Undercooked Food

[tabster]

Hi, newbie here. Don't really know where to post this. I pretty much joined this forum because my mom made broiled chicken today and I ate about 1/4 of mine before realizing it wasn't all the way cooked. I have had this phobia of food poisoning etc. my whole life, and it turned me vegetarian for 8 years, however I have been eating meat for the last 2. I even got to the point where I could talk about it without feeling like talking about it was going to make me have it, but as you can see this under cooked chicken thing has undermined all of that. I am freaking out right now, and from what I understand if I have it I will know within 6 hours.....can anyone point me in a direction that will give me statistics or something on salmonella? I know I should stop googling it but I cant! I'm very very worried and I know if I get any type of symptoms I will go vegetarian again and probably end up not eating for a really long time...AGAIN.

[cinque]

Are you sure it was undercooked? I don't know what broiling is - is that like grilling? Have you expressed to your mom how frightened you are? She might be able to reassure you!

[TheSweetThinker]

Salmonella, from what I've heard, is somewhat rare...I mean, when it comes to raw eggs and stuff, there's only a one in 22,000 chance of you eating a salmonella-infected egg (raw or otherwise)! I know it's customary to automatically associate undercooked food with dreadful food poisoning, but that's not always the case...some foods may seem undercooked to the untrained eye, but I think as long as the chicken wasn't still extremely soft, pink, & gooey (the way it looks when it's packaged) then I doubt you have to worry about anything like salmonella.

I'd like to think that most slightly undercooked foods just give people stomachaches, cramps, gas, or diarrhea...but honestly, I think you'll be fine! Even just 10 minutes in cooking-heat is enough to kill loads of potentially harmful bacteria.

[Keeley]

A tip! If you dont v* an hour after its eaten you good!

[tabster]

The outside was cooked but nobody's was cooked enough in the inside. It was pink and a little slimy looking in some parts but the other parts were white and definitely cooked. I showed a part to my mom and she said not to eat that part, and then she told my brother not to eat the rest of his because it was undercooked. I think it was because the chicken was so big it couldn't get cooked all the way even though the outside was charred.

And no my mom did not reassure me, she is tired of me always asking her if food is cooked all the way, if it is safe to eat, did she wash her hands, did she put the meat back on the plate that had raw meat on it and cross contaminate it??? Even when I KNOW she never does that I still have to ask and then she just gets fed up with me and gets mad. And it isn't even safe to be vegetarian because alot of food poisoning cases come from cross contaminated vegetables!

[tabster]

OMG I just read it takes 24-72 hours for symptoms to show up!!! OMG. I am freaking out.

[KaydeeJayde]

Keely, that's not true at all. I got food poisoning from old iced tea a few years ago, I felt absolutely horrendous about an hour after I drank it, but I didn't vomit until three ish hours later. Symptoms usually show up after a couple of hours, in my experience. Of course, I'm no expert, I've only had it once and members of my family have only had it 3 times in y life (I'm 21).