What are the issues involved in receiving delivery food during this pandemic?
Can one safely receive and eat delivery food as follows: Avoid contact with the deliveryperson (have them leave it outside), carefully dispose of the packaging in the same way you would for a package delivery, then take the delivered food and reheat it in the oven for a time/cooking temp that will kill the virus?
The respiratory viruses as a family do not appear very resistant to heat (as compared to e.g. some of the foodborne illnesses.) From https://www.quora.com/At-what-temperature-does-the-cold-virus-die/answer/Thomas-Basterfield (I didn’t check the citations yet), it seems like 70C for 25 minutes will kill most respiratory viruses thoroughly. This is such a low temperature that I wonder if hot food is inherently inhospitable to them even without the reheating step. My oven dial doesn’t even go that low. (Getting the center of the food to this temperature could be challenging without using a higher oven temperature, but you really only need to do the surface; the center has already been cooked, and any relevant contamination will be on the surface from post-cooking handling.)
(There is also a mention of autoclaves, which apparently require <300F and <20 minutes at 15 PSI over atmospheric to sterilize surgical instruments. (Eyeballed numbers, do not trust.) In fact, I was able to find a published paper which concludes that a pressure cooker can be used in place of an autoclave with good results, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12267939. So a pressure cooker (e.g. an instant pot) seems like another route to ensure delivery food is heated to a temperature that will kill viruses, although it’s probably overkill and is likely to damage the texture of some foods, but is maybe a better option for foods that would dry out objectionably in the oven.)
(It also seems very likely to me that a microwave could achieve sufficient conditions for this, although I think it would be harder to be confident about it without at least having a meat thermometer.)
Does this seem like a reasonable approach?
[One thing I still have to figure out: I have been receiving “ready-to-heat” meals from https://www.freshly.com/. They are precooked but refrigerated, and require reheating. I’m not sure what my risk here is, and how much I can reduce it by just heating them longer in the microwave than the instructions call for.]
My preliminary look gave me a similar “huh, is cooked food just totally fine?” reaction, but I don’t trust myself to have enough context to know the answer.
What are the issues involved in receiving delivery food during this pandemic?
Can one safely receive and eat delivery food as follows: Avoid contact with the deliveryperson (have them leave it outside), carefully dispose of the packaging in the same way you would for a package delivery, then take the delivered food and reheat it in the oven for a time/cooking temp that will kill the virus?
The respiratory viruses as a family do not appear very resistant to heat (as compared to e.g. some of the foodborne illnesses.) From https://www.quora.com/At-what-temperature-does-the-cold-virus-die/answer/Thomas-Basterfield (I didn’t check the citations yet), it seems like 70C for 25 minutes will kill most respiratory viruses thoroughly. This is such a low temperature that I wonder if hot food is inherently inhospitable to them even without the reheating step. My oven dial doesn’t even go that low. (Getting the center of the food to this temperature could be challenging without using a higher oven temperature, but you really only need to do the surface; the center has already been cooked, and any relevant contamination will be on the surface from post-cooking handling.)
(There is also a mention of autoclaves, which apparently require <300F and <20 minutes at 15 PSI over atmospheric to sterilize surgical instruments. (Eyeballed numbers, do not trust.) In fact, I was able to find a published paper which concludes that a pressure cooker can be used in place of an autoclave with good results, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12267939. So a pressure cooker (e.g. an instant pot) seems like another route to ensure delivery food is heated to a temperature that will kill viruses, although it’s probably overkill and is likely to damage the texture of some foods, but is maybe a better option for foods that would dry out objectionably in the oven.)
(It also seems very likely to me that a microwave could achieve sufficient conditions for this, although I think it would be harder to be confident about it without at least having a meat thermometer.)
Does this seem like a reasonable approach?
[One thing I still have to figure out: I have been receiving “ready-to-heat” meals from https://www.freshly.com/. They are precooked but refrigerated, and require reheating. I’m not sure what my risk here is, and how much I can reduce it by just heating them longer in the microwave than the instructions call for.]
I like the discussion in Food Safety and Coronavirus: A Comprehensive Guide. Note that the author has a conflict of interest, but I don’t think he let it affect the article.
Thanks, I believe that article is great advice and I fully endorse it—I saw it a few days ago but never came back here and updated my comment.
FWIW I think this’d make a good top-level question post.
Thanks, will maybe do that today, it’s on the queue.
My preliminary look gave me a similar “huh, is cooked food just totally fine?” reaction, but I don’t trust myself to have enough context to know the answer.