What is the scientific food hygiene reason for not cooking meat from frozen?

Answer 1

Meat and poultry may carry E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Toxoplasmosis, Trichinella spiralis, and Listeria. Fish and seafood may carry Vibrio cholerae and hepatitis A. Thorough cooking is required to kill these disease-causing agents. The core of the meat may remain frozen when cooking so defrosting first is most advised.

Answer 2

Well, there is at least one cooker that is sold on the sky shopping channels that is designed to cook straight from frozen!

They actually have a recomendation that this is the best way to cook meat because;
1. There is no time for bacteria to grow while the meat is thawing (this is the major problem under traditional means).
2. The meat does not dry out as it sometimes does when cooked after defrosting.
3. The texture is better.
4. The taste is excellent.

So, there we have it - there are different viewpoints.

Answer 3

I regularly cook meat, red and white, from frozen, as I find the flavour is leeched out in the blood and water if you defrost the product first. I have suffered no ill effect from this, and I am clearly not dead. It's a good idea to check that a product is not still frozen before you eat it - you can detect this by some tell tale signs - a hard crystal coating, bright red colouration in red meats and pink colouration in white meats, the food being dreadfully cold is also a bit of a giveaway....stick somethin in the food to test for a hard centre - if this is the case I have always found the food not be 'ready'

Not terribly scientific though....

Answer 4

You have all the correct reasons for not cooking from frozen its because of the chance that some of the meat is not cooked when the outside looks well done!

This uncooked bit particularly in poultry and pork can harbour all sorts of nasty bacteria. This bacteria is in all likelihood there in the first place and can only be removed by cooking at a high temperature.

Be warned! If your patience gets the better of you, even if you try defrosting in a microwave or slinging it on the barbecue you still may not cook the middle - best to thoroughly defrost.

Answer 5

At camp, you will not have the luxury of fridge freezers, microwaves and ovens to help you keep and prepare food so extra care must be taken and water for washing hands always placed at convenient places. When Cubs or Scouts are doing the cooking, please give discrete supervision until you can be sure they know and are following the basic rules of hygiene.

The following is one of many true stories investigated by the Department of Public Health.

A lady had prepared a cold buffet for her daughter's birthday party which was to be attended by many of her school friends. Because the food had been prepared a day in advance, it was kept in the refrigerator until a couple of hours before the party began. The lady had also removed a joint of frozen pork from the freezer and had put it on the top shelf of the fridge (on a shallow plate) to defrost. The liquid from the defrosting meat soon filled the shallow plate and started to drip onto the food below. A couple of hours before the party, the buffet food was taken out of the fridge and put on a table to enable it to warm up to room temperature.

Within a few hours of the food being eaten, every child that had attended the party was being treated in hospital for varying degrees of Salmonella food poisoning.

Answer 6

Meat must be unfrozen and at similar temperature throughout before cooking or the outer layers will be cooked but the inside could still be frozen. You will risk not killing the bacteria that live deeper in the meat and so will have a burnt outside, raw middle bit, frozen inside and get food poisoning to boot!

Answer 7

Meat contains bacteria, from a variety of souces. Cooking from frozen will fail to allow the heat of the oven or pan to penetrate the whole joint or piece evenly over the cooking period. So some parts remain cold, if not slightly frozen and the bacteria survive. Also, the uncooked parts are not so tasty being poorly broken dwon by enzymes, and are not well digested once eaten.
Beyond DAve

Answer 8

Supermarkets and other shops warn you not to cook from frozen because they know some people will not allow extra cooking time to allow the meat to cook thoroughly. Some meat is easier to cut and slice when part frozen. Pork is one and this is often cooked from frozen. The important thing is to check that ALL the meat has reached the correct temperature before being eaten.

Answer 9

Poultry should always be defrosted - see reasons stated by others - however I have cooked lamb, beef and pork from frozen. As long as you cook them thoroughly they are just fine. Pork used to have a reputation as unsafe but that is no longer the case. Anything with a bone in will cook quicker as bone transfers heat to middle of meat. Enjoy.

Answer 10

It's so that the meat cooks thoroughly all the way through, cooking from frozen won't let the middle of the meat cook properly and the outside will be overdone.

Answer 11

The outside heats up in advance of the frozen core. This leaves temperature conditions in the meat or poultry anything from -30 to + 80 degrees C.
Somewhere in that range the dormant bacteria come to life and the nasty ones still survive.
Result - Illness or worse.