What do I do?

[pinback]

I screwed up. I bought some frozen sockeye salmon, thawed them out on the counter, but then noticed that the packaging said that you should take the shrink-wrap plastic off of them before thawing.

I looked it up on Google and it says that if you thaw it in the shrink-wrap, there's a chance you could get botulism!

Should I throw the salmon out??

[AArdvark]

Fish is gross in any form. Toss the fish before it kills you!

[Tdarcos]

Just remember, no matter what the problem is, there's always one solution that is available. No matter how trivial, suicide will always solve any problem. So go ahead and eat the fish, since if they've got botulism, that's what eating it would be, suicide.

If you find that solution unsatisfactory, then I'd say, do not take chances, throw this one away, then go buy another package of salmon. Yes, I know it's going to hurt, since salmon costs about $20-30 a pound, but consider it an educational expense. Unless you have a means to test for contamination, you can't be certain.

I've often said, back when I was in my wheelchair, that I'm not that broke that I have to eat whatever I have regardless of condition. When food is bad, I toss it. If a slice of bread or a hamburger bun has mold, I consider the entire bag contaminated, and trash it.

If there is a serious potential in some food you have, for injury or worse, the risks are too high to eat it. Besides, people routinely waste 20-50% of the food they buy. This is just another item wasted due to violation of food safety rules.

[pinback]

Alright, we have one vote for throw it away and never eat fish again, and one vote for throw it away unless you want to commit suicide instead.

salmon costs about $20-30 a pound

You have no idea how much salmon costs.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Find a tasty botulism recipe? Make lemonade out of these lemons?

[AArdvark]

Does Jack inThe Box have a fish sandwich? You can enjoy your fish and get rid of it before it gets you!

[pinback]

Can't you people take anything seriously????

[AArdvark]

Seriously, throw the fish out. Never eat fish again

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

At thirty or forty bucks a pound, you didn't throw it out, did you?

[bryanb]

I actually cut my grocery bill in half just by switching from RetroRomper Select brand salmon to the store brand. The downsides are that I'm now actually eating mislabeled tilapia, it's loaded with mercury, and I no longer get points redeemable for half gallon bottles of hot sauce, but those savings are just too good to ignore.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

But at least you can tell the temperature at any time now by looking at your veins.

[Jizaboz]

Obviously too late but next time just thaw in the plastic in a sink of cold water until they soften up. Never thaw seafood at room temp.

However! It being salmon I would have just smelled it after your thawing method. If it has no strong fishy smell and you plan on cooking it at least until the fat starts bubbling, it’s extremely unlikely anyone is getting sick.

[RealNC]

Should we expect a profile image change any day now?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

At forty, fifty bucks a pound for fish he tossed, yeah, he can afford a new profile.

[AArdvark]

It's been three days, the fish has worn out it's welcome. Tell us, did you eat the fish?

THE
AIRPLANE!
AARDVARK

[pinback]

DJ Larry signed up for "ButcherBox", where they send you overpriced meat through the mail. He did this under the guise of "eating more fish". Unclear why he couldn't just go to the store, but knowing the prices there in Humboldt Co., it's probably cheaper to get it through the mail, even with a 200% delivery markup. (He cannot get a dozen eggs for less than $7 there.)

He gets some sockeye salmon -- the finest of all salmons -- in his first shipment. He asks me about preparation techniques, because we're chompin' on salmon on the regular over in these parts, since it's only $60-$70 per pound in the Buckeye State. Excited about my suggestions, he begins the thawing procedure.

But -- disaster! The next day he reports that he thought he only got two salmon fillet portions, but there were six in the box. He thawed the whole box! And showed me proof, by showing me a picture of his six shrink-wrapped sockeye portions sittin' out there on his counter, thawed as the day is long.

I said, no problem, sockeye for six days in a row (or three, if you have it for both meals, which I definitely could/would.) He says, it says use within 24 hours of thawing. I say, that's nonsense, refrigerate it and you're good to go.

THEN, almost JOKINGLY, because I noticed they were still shrink-wrapped, and I know that most (not all!) frozen fish you buy comes with an admonition (usually in tiny, tiny print) that you should remove the fish from the shrink-wrap before thawing (and never thaw at room temperature, but I'll get to that later), I say, hey, did it say to remove the shrink-wrap first?

Well, he said, yes, it DID say to do that, but he didn't bother. I said, huh, okay, well, don't worry, I don't believe what this webpage says, and I sent him a link to one of the many, many hysterical, ridiculous clickbait sites saying, omg if you thaw in the package, you might get BOTULISM and DIE.

He says darn, was really looking forward to this salmon.

I says, ha ha ha, good joke.

And the next thing he sends me is a photo of all six salmons, the finest fish on the planet, still in their shrink-wrap, now sitting cozily with each other in his trash can.

"You're kidding, right?"

He was not.

I have never been more angry at this man. That shit is not cheap, he does not make much money, and because of some bizarre phobia, he's thrown them all in the trash. Nothing would dissuade him. I pointed out that there are approximately 30 food-borne botulism cases in the entire country every year, and most of them are in Alaska. He said, "so, there's not a zero percent chance." This is a guy who has polluted his body with alcohol and other intoxicants on the daily for decades, has once again become overweight, is clinically depressed, but because he found out there was a 0.000001% chance he might die from botulism from these salmons, he tossed them.

I have done the two things the packaging demands you don't do -- thawing at room temperature, and thawing in the shrink-wrap -- approximately ten billion times, and though I haven't kept close track, I believe my death count is still holding steady at zero.

The lawyers at the packaging place come up with a possible liability and write a warning about it on the packaging. Jackass clickbait webpage authors look it up and find out why the lawyers would have something to be nervous about and write a breathless, sensationalistic page about it. And this man who is very very concerned about his health except for the 23 hours and 59 minutes a day he is not throwing out perfectly good sockeye spends the rest of his time throwing away perfectly good sockeye.

Fuck you.

[Flack]

It's amazing how long human beings survived without warning labels.

[Tdarcos]

salmon costs about $20-30 a pound

You have no idea how much salmon costs.

Well, educate me. Point me to a location of a website for a store or chain and what the price is. According to this search, there are many different prices. After some floating abstractions that give some prices but don't say where or how much you get at that price, the first reference says "$15-30 per pound." In the questions, one reads "How much is a whole sockeye salmon?" to which the answer is "Whole-side fillets are available at $19.95 lb. Sockeye Whole Fillets range from 1-2.5 lbs." The next question there is. "How much is sockeye salmon per pound at Costco?| to which the answer is, "Best Costco Frozen Food: Kirkland Signature Wild Sockeye Salmon ($37) Trader Joe's Wild Sockeye Salmon goes for $12 a pound, whereas Costco's wild salmon package is $30 for three pounds." The next item lists it at $18/lb. Go further down the page, and Amazon is selling 10lb sockeye salmon filets for $189, which is $18.90 a pound.

Since a local store can't compete against the high efficiency of Amazon, I will stick with my original figure of $20-$30 a pound. You got evidence that it is much higher priced at ordinary stores, present it including the website. "Links or it ain't real." (The older version of "Pictures or it didn't happen.")

[pinback]

I have never paid over $16 a pound for sockeye at any grocery store I've ever been to in my life, and actually can't recall ever paying more than $12.99. At this point I wait until the $9.99 sale, which happens very frequently.

You have no idea how much salmon costs.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

If TDARCOS finds a single place in America selling sockeye for less than 60, 70 bucks a pound I will send him a Steam key for Cryptozookeeper.