this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
880 points (99.0% liked)
Microblog Memes
8889 readers
1790 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not a scientist, but most microbes can't live in pure oil or grease. So If you get the food bits out, the oil itself will go rancid and taste awful before becoming actually dangerous.
It's not the microbes themselves but the toxins they release when they die
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_toxin#%3A%7E%3Atext=Bacteria+toxins+which+can+be%2Care+considered+nonvirulent+and+nontoxigenic.
Tetanus, botulism, Staph. They're not bacteria itself but the leftover when bacteria die. So those toxins can build up on surfaces if not cleaned.
Bacteria that can not grow can not produce anything.
That would require more than a quick wipe to stop from haopening, though.
Without it being alive it should just pass through the body though right? Because any of the stuff in the pan was killed during the cooking process. Itd be hard to cook anything in a pan that's not heated
Poisons don't have to be alive to hurt you.
The microbes need to be alive to produce them when you finish using the pan it’s hundreds of degrees so the bacteria are dead
The microbes are dead but they leave behind the toxins which require greater heat to denature.
That's why there are warnings about reheating some foods over and over. There's minimal bacterial growth, then the bacteria is killed in heating sto safe temp. But the bacteria leave behind the toxins. Reheat and you get bacteria growth again before death increasing the number of toxins. Keep repeating and you have a dangerous level of toxins despite no living bacteria.
That would be true if first you ignore the effect of heating the pan on depyrogenation (killing of the toxins) which happens at approximately 250C which while hotter than your food that’s filled with moisture will get is reasonable for a cast iron pan to get to during both preheating and drying
2nd you assume the toxins accumulate over time, which they wouldn’t because the microscopic amounts still in the pan will leave on the food and with a cursory wipe of a paper towel
The reason it’s a concern with food is because if your food gets to 170F it’s considered overcooked so it never fully sterilizes and doesn’t depyrogenate but it’s not unusual to get a cast iron pan to 500F which does both.
If you ever worked in a field that does sterilization you will learn the differences between cleaning, sterilizing, and depyrogenating
To tack on, acidic foods break down the finish and create allow the creation of rust. If you skip a few days of cooking on a pan with a pocket of rust filled with unwashed food, you might get something dangerous brewing. But scraping out the pan and cooking frequently, you could probably go the distance.
For additional reading, they can look up regulations on marrying bottles of condiments.