Mayonnaise retarded but did not prevent the growth of S. aureus or S. typhimurium in salads stored at 22 or 32 C for 24 h. Increasing the concentration of mayonnaise in salads increased the degree to which growth of these organisms was delayed. Contrary to popular belief, the presence of mayonnaise in meat salads tends to retard rather than enhance growth of food-borne pathogens. However, addition of mayonnaise should not be considered a substitute for refrigeration for preserving meat salads from the growth of food-borne pathogens.
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Similar studies replicate the finding in various foodstuffs.
 
I've had food poisoning about 6 times. I'll tell about the two worst.

Before a long flight, I stopped by a chiuchow place in the Hong Kong airport and ate some of their classic goose dish. Dumb idea -- this is room temperature goose that has sat for who knows how long. The flight was, of course, miserable, and it went on for days. Eventually, I wondered why my legs were so cold, and searched on the Web, only to discover that cold limbs are a symptom of dehydration. So I laid in a supply of Pedialyte, and drank the first quart. It was really weird, because my fingers were sort of shriveled and wrinkly, and they went back to normal in minutes.

The worst, though, was in Tokyo. After a fancy lunch, I went with some friends to the knife district, and started feeling really bad. I took my leave. All along, through the half-mile walk to the subway, the three trains, and the half-mile walk to the hotel, I had to pause every couple of minutes, lean against a wall, and retch. Fortunately, I guess, I've had surgery that had the side effect of making me unable to vomit. On the subway, I sat with my head between my knees the whole time. When I got back to the hotel, I lay on the floor of the shower for a long long time.

The only good thing was that my subway posture was actually, I think, a perfect culturally correct way of saying "I am so sorry to be disturbing your harmony with my horrible retching presence."
 
Just two weeks ago I had to bring my wife to the emergency Cryptosporidium. The Health Department was on the phone before we left the hospital. We could never track it down.
 
Luftmensch said:
Kinda feel like it might be worst for the horse!!! 😂
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Maintaining the necessary “butt clench” for the duration of the ride might prove to be “a bridge too far”. I think it would be best for the horse and rider to simply pitch camp for the duration … or until,the burnt toast ran out.
 
I'm a little surprised that so many people have reported rapid onset of symptoms. While I'm no expert my understanding is that with low level of bacterial contamination it usually takes many hours and sometimes days for the bacteria to reproduce sufficiently in your gut to cause problems. I may be completely wrong but, to me, rapid onset means the food has been a festering pile of bacteria long enough to have already produced enough toxins in whatever you ate or drank that you don't have to wait for them to reproduce in your gut.
 
I now recall a more recent milder case, where I had some air dried funky Italian Salami-esk meat (really nice stuff) that for some reason crept into the fridge.....
 
I’ve been poisoned a few times in my life. The one I remember most was Thanksgiving. Back in those days we had the holiday with my wife’s family and this time it was with her niece. Usually it was with her aunt, the mother of this niece. She was very exited to host her first Thanksgiving and was doing a traditional turkey. When she pulled it out of the oven another cousin people trusted said it was done. My wife pointed out that there was blood on the tray but since she has a reputation for being too cautious sometimes they didn’t take it seriously. The blood was wiped off the plate and the turkey was served. I didn’t see any of this happen or I would have backed her up. This was of course a Thursday night and by Saturday afternoon I was hanging over the deck rail at our beach house feeling horrible. My wife was pissed off at first because she thought I had drank too much but I assured her that wasn’t the case. I had never felt so bad in my life at the time and thought I was going to die right then and there. I rarely if ever throw up and I was sweating profusely. A little while into my ordeal my wife gets a call from our daughter and she’s crying because she’s at the end of our driveway at home throwing up, which she’d never done before. So my wife calls her mom and sure enough she’s also very ill. Well over half the people got violently ill, most likely the ones who ate the dark meat. My wife didn’t get sick but she had only had a small piece of the breast. I’m very cautious now when it comes to poultry, no blood for me.
 
gregfisk said:
I’ve been poisoned a few times in my life... ...My wife didn’t get sick but she had only had a small piece of the breast. I’m very cautious now when it comes to poultry, no blood for me.
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Serious question (Yeah, not normal for me). How do you know it was the undercooked turkey that made everyone sick, versus cross contamination or some other issue that occurred earlier in the day (or the day before) while this person tackled hosting their first Thanksgiving dinner? Like having raw turkey on a cutting board (or oyster or sausage for the stuffing) and using the cutting board later for prep of salad ingredients? Or just plain not washing her hands before touching other things after handling the turkey? Plenty of things could happen that would result in a lot of people getting sick besides undercooked turkey. Maybe it's more important to be cautious anytime you eat at that niece's house? Or anytime she brings a dish to a dinner you are at? There is plenty of fur flying in the kitchen during Thanksgiving perp, and lot of opportunities for issues if the main person in the kitchen is not too savvy yet on good practices.
 
WildBoar said:
Serious question (Yeah, not normal for me). How do you know it was the undercooked turkey that made everyone sick, versus cross contamination or some other issue that occurred earlier in the day (or the day before) while this person tackled hosting their first Thanksgiving dinner? Like having raw turkey on a cutting board (or oyster or sausage for the stuffing) and using the cutting board later for prep of salad ingredients? Or just plain not washing her hands before touching other things after handling the turkey? Plenty of things could happen that would result in a lot of people getting sick besides undercooked turkey. Maybe it's more important to be cautious anytime you eat at that niece's house? Or anytime she brings a dish to a dinner you are at? There is plenty of fur flying in the kitchen during Thanksgiving perp, and lot of opportunities for issues if the main person in the kitchen is not too savvy yet on good practices.
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That’s a good question and I understand why you’re asking it. The next time we all got together which was Christmas I think, we all discussed it. The people who got sick all ate turkey. Not only did they all eat turkey, they all ate dark meat. The people who didn’t get sick either didn’t eat turkey at all, some were vegetarians, or only ate breast meat. We also talked about what else we ate since there was a lot of food and not everyone ate everything. I can’t remember the details of that now but we determined at the time that the turkey was the most likely culprit. Of course we can’t say for certain it was the turkey but with all of the evidence we had at the time we concluded that that was the cause. My wife, who can’t eat beef or dairy and I discussed in detail what we both ate prior to the second get together so that also helped us determine what the cause might have been. The nieces mom who is an RN suggested it might have been the flu, to take the spotlight off of her daughter. But when I pressed her on it she said she thought it was probably the turkey. Like I said, no way to know 100% but we’re pretty sure that’s what it was.
 
I've always had the idea that I could tell which food poisoned me, just by thinking about each one in turn, and seeing which thought makes my gorge rise.

Could be a complete delusion, of course, but if it's actually possible, you can see how it might have given a Darwinian advantage.
 
Christmas dinner two years in a row (‘15 & ‘16 I think). 12/26 was brutal for both my wife and me.

Ham both years and pre-made desserts from the local Whole Foods were the only things in common. Both years were small gatherings, I cooked as I have for years, and didn’t leave things out at room temperature and differently than normal.

The worst is that we both loved holiday hams and can’t bear to eat them anymore.
 
maybe make a cooked ham? We usually make a cooked ham-cut shoulder with a brown sugar, pecan and bourbon glaze for our christmas party. People have indicated they prefer it over smoked/ cured hams, so we kept making it until Covid cancelled the party 2 years in a row (and likely this year as well).
 
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