OT: How risky is takeout food?

Just curious to get thoughts on this. I’ve had groceries delivered, though in that case I think the risk is inevitable.

Do you think ordering takeout food is risky? For example, if you wanted to get pizza or a burger.

Most of the articles I’ve read are anecdotal.

We haven’t ordered any takeout food since this all started but if I were to do it I’d probably just put it in the oven or microwave for a bit and throw out the packaging. Then wash hands before eating.

I have not seen any evidence about the virus being transmitted by food. However, I suppose it could be present on plastic containers. Probably is safe, but may be best to transfer food to plate, throw out the containers in trash and wash hands carefully before starting to eat

Ice_Ice_Brady said:

Just curious to get thoughts on this. I’ve had groceries delivered, though in that case I think the risk is inevitable.

Do you think ordering takeout food is risky? For example, if you wanted to get pizza or a burger.

Most of the articles I’ve read are anecdotal.

Click to expand...

In general, food is safe. Your stomach kills any virus.

Answers to Common Questions About Coronavirus and the Food You Eat

The only concern that I would have is fresh produce which should be washed because the surface "could" have some virus. Even then, since employees wear gloves, this is a minimal concern.

I swung by Whole Foods and ordered 2 large pizzas and took them home and opened the box and ate.
I wore a mask from the car into the store. The guy making the pizza had a mask on and gloves.
I will let you know next week how I’m feeling. I’m definitely going to be up a couple pounds though.

Bella*chick said:

We haven’t ordered any takeout food since this all started but if I were to do it I’d probably just put it in the oven or microwave for a bit and throw out the packaging. Then wash hands before eating.

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It sounds like you are protecting against e coli rather than coronavirus. Of course, that OK too.

The food itself should be safe if (A) nobody has touched it after it's cooked, and (B) it's cooked to a reasonably high temperature. Viruses can't handle oven temperatures, so things like pizza and burgers should be OK.

As others have said, the biggest potential danger is probably the packaging.

I assume your talking about the packaging, the virus gets killed above 150 degrees, actually a bit lower but you get the idea. I haven't got anything out yet but I would do as suggested and remove the food and wash my hands correctly, something I never really did before.

Pretty risky

when the guy told me Wendy’s was out of ranch tonight he was risking a lot of lives

There are two things to potentially worry about:
1) the food preparer getting virus on your food while preparing it and/or while packaging it after it has been prepared or cooked.
2) the preparer/delivery person/whatever getting virus on the bag and containers.

(2) is easy to deal with — take the containers out of the bag, dump their contents into/onto your plates/bowls/pots, then throw away the containers and bag and wash your hands.

(1) is more interesting/worrisome (to me anyways), especially for raw/cold food like salads or sandwiches. There could be virus on the food. It can then get on your hands directly (eating the sandwich) or on a utensil (eating salad) and then to your hands. Then you unknowing rub your nose or eye or whatever. Same can happen for warm stuff that got contaminated by the preparer after it cooled below the killing temperature.

Also, for both cold stuff and warm stuff, while swallowed contaminated stuff won’t give it to you, what if you have a “something goes down the wrong pipe” episode and you inhale a little bit. Or what if chewing contaminated food gets virus into the air in your mouth and you inhale that?

So at least for us, while we are willing to get takeout, we are only willing to get items we can heat/reheat above the killing temperature.

We have gotten takeout / delivery twice a week since this started, to support local businesses. We’ve done pickup at the restaurants, and had pizza delivered. No worries, all good. I mean, we don’t roll around on the pizza box... but we never did that before either.

Well... ALMOST never.

When isn’t fast food risky lmao

oldrover said:

We have gotten takeout / delivery twice a week since this started, to support local businesses. We’ve done pickup at the restaurants, and had pizza delivered. No worries, all good. I mean, we don’t roll around on the pizza box... but we never did that before either.

Well... ALMOST never.

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hahaha

Ice_Ice_Brady said:

Just curious to get thoughts on this. I’ve had groceries delivered, though in that case I think the risk is inevitable.

Do you think ordering takeout food is risky? For example, if you wanted to get pizza or a burger.

Most of the articles I’ve read are anecdotal.

Click to expand...

Oh for crying out loud. Just man up and live.

Haven't worn a goofy mask...never will. Don't own hand sanitizer, never will.

Wife is a full time cashier at Costco. No mask.

I am 63...go out biking, playing golf, shopping everyday. No special hypochondriac rituals.

Geesh….

Star56 said:

Oh for crying out loud. Just man up and live.

Haven't worn a goofy mask...never will. Don't own hand sanitizer, never will.

Wife is a full time cashier at Costco. No mask.

I am 63...go out biking, playing golf, shopping everyday. No special hypochondriac rituals.

Geesh….

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This is irresponsible and dangerous.

Just wear a mask with the to go order and youll be fine.

For real.

So, my cousin is a high roller with the IRS. He is one of the people in charge of the Corona stimulus. He is in charge of all US corporate tax returns as well.

He just informed me that the stimulus money should be landing in people bank accounts by next Tuesday 4/14 if you have the IRS synced to your bank account. By mail is going take longer and we did not get into how much longer, but you can understand the disparity in the time involved hitting a key to send a wire transfer vs physically printing out a check and prepping it for US mail.

Star56 said:

Oh for crying out loud. Just man up and live.

Haven't worn a goofy mask...never will. Don't own hand sanitizer, never will.

Wife is a full time cashier at Costco. No mask.

I am 63...go out biking, playing golf, shopping everyday. No special hypochondriac rituals.

Geesh….

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Or, if you were like my 55 year old acquaintance who passed away on Wednesday after 12 days on a ventilator, just man up and die.

I understand why people working in stores wear gloves. As they would be touching plenty of items where customer may or my not have interacted (plus plenty of people who work in the store).

People wearing gloves only seem to protect you from properly washing your hands? I have seen people going into a store to take them off while getting into their car. But all the things they have to unpack would potentially have something on the packaging - net no change. Only positive, they didn't bring anything into their car.

If it's on the packaging, they still have to content with that issue when they get home. Net-net, doesn't seem to change very much as everything your hands would touch your gloves would touch to the same effect. Am I naive or missing something here?