Cryovac Question

interesting post ..... we have, in the last few weeks, been to a big "food" trade fair in a capital city and it was "BIG" with most of the major suppliers and manufacturers there, one stand we were very interested in touching base with was a major Australian company producing chicken products .....
They are about to release a cooked whole chicken that is cryovaced and is date coded to last TWO WEEKS in a chilled state, NOT FROZEN ...... yes 2 weeks in the fridge and it is chicken and a very big company so they have done MAJOR testing on it and it has passed all tests ........ they say it is all in the "cryovacing" ......... i would guess only a day if opened ..... but still 2 weeks un-opened is good ..
Food for thought..
Cheers
JM&Kds

Peter
In short........... Months if frozen
We did that, and eat out of our 40 lt Engel for 3 months plus, once we got home, we were still picking thru the last of it, and enjoying what was left for the next 6-8 weeks

SWMBO did 78 meals. Mainly in meal lots, cryovaced roasts, bolognaise bases, silversides, snags. A few weekends cooking up about 6 - 8 weeks before we set out.

Sealed, flattened, and frozen.
As the Engel was packed, meals were mixed up in layers, so we did not eat rummage thru all the time.

That mighty little Fridge kept everything frozen for the next 3 months.

As often as we could, we woulf backfill with plastic drink bottles of water, keeping the fridge as full as possible, thus keeping the bulk colder, longer.

Peas were freeze dried type Suprise Brand, and potatoe was Deb instant Mashed.
Small cans of corn pieces finished off everything.

Of course nothing beats fresh Vegies, so we would get them as often as we could.

Cheers
Bucky

Check in your supermarket I think it's Sunrice brand. They do several shelf stable chicken curry & rice variations. The curry and rice are in separate foil pouches and just require heating in the container in the box. 12 months best before shelf life - not chilled! Great emergency meals and small size but filling.

Dru

I too have a cryo machine, but have - until now - ony used it for meats (and pineapple slices!) so am intersted...
What is the food you are planning to store?
And...would cook-cryo-freeze be a better method?

I usually do a few precooked casseroles before a long trip and they have lasted quite a long time. I move stuff out of the freezer into the fridge as we go and when the freezer is finally empty it gets turned off.

As long as the cooked food is frozen as soon as cooked then little chance of bacteria and if cryovac'd well and double sealed then I've had zero problems.

I always double seal just in case the first seal fails.

Peter,

I have heard somewhere that if you cryovac cooked food and just keep it in the fridge it can build up dangerous levels of the bugs that make you crook but because it is sealed, the bacteria that makes food smelly and lets you know it is off doesn't grow, so it looks ok, smells ok but can make you very sick. I think it is only safe for a few days. Frozen is ok.

I put cooked food into Lock n Lock containers and put it in my fridge or in ice in the esky and treat it the same as I treat food at home in my fridge.

Regards,
Bob

Peter

Whatever you decide on based on above posts (cooked v uncooked etc) aside, p[personally we stay away from fish, chicken, and meat-on-the-bone.
We find red meat lasts best.
Personally I get the meat made up in meal-sized portions, get the butcher to cryovac with their super duper machine (much much better than the useless cheapies) and then place in my car fridge. It lasts up to 6 weeks in a "crusty" state (not frozen solid but icy)

Good luck with your travels, don't get food poisoned

CJ

Cryovaccing. Cooked food is just begging for food poisoning and not the normal crook guts variety
anaerobic bacteria can be some of the worst including botulism

Peter

We normally Cryovac all different types of meats and cooked foods such as caseroles in meal size portions. These are kept in the fridge around the 4degC mark and do not run the fridge as a freezer due to the amount of power that takes.
We normally do not take seafood but normally chicken/pork will get used within 2 weeks; red meat, bacon, caserols etc 4-5 weeks without a problem.
The croyovaced foods get packed at the bottom of the fridge layered roughly in the order they will be eaten with a single layer of high density foam camping mattress which helps keep a constant temperature.

