I wonder if this is an US/the rest thing or maybe a meat eater / vegetarian thing. For exact scientific evaluation, please tell in which groups you fit in when commenting.
When the topic food is brought up here or there is always this guy saying “omg you can’t leave your food for 30 minutes on the counter because bacteria you know” (exaggerated) and I don’t get where that sentiment comes from. Many people agree and say you will get food poisoning from that.
First of all, let me tell you I am not an idiot (at least I hope so) and I know how microbiology works - bacteria is everywhere. I don’t doubt your food on the counter will get populated by bacteria, probably more than it would be in the fridge. The question is, is this bad for you?
Now, where I live (central Europe) people are not so fast with that and I wonder why this is. We have a temperate climate which could play a role, so a large portion of the year the temperature is pretty moderate, compared to let’s say south US. But apart from that I don’t really know.
I am a vegetarian, mostly vegan. I am pretty sure it’s not a good idea to leave animal parts out of the fridge, as they are already populated with bad bacteria when you buy them. But for vegetables? Pasta, soup, lasagna? To be honest, I have no shame to leave that stuff on the counter the whole day and even take a spoon from time to time without reheating. Over night I put it of course in the fridge, and in summer when we have 35°C it’s also a different thing. But in general I don’t really care. I know I cannot extrapolate on humanity, only because ai never felt bad after doing this. But honestly, am I an idiot? Or are you just a bit sensitive? Do you assume everybody eats meats?
Really interested in your ideas. Don’t forget to tell the region you are coming from and your diet preferences.
Thank you so much my respected lemmings and pie people
You must log in or # to comment.
Canadian living in Australia. Omnivore.
Kicker: Food technologist and health inspector. AMA.
Tl;dr: Doesn’t matter if it’s meat or veg. It goes in the fridge. Follow 2h/4h rule.
For work, I’m fairly strict in businesses because the food can go anywhere once it’s in the hands on the customer, even in restaurants or at home. You can look at your dine in customers and they all look healthy, but what if they’re not, or where do the leftovers go? Do they take it home after date night to share some with little Bobby or Grandma Jane? In business, you do what you can to keep the food as “clean” as you can.
At home and in food businesses, handwashing is ALWAYS a problem. Food handlers are always touching their faces, phones, hip towel they’ve had on all day, touching a towel they use used to wipe their hands after only rinsing hands in water in the sink, and then touching lettuce for a salad. So even at home, you can cook things to keep bacteria, but is the scoop, container, and your hands clean? Dust, pollen, flies, hairs, etc also carry microbes, and if any of them fall in to food after its been cooked, the bacteria can grow.
It also depends on the type of bacteria, too. Salmonella can infect at an extremely low dose, and Staphylococcus infects at very high doses.
I follow the 2h/4h rule for anything potentially hazardous. Of course, at home, I’m a bit more flexible, usually +/- 1h. If I make myself sick, alright, but there’s no way I’m going to make anyone else sick, so if I’m making food for others, I keep to the strict rules. I’m also generally more risk adverse because the thought of anything involuntary coming out either end makes me sick just thinking about it.
I think the amount of time a food stays out is cultural, and if you grew up with it, your gut will have gotten used to the levels of bacteria. Us westerners generally get sick drinking tap water in certain countries when the locals are fine. I used to live with a Japanese lady for a year, and she knew what I did for a living. She always left rice out all night and ate it the next day. One day, she came to me with it and said “does this smell weird?” and it was a definite yes from me. I’d never leave cooked rice out that long and feel comfortable eating it.
So yeah, Bacillus cereus or whatever bacteria present may not occur all the time, but it does happen. Imagine making large batches and serving to large numbers of unrelated people.
Another thing: Cool foods within 2h to a reasonable temperature (I say 40C is fine) before putting it in the the fridge uncovered. If you put hot food in the fridge, you run the risk of warming up the foods already in the fridge.
Wash your hands.
And use a thermometer. Make sure it’s clean before you use it.
Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk.
Omnivore.
Bread cools overnight on the counter after cooking then wrapped and stays on the counter.
Butter in a closed container, for however long until it’s all used.
Pizza overnight if it doesn’t have meat
Cut onion, if I cut some for breakfast I will just turn it cut side down on the cutting board if I’m gonna use the rest soon, like at supper same day.
If beans are left out too long I do the "hard boil for 5 minutes.
I do make fermented beverages and pickles, those ferment at room temp for days to weeks.
I leave food on the counter all the time, because If I’m still hungry in a little while, I don’t want my food cold. I have never in my life gotten food poisoning from it.
US. Omnivore.
The food safety recommendations and regulations for commercial Kitchens are there for a reason. That being said, a home setting is very different than a commercial setting.
-
The potential for impact is much greater in a commercial environment due to the volume of food and customers served.
-
Believe it or not, a home setting is more controlled than a commercial setting: There are (generally) fewer food handlers, service personnel and “customers” touching or breathing on the food/dishes/equipment. And whether any of those individuals pose a disease vector risk is fairly well understood within the household, which can be mitigated on a more granular level. Because you are only serving one table instead of many at different stages of readiness, there is smaller variety of foods in preparation at once, fewer steps in the prep process happening simultaneously, and dirty dishes are only handled after the food has been prepared and eaten, reducing the risk of cross contamination. There are so many vectors for contamination in a commercial setting that the controls are in place to stop little issues from turning in big problems.
All this is to say that I am generally okay leaving