Bacon grease can go rancid if not refridgerated. Lots of bacteria start growing in a relatively short time period (4 hours after cooling) in bacon grease that isn't stored properly. I keep my bacon grease in a mason jar that goes right into the fridge after each use/refill.

I agree with everyone that it sounds like you have experienced food poisoning. Cross-contamination can happen anywhere along the food chain from the butchering of the cow to your thawing, cooking, consumption. Your vegetables could also have been contaminated.

Not just for you but for everyone out there this is a great website teaching food safety. http://www.fightbac.org/

Sorry to hear about your illness. I got food poisoning on New Year's Eve from some bad shrimp and boy did it suck.

In my experience, food poisoning sets in about 6-12 hours after eating, i.e. when the food is in the intestines. Immediately after eating the food is in the stomach. Is it possible that you ate something else earlier in the day or the previous day that set you off?

I keep bacon grease in a small cup in the fridge covered with plastic wrap, you didn't say if you had kept yours in the fridge or not. I will keep it for a few weeks this way and have never had a problem, but I am careful to be sure it goes from hot and right into the fridge so it doesn't spend much time at bacteria-growing temperatures (around 90-130F).

I always make sure that meat is completely defrosted before cooking, it should be completely soft all the way through. This is safer and tastes better too. It could be that the steak was still frozen in the middle and the cooking process heated the middle just enough to promote bacteria growth.

But I have eaten meat rare and raw all the time and have never had a problem. The bad shrimp that got me on New Year's was cooked and had been in the fridge about 3-4 days, so it probably spoiled after cooking.

Is there any chance that the steak you bought was thawed and refrozen more than once? This can definitely spoil the meat as bacteria can grow when it thaws the first time and then can lay dormant in a frozen steak. This can theoretically happen at any butcher if they are careless (not trying to implicate your butcher or anything...)

Hard to tell but I would guess it was something else that you ate besides the meat.

Could be cross-contamination from anywhere. Something nasty on your plate, fork, knife, the grease, something before it was packaged. I don't think you can hold the cow responsible, but you may want to mention it to your butcher in case others are having this problem.

This could be the vegetables. Were they organically grown from a local farm? You pretty much can't miss with these. Commercial organics are still prone to epidemic outbreaks. Look no further than Earthbound Farms' E. coli incident with their spinach.

If you can get some GSE (grapefruit seed extract) and put 2-5 drops in water or juice and sip it...it will kill whatever pathogen you've got in your gut and shorten your downtime. I've used it a few times and it's very effective and safe to consume. Just don't use too much...it's extremely bitter tasting.

Possibly the bacon grease. It can go rancid, well it will, but not usually so quickly. When I grew up, farm kitchens had a coffee can full of bacon grease that was added to and used from daily... we never got sick.

Food poisoning so quickly? Very unlikely. Most times, it actually takes 12 hours to get sick from food poisoning.

Possibly just...gastroenteritis...it happens to us all at times and we tend to mistakenly blame our food.