posted
Its horrible you got food poisoning, but its pretty unlikely that every Charley's Steakery everywhere is a cess pool of unsafe food practices just because your local one is (apparently).
Also, unless you were diagnosed with food poisoning by a doctor it is possible (unlikely, maybe, but possible) that you didn't have food poisoning at all. You were just coincidentally ill round about the same time. Or, perhaps even less likely yet still possible, you got food poisoning from something else that you just happened to consume just prior or after eating at Charley's Steakery. Twice.
Posts: 450 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
While all these things are possible, why risk it? Trust me, while the food is tasty, the adverse effects are...well, let's just say, substantial.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
First time was BarBQ cheddar steak sandwich. Second time was spicy Asian BarBQ steak sandwich.
Oh MPH, you rouge, did you happen to eat at Charley's, or are you just making fun of my sentence structure?
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: First time was BarBQ cheddar steak sandwich. Second time was spicy Asian BarBQ steak sandwich.
Oh MPH, you rouge, did you happen to eat at Charley's, or are you just making fun of my sentence structure?
Are you sure you're not just allergic to their bread, their steak or the BBQ sauce? I actually find that more likely than getting food poisoning twice in a row from the same place, assuming the place is inspected and your state has decent health codes.
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posted
Oh! I just remembered! I've also had two automobile accidents! Coincidence or causation? Perhaps we'll never know.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Actually, agribusiness has succeeded at accomplishing what PETA could never have done: made meat too dangerous to eat.
"Meat and poultry sold in the United States is widely contaminated with drug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that can cause serious illnesses in humans, a new study contends. The types of health problems linked to S. aureus range from mild skin infections to life-threatening diseases, such as pneumonia, sepsis and heart infection. In the new nationwide study, researchers analyzed 136 samples of 80 brands of beef, chicken, pork and turkey purchased at 26 retail stores in five cities: Chicago; Flagstaff, Ariz.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Los Angeles; and Washington, D.C. The results showed that 47 percent of the samples were contaminated with S. aureus, and that 52 percent of the bacteria were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics."
In other words, short of carrying a biolab around with you, the only safe way to eat meat is in McDonalds-gray slabs or chunks... the near opposite of which most people go to steakhouses for.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I worked for many years as a disease investigator, and now work as a sanitation inspector, doing another facet of the same job.
I have to echo what was said above... unless you have laboratory evidence that the illnesses that you experienced were definitely food poisoning, or were part of a very large group of unrelated people who all ate at Charleys and all got sick at around the same time (and a great deal of epidemiology and statistical analysis was done), there is no way to state that you had food poisoning OR that your illness was caused by Charleys.
People frequently believe that the last thing they ate was the cause of their gastrointestinal illness (we call this "last meal bias") or that something they ate that the rest of their household didn't eat, or possibly something new (sashimi or sushi perhaps) that they've never tried before caused them to be sick. These are almost never the case.
Again, until you've ruled out every other exposure you've had in the last 24-72 hours (or longer depending on the causative organism) -not just food exposures, either... GI illness can be caused by environmental exposures, animals, person-to-person, food sensitivities, stress, autoimmune problems, and many other causes - you can not state with any amount of certainty that you even HAD food poisoning, let alone implicate a specific restaurant or food.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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"Meat and poultry sold in the United States is widely contaminated with drug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that can cause serious illnesses in humans, a new study contends. The types of health problems linked to S. aureus range from mild skin infections to life-threatening diseases, such as pneumonia, sepsis and heart infection.
This is such bushwah. Of course there is bacteria on our meat. Everyone knows that, or should know it. That's why we have to handle meat carefully, making sure it's kept refrigerated until it's prepared and then making sure we cook it to proper temperatures. The only real risk of S. aureus in food is Staph intoxication, which occurs when a prepared food, such as potato salad or a meat soup or stew, is contaminated (after it's cooked) with Staph organisms and then subject to time-temperature abuse (being left in the "danger zone" for 4 hours or more). This allows the Staph to grow and contaminate the food with its toxic byproducts which make us sick.
If you are careful in your food handling to prevent cross-contamination, time-temperature abuse and cook your meat to recommended temperatures, it's perfectly safe to eat.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Long story short, I've eaten there twice, and gotten food poisoning twice. Avoid at all costs.
