Can room temperature thawed meat be refrozen and recooked safely?

Answer 1

NO! Please do not try to do this. I was trained in the belief that meat which has been thawed from a frozen state must either be cooked and eaten right away or thrown out with the garbage. (Don't ever feed raw meats or spoiled meats to your pet, either.) However, properly thawed meat or poultry can be refrozen before or after cooking. See www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/Chicken_Food_Safety_Focus/index.asp (DO NOT thaw meat at room temperature, such as on the kitchen counter.) Meat/poultry that is refrozen might suffer some quality loss as moisture may be lost during thawing. Safety will depend on whether the raw product was handled properly before it was frozen, refrozen shortly after it was thawed, cooked to a safe temperature when it is eaten and handled safely if there are any leftovers. If I remember correctly, the explanation was that meats are very prone to having dangerous bacteria. Meats that have been thawed out (especially those sitting out at room temperature) have bacteria all over the surface of the meat, and it is recommended that it should be rinsed well before cooking. That goes for all meats, except ground beef, of course. And they should all be cooked well enough to reach a certain temperature (which I have forgotten) in order to kill the dangerous bacteria. Everyone knows (or should know!) about the dangerous trichinosis (trichinella spiralis?) that exists on pork. "They" tell me that the trichina worms are practically gone in today's pork, but until ALL the scientists and pork producers can tell me for certain that pork products no longer have ANY trichina worms in them, I will continue to fully cook all my pork products--bacon, pork chops, Boston butts, baby back ribs, etc. While beef and chicken products have never been said to have worms the way pork does, I still handle all raw meats carefully. I especially wash carefully my chickens! Those delicious critters are pretty nasty in life! I cringe when watching employees of the fried chicken places grab the bags of chicken from the refrig, cut them open, and immediately start battering them for cooking--with no washing whatsoever! I understand that no one has ever gotten sick, or worse, from eating their unwashed chicken, but it still makes me cringe thinking about those nasty birds! I wash off all my beef products, too. I wash all my steaks, roasts, stew meat, etc. I don't use soap! (But I know someone who does. Yuk! That's being too careful, if you ask me.) My point is, I don't know how those people who work in the slaughterhouses and grocery store meat departments handle the meats. I don't know how many times they may have dropped my pot roast on the nasty floor. What about the flies you see buzzing around the meat department? Has one of those been walking on my steak? They put their nasty mouths on those surfaces, too. That same mouth may have been outside a few minutes ago, and pressing into dog pooh! I've over-done this answer! To repeat, please do not refreeze any meats. Things may have improved since the 1970s, 1980s, but I have not seen or heard any "authorities" on the subject recently. To my knowledge, meat is still prone to have bacteria that could make a person very sick, if not dead. Meat should not be thawed from a frozen state, then put back into the freezer. Cathy Williams