Bread Maker

[Alexis]

Never, ever, put eggs in the fridge.

Butter is out all day too in colder days...in a container, of course...but goes in the fridge in summer if it is very, very hot.

 

 

 

[PossumGirl]

Mr. Possum thinks I am odd and obsessive about use by dates, refrigeration, food falling on the floor, etc.  I blame it all on my mother who caused me to grow up phobic about this kind of thing.

I AM actually better about it all since living here, as I have learned that you pretty much have to be or you won't actually be able to eat very much.  I do think that we are far more worried about refrigeration, etc. in the States than in the rest of thw world.  It also means we probaby have no immunity whatsoever!

PG

[samdebretagne]

As an American (and a dietitian to boot), I used to obsess over things sitting out unfrigerated, etc, but since moving here, I've relaxed quite a bit.  I admit that I did have some reserves at first about leaving my bread machine all night with eggs and milk in it, but now I do it all the time and have never had any problems.  Like someone else said, I just figured the cooking would kill anything that grew overnight. 

Plus, MOH told me that France eradicated the salmonella in eggs many years ago - don't know if this is true or not, but I like to pretend it is when eating a few spoonfuls of raw cookie dough!! ;-)

[Coco]

I've noticed that you really have to double check sell-by dates in French supermarkets.  I'm used to Waitrose, where everything gets knocked down to half price if it's reached it's sell-by date and M&S where they just won't let you have it!  But HERE!!!  When I first moved here I bought half a dozen eggs without checking, only to discover they were a week PAST their sell-by and recently (Oct) I had some raspberry pannacotta Hagen Dazs mini-tubs which I thought tasted a bit "icey" when I checked the sell-by it was 08/08/06!!  And they are still selling the same flavour this week with that sell-by; it obviously wasn't very popular!!!

[Alexis]

I agree about checking the dates.  I put my glasses on now to have a look.  I've been 'done' in the past.

All chickens going into a battery house are injected to prevent salmonella.  I have done a lot of these injection jobs.  You are more likely to pick it up from one of those family run fresh from the field places I believe.

[tetley]

another thing to try is using less salt than stated......my bread used to come out heavy, but I read somewhere about salt making the bread dense....and in my case it seems to have worked.

[samdebretagne]

[quote user="tetley"]another thing to try is using less salt than stated......my bread used to come out heavy, but I read somewhere about salt making the bread dense....and in my case it seems to have worked.[/quote]

Salt acts as a balance for the yeast, so too much salt and you'll kill all the yeast.  Put too little salt and it'll rise too much.

[Deimos]

[quote user="samdebretagne"]As an American (and a dietitian to boot), I used to obsess over things sitting out unfrigerated, etc, but since moving here, I've relaxed quite a bit.  I admit that I did have some reserves at first about leaving my bread machine all night with eggs and milk in it, but now I do it all the time and have never had any problems.  Like someone else said, I just figured the cooking would kill anything that grew overnight. 

Plus, MOH told me that France eradicated the salmonella in eggs many years ago - don't know if this is true or not, but I like to pretend it is when eating a few spoonfuls of raw cookie dough!! ;-)
[/quote]

Not directly relevant to the thread but seems the UK has detected Salmonella in eggs from France (and other countries, France not being the worst).

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6153362.stm

Ian

[Dick Smith]

The article says that most of the infected eggs came from three farms in Spain. It doesn't mention France per se, but just imported eggs. I speak with feeling as someone who seems to be suffering from Salmonella as we speak (and has suffered in the past) and it isn't pleasant. But not a special danger in French or British eggs, which are tested (if stamped).

[Deimos]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]...It doesn't mention France per se, but just imported eggs. ...
[/quote]

Good grief. I get the articles in my Outlook and the easiest way to get the web address is to use the "printable version" which I had always assumed was the same text in a different format - which it seems it is not.

The actual article (which mentions France) is http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6153362.stm. This text says "France had the second highest number, with one in every 170 boxes found to be contaminated.".

(Hope you feel better soon Dick)

Ian

[Dick Smith]

Hmm. Just over 0.5% - I can see that needs you to warn us all! But then the BBC should really know better as well.

Actually, this is an exercise in statistics abuse by the BBC (or another example of their pitiful understanding of such things). The article states that only 10 of 1744 boxes contained eggs (actual number of eggs not cited) which were contaminated - that is 0.57% overall if we ignore the idea that it may have been 1 or a large number of eggs in each box. 0.57% if all the eggs in the 10 boxes were contaminated, 0.04% if it was one egg in each box and the boxes each held a dozen eggs.  The rest of the cases (157) were instances in which shells were contaminated - and as they are likely to have residual chicken faecal matter on them that is hardly surprising. Not many people eat eggshells. So the number of eggs from French sources may have been as low as 0.01% of the total.

Now consider that only 10% of the eggs consumed in the UK are imported, and you see just how small this risk really is. There are between 10 and 120 eggs out there which may contain Salmonella. The UK consumes in the region of 8.8 billion eggs a year (8,800,000,000). That means that, taking the worst case scenario, the percentage of infected eggs is 0.00001363%. I may be wrong there, my calculator isn't good at such tiny numbers. Given that imported eggs are generally used in catering and flavouring operations they are likely to be fully cooked out, so the risk is infinitessimal.

Compare that to risks from other foodstuffs and I think you will see that this story is a nonsensical puff.