I've eaten there twice and didn't get food poisoning either time. I must be immune to food poisoning!
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I ate there once a week almost every week for 2 years and never got sick. Clearly I share Jon Boy's superpower!
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quote:This is such bushwah. Of course there is bacteria on our meat. Everyone knows that, or should know it.
Two problems with this. First, the link referred to drig resistant strains of bacteria. Of course there is bacteria in the meat, but the only reason it's antibiotic resistant is because livestock is fed antibiotics.
Second, Cows' natural food is grass, which is normally fermented in the cow's rumen. Sure there is bacteria in there, but the chemistry doesn't support the kind of bacteria that can survive in the human gut. Once you change the cow's diet to grain, it becomes acidic, and can support the e-coli we've been hearing so much about lately. It also causes the cow to get sick so they have to feed it antibiotics to keep the bacteria in check (see point one).
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Are you sure you're not just allergic to their bread, their steak or the BBQ sauce?
I have no food allergies. It is possible that I am devolving some, but I doubt it, and my symptoms are not indicative of an allergic reaction.
I'm confused by your statement that your symptoms aren't indicative of an allergic reaction.
Because I have an allergy to mussels, and the symptoms are pretty much what I would expect someone would use to describe food poisoning. In fact, at first that's what I thought it was.
So what kind of symptoms did you have that aren't "indicative of an allergic reaction"?
Posts: 409 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
My husband had a few hospital trips with digestive problems that we assumed to be food poisoning and they tested him for food allergies and suggested we do the exclusion diet to figure out if he was allergic to something. This experience convinced me that food allergies and poisoning have pretty much identical symptoms.
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posted
You might want to contact the manager. It may not be a chain-wide epidemic (as the overabundance of snark advises, in its roundabout way), but it's certainly possible there's one or more employees on a shift at that particular branch who are doing something wrong and/or are themselves contaminated with something and don't know of it.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: it's certainly possible there's one or more employees on a shift at that particular branch who are doing something wrong and/or are themselves contaminated with something and don't know of it.
But it's considerably more likely an allergic reaction or a coincidence. See the post from maui babe, for instance.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: "...The types of health problems linked to S. aureus range from mild skin infections to life-threatening diseases, such as pneumonia, sepsis and heart infection...."
Just for perspective, S. aureus is one of the most common bacteria in the normal skin flora. We pretty much are exposed to it all the time. It can cause serious infections -- and I'm not likely voluntarily to chug S. aureus smoothies -- but it is quite literally everywhere.
You aren't going to avoid exposure by avoiding beef. Even just rubbing your own eyes likely inoculates your mucous membranes with it. (Yum! )
quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: Once you change the cow's diet to grain, it becomes acidic, and can support the e-coli we've been hearing so much about lately.
That's been raised into serious question relatively recently. steven had posted about this here some time ago, and I kept up on the literature.
quote:But between 2000 and 2006, scientists began to take a closer look at the effect of diet on E. coli O157:H7 specifically. A different set of findings emerged to indicate that this particular strain did not, in fact, behave like other strains of E. coli found in cattle guts. Most importantly (in terms of consumer safety), scientists showed in a half-dozen studies that grass-fed cows do become colonized with E. coli O157:H7 at rates nearly the same as grain-fed cattle. An Australian study actually found a higher prevalence of O157:H7 in the feces of grass-fed rather than grain-fed cows. The effect postulated (and widely publicized) in the 1998 Science report—that grain-fed, acidic intestines induced the colonization of acid-resistant E. coli—did not apply to the very strain of bacteria that was triggering all the recalls.
The initial articles were based on assumptions that didn't hold up. It is explained in the Slate article, but I think there is at least one summary in the research literature, if it would make a difference to anyone.
posted
I won't say it isn't an allergic reaction (as it is a possibility), but I will say that what made me suspect food poisoning is that bread, lettuce, tomatoes, steak, onion, cheddar cheese, provolone cheese, bar-b-q sauce and spicy Asian type sauces are all things I have had before and since without problems AND the timing of when I ate and when my symptoms began, the similarity of the symptoms and the fact that I have a pretty iron clad stomach and super rarely have a strong reaction AND I have zero allergies to food/drugs/pollen/etc, all lead me to believe as I do.