Chris

SelmerVI - Virtually all cooked food will keep O.K. for two to three weeks if vacuum sealed. Exposure to air is the major reason why food spoils rapidly.

The major sources of food poisoning are:

1. From contact with contaminated hands (not washing hands after going to toilet - e. coli).

2. Contamination from rodent droppings or rodents contact with food (salmonella, hantavirus and several other nasties).

3. Meats, particularly chicken, that contain campylobactor. Campylobactor lives in chickens intestinal systems at 42 deg C and can survive refrigeration. Campylobactor needs oxygen and room temperatures to multiply. Campylobactor gives you gastroenteritus and is one of the more common food-poisoning origins.

4. Unwashed fresh fruit and vegetables that can be contaminated with a range of bacteria and viruses.

5. Botulism. Clostridium botulinum is one of the most deadly organisms known to man. It's in soil and in some aquatic environments. Its spores need some time (a few hours) at room temperature to develop. Botulism is associated with low-temperature, minimal processing of food and poor food storage (leaving food lying around at room temperature for 2-3 hours or more)

All of the above bugs are killed by temperatures above 74 deg C (165 deg F) held for 5 mins or more at that temperature.

You won't have any problems if you cook food properly, and store and handle opened food properly.
That means:

1. Cooking food to high temperatures for at least 5 minutes.

2. Eating opened food within an hour or two, and not leaving it at room temperature for extended periods.

3. Washing hands before handling food, and washing fresh fruit and vegetables before you eat them.

Cryovaced food that has been cooked to high temperature, then stored at fridge temperatures for a period of a week or ten days, should pose no problems at all.

The problems stem from opened food that is exposed to contact with air (oxygen for bugs to thrive on), warmth (bugs need body-temperature warmth to breed), and contamination from dirty hands, rodents, soil, and intestinal tracts.

I like to cut open whole chooks to ensure they've been cleaned properly. You'd be staggered to find how badly cleaned a lot of chooks are.
We even bought a (fresh) chook from Woolies last year, that hadn't been cleaned!
It was only because I cut the chook in half before cooking, that I found it still contained all its guts.

Processed meats such as salamis, etc, that are processed at inadequate temperatures are notorious for carrying bugs.

Meat such as red meat, bacon, ham, etc., will go "off" after storing for a few days in the fridge uncovered. The usual "off" smell is caused by the fat going rancid. Despite the unpleasant and smell that seemingly is a warning, rancid fat on meat won't kill you.

It will give an unpleasant taste to the food, but you can use this meat if you cut off the rancid fat and wash the meat.
Most people prefer to discard meat that smells "off" - and this is wise, as you can get diaorrhea from fresh meat that's cooked when it starts to smell "off".

The major sources of illness with food are related to poor storage after cooking or opening. Most cases of food poisoning are handled by the immune system with no major drama. You might get some diaorrhea, feel a "bit crook", but you recover within 24 hrs.

Chicken and seafood are the most notorious sources of food poisoning, and these products require particular care in handling, before and after, being cooked.

I've had gastroenteritis, the source of which was black rats roaming a (military) bush kitchen in a 3rd world country. It's not fun, I tell you.
I spent 4 days in hospital, and 3 of those 4 days are lost to me, I was so crook.

This following link gives good food handling advice.

http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/safetysanitation/a/bacteria.htm

Cheers - Ron.

I hope this discussion has highlighted there is potentially issues with cryovacced ready to eat food which is different to traditional storage methods and people will at least pay particular attention to hygienic preparation. Storage temps and reheating thoroughly (I believe cb toxin is denatured by heat although the spores are not killed)

Ill sickness off by stressing any crovacced food fresh or cooked has to be kept at low temps (the closer to zero the better)
Working in a butcher shop we had to educate people that thought cryovac meant it didn't need refridgeration