[Deimos]

Sorry, but I'm not into points scoring Dick.

I thought it was interesting as somebody had said about Salmonella being eliminated from eggs in France.

Ian

[Dick Smith]

Oh yes you are, Ian! Or else why post in the first place?

I'm not scoring points (except against the BBC), I'm pointing out that statistics like this need to be scrutinised to see what they really mean, rather than just accepting and spreading the scare stories. News organisations don't seem very bothered about that, and the new BBC (digital-age BBC) seems less interested than most. I would love to know how the BBC sourced the story - from a UK egg producer, maybe? Remember the anti-Apple story you gave us? That turned out to be Greenpeace simply picking on the fashionable to make a point because they thought it would be more newsworthy. I see that they are now upping the stakes to say that Apple is killing children in India and China who have the job of dissassembling old computers - but offer no evidence of harm of any kind. In theory that could happen just as in theory one individual could cop a dodgy egg, but the odds are infinitessimally small.

We have seen a lot of paranoia on another thread about how governments might, at some point in an unspecified future, do things with our data that we don't want to happen. People should really be raising their level of scepticism about what commercial and other interests are doing now to manipulate us for their profit, which is a greater threat. Like GM crops, where people emote about 'Frankenstein Food', but the real danger is that industrial complexes will control what we can sow and eat - as dangerous as letting them control our water supply. Surely our news media has a responsibility to analyse what they are told and to give us an unbiased picture, rater than just reprinting the press release?

[Deimos]

I raised the thing about the eggs in relation to France as somebody had commented that Salmonella had been eradicated in eggs in France and I happened to see something that suggested otherwise. It was you that decided to interpret this in relation to percentages of eggs in the UK. Sorry but I thought it may have interested the person who mentioned about eggs in France. I never expected you to pull what I had posted to pieces (but seems that is the sort of thing happening a lot on this forum recently). Makes one wonder why people bother to help as they are just putting themselves in the firing line for a few others who seem to enjoy pulling things to pieces.

I feel sorry you do not have something better to do with your time.

(By the way, the original Apple and toxins used in manufacture information came form a UK government report and a bit later Greenpeace picked up the story separately from their own research). Still, at least we have you to tell us how everything really is. Lucky aren't we.

Ian

[Hoddy]

Please can we get back to breadmakers ?

Hoddy

[Dick Smith]

Ian - what you posted was a dodgy PR puff. I just analysed it a bit to show how unreliable these things can be. It didn't take long!

Don't be so defensive - anyone would think you regret it...

Hoddy - I'm just responding to what Ian posted in the hope of clarifying the issue for anyone who might be worried by it.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]SNIP

but the real danger is that industrial complexes will control what we can sow and eat - as dangerous as letting them control our water supply.
[/quote]

Agree with all your post Dick but in a way people are controlling what you eat in as much as supermarkets put on the shelves what they think people in a specific area will/should eat hence you can get something in one store and not in another in a different area even though they are the same company. As to the point about controlling food supplies one only has to drive through Essex for example and see that Tesco for instance has bought/rented farms to grow their veg and have signs in the fields saying that the crop belongs to them. So as supermarkets now work (in my opinion) in an industrial way makes what you think a reality.

Sorry to go off topic a bit but I thought your (Dicks) point was very valid. Might be worth starting another thread on this and the eggs.

 

[Salty Sam]

This thread was going well and I for one found it very interesting, especially as I'm a relative newcomer to the art. I think we're all familiar with the various salmonella scares with regard to eggs, they've been around for many years and we are well aware of the dangers.

Now can we get back to the subject before someone trys to hijack the thread spouting on about the dangers of electrocuting yourself while using the breadmaker!

[Dick Smith]

Perhaps we could run both egg and bread threads, contemporaneous with each other. We could toast or fry the bread and put the eggs on top.

[verviale]

II have great success with my bread maker, have never had a faliure, always put slightly less liquid than they say, the stiffer the dough the better rise.I add olives,sundried tomatoes,fresh coriander anything I really fancy with what it is going with,fried onnions are great and gruyere cheese is brilliant,cumin seeds are nice for bread to go with currries and just to throw a spanner in the works I make my fresh pasta in it, just use the piza dough programme, pasta turns out brilliant,I then fill the raviolis with Thai chicken toppped with a rich tomato sauce,my breadmaker is worth its weight in lollipops.

[Miki]

[quote] Please can we get back to breadmakers ?

Hoddy [/quote]

I kind of agree with Mr smith,  side affairs to the thread could be contemporaneous, it would seem simple enough to work ? Egg and chips are opposites but.......

Salty Sam has a valid point

[quote] Now can we get back to the subject before someone trys to hijack the

thread spouting on about the dangers of electrocuting yourself while

using the breadmaker! [/quote]

It would be easy to do something silly whilst trying to bake bread and fry, in a mad but contemporaneous moment.

[Dick Smith]

Unless you annoy the mods, in which case you would be contemporaneous of court. Allegedly.

[Miki]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]Unless you annoy the mods, in which case you would be contemporaneous of court. Allegedly.

[/quote]

Yes fair point but could mods find a contemporaneous moment to be annoyed ?

[Dick Smith]

All at the same time? Depends on what you say to upset 'em.

[Miki]

Dick, would I do such a thing, we are here, both  for amusement and to offer advice in a contemporaneous way ..................