Is it possible that it is a huge coincidence? Stranger things have happened. I still don't believe it though.
Regardless, I will not eat there again, and now all of you can make that choice for yourself knowing that there is a possibility of extremely negative gastrointestinal side effects.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Regardless, I will not eat there again, and now all of you can make that choice for yourself
Since we have no idea which Charley's location you ate at, you haven't actually given us any form of useful warning even if your illness was due to a defect in their product.
Unless you're suggesting that whatever it was was caused by their recipes or corporate policies?
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I'm not suggesting either way. It could be that a supplier of one ingredient is tainted, and went out to every single restaurant, or it could be that the fry cook doesn't wash his hands.
Or something else entirely.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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"Meat and poultry sold in the United States is widely contaminated with drug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that can cause serious illnesses in humans, a new study contends. The types of health problems linked to S. aureus range from mild skin infections to life-threatening diseases, such as pneumonia, sepsis and heart infection.
This is such bushwah. Of course there is bacteria on our meat. Everyone knows that, or should know it. That's why we have to handle meat carefully, making sure it's kept refrigerated until it's prepared and then making sure we cook it to proper temperatures. The only real risk of S. aureus in food is Staph intoxication, which occurs when a prepared food, such as potato salad or a meat soup or stew, is contaminated (after it's cooked) with Staph organisms and then subject to time-temperature abuse (being left in the "danger zone" for 4 hours or more). This allows the Staph to grow and contaminate the food with its toxic byproducts which make us sick.
If you are careful in your food handling to prevent cross-contamination, time-temperature abuse and cook your meat to recommended temperatures, it's perfectly safe to eat.
QFT
Thank you for sparing me the effort of posting that same info. I appreciate it.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Location: Ventura CA, Pacific View Mall
I'm not suggesting either way. It could be that a supplier of one ingredient is tainted, and went out to every single restaurant, or it could be that the fry cook doesn't wash his hands.
Or something else entirely.
Yeah, with chains I would stay away from that location. I do understand, though.....I got violently sick after eating at a Krystal's here in Ocala FL, and both times I wasn't the only person to get sick. It was actually food poisoning, caused by improper food handling techniques. They got cited for it.
But even though I know it was one person causing it, at one location, I can't eat at the chain any more, it just makes me ill thinking about it.
If you really like the food, try going to another location and trying it. Most food poisoning cases are caused by improper storing of food, or improper handling of food, not because of problems with the food itself. Another location would not have the same issue, usually.
If that doesn't work it is probably a newly developing food allergy.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Forgive me if I lack humor as it was 5 hour ordeal that lead to dehydration and lying in the fetal position wishing for my own death.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Forgive me if I lack humor as it was 5 hour ordeal that lead to dehydration and lying in the fetal position wishing for my own death.
I'm sorry if I wasn't sympathetic. My record for longest time with food poisoning is seven days. Living in the third world, I've probably logged many months of time with food poisoning.
I'm glad we both survived.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I don't think this thread is working. I really want a bacon three-cheese steak sandwich right now.
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: I don't think this thread is working. I really want a bacon three-cheese steak sandwich right now.
You should try the Angus three-cheese sandwich at Arby's. If you don't get food poisoning you should still qualify for cardio-vascular disease.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:I'm sorry if I wasn't sympathetic. My record for longest time with food poisoning is seven days. Living in the third world, I've probably logged many months of time with food poisoning.
I'm glad we both survived.
Thanks. Seven days? Yowser! Where do you live BB?
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The article you posted didn't mention the antibiotic aspect of grain fed beef, though. Do you have any feedback on that?
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:I'm sorry if I wasn't sympathetic. My record for longest time with food poisoning is seven days. Living in the third world, I've probably logged many months of time with food poisoning.
I'm glad we both survived.
Thanks. Seven days? Yowser! Where do you live BB?
I was living in Taiwan at the time. But if you go to most countries in South East Asia you're gonna get sick.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: CT: Interesting.
The article you posted didn't mention the antibiotic aspect of grain fed beef, though. Do you have any feedback on that?
For my part, I'm sure we are breeding resistance there. Are you asking for my opinion or for documentation? I can dig for the latter if you like, but it'll have to be squeezed in during free time.
Life has been ... pressing.
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