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I've met often with the concept that rotten meat and carcass is inedible because of bacteria and toxins. The most harmful is the botulinum toxin.

However, in the question Can any waterborne pathogens survive boiling?, a link pointed to an article with some pertinent information. That link now leads to a missing page. However, it mentioned that:

The botulinum toxin is destroyed by boiling the food for 10 minutes.

The pathogens mentioned there are also destroyed by high temperatures, so, at least theoretically, it should be safe to eat rotten meat, as long as it is cooked or baked long enough, so that the high temperature penetrates it fully, and we let it work for at least 10 minutes.

So, meat baked in a fire for about an hour or two should be safe. Is my conclusion correct?

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  • 6
    Great question!
    – Russell Steen
    Jun 20, 2012 at 11:35
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    It deals with cooking, but I am going to venture that people looking at a cooking site are going to just toss the meat where someone in "The Great Outdoors" will find this information a LOT more useful in a lot more situations.
    – BillyNair
    Jul 16, 2012 at 23:01
  • By some definitions, many products are made from rotted fish. But the rotting is a bit more controlled. Here is a good article on different forms of rotting edible foods. eattheweeds.com/fish-sauce-rotten-meat-and-other-garbage-2 to help as a reference.
    – Terry
    Oct 15, 2014 at 14:19
  • I would imagine there are toxins in such meat that are biochemical toxins, not living things like bacteria, therefore cooking will not get rid of them and you will get sick if you eat it.... But that's just a guess.
    – Michael Martinez
    Dec 9, 2014 at 22:35

2 Answers 2

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The conclusion is not correct. Some bacteria produce toxins which are not destroyed by heat, for example Staphylococcus. See this link for more information.

Note that this is not strictly an outdoors issue. Even at home, you should not keep fresh meat in your fridge too long before cooking it, as it gives time for bacteria to produce toxins. The bacteria will be destroyed by cooking, but not the toxins.

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    This Staphylococcus toxin could as well be present in dangerous amounts in the water where the carcass was found?
    – Danubian Sailor
    Jun 20, 2012 at 13:28
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    @lechlukasz: in the old times, retreating armies used to poison wells by dropping decomposing corpses. I would not risk it, if I were you...
    – thkala
    Jun 21, 2012 at 12:49
  • The "see this link" is now dead/broken. This might be the right resource. athenaeum.libs.uga.edu/bitstream/handle/10724/12254/…
    – chongman
    Apr 14, 2019 at 18:25
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Whatever the books say, cooking to extinction still works!

Initially, boil and change the water many times.

Then cook the meat until it falls into the water. This way, you will get more protein from the meat, because you have exposed more surface area.

If you break the bones first, you will get the much higher calorie marrow into the soup.

Cooked meat pieces, should be washed, while being rubbed, daily, until the smelly slimy material has gone, and it feels mat to the touch. This halts the spread of the bacteria.

Rabbits, pheasant, deer, can be hung for 1 week, before the losses to maggots is more than the gain from the maggots. Hedgehogs, crows, pigeons, squirrels, only a couple of days, as they get putrid faster.

It may not smell nice, but you will be alive for 2600+ days.

Maggots don’t spoil the taste of the meat, they definitely improve old meat. If you hang a rabbit until the maggots have eaten well into one side, and then cook the rabbit, you will notice that the maggots eaten side, tastes fresher, more tender, and sweeter.

This is not hearsay, or book theory. I can vouch that it works, by being here to write this answer.

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  • This seems rather unclear as to what is actually taking place. Is the meat being boiled? Is it being washed before it's cooked? Is this a step-by-step description? 2600+ days? Why can this potentially very dangerous answer be trusted other than "I'm still here?"
    – montane
    Jan 19, 2013 at 5:49
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    There needs to be some references for this (at least), it could potentially get someone hurt.
    – DavidR
    Jun 24, 2013 at 22:45
  • "Initially, boil and change the water many times.", presumably "boil" means boil the meat in water but don't keep boiling very long each time. "Then cook the meat" means keep the meat boiling for a very long time.
    – QuentinUK
    Apr 26, 2014 at 15:18
  • Pics or it didn't happen.
    – Mike Devenney
    Sep 5, 2018 at 19:27
  • The question was about rotten meat or carrion. Pheasants and rabbits getting hung isn't the most hygienic cooking habit, no, but it has a long history in European cooking. So presumably it's not an insta-kill every time. On the other hand, since the OP's question seems broader than "just" eating game that has intentionally been left out, downvoting on the basis that applying it to really rotten meat may very well be unsafe. The fact that you didn't die really doesn't say much besides the fact that you got lucky. In almost all conditions, OP would be much better off not eating.
    – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
    Nov 2, 2020 at 20:33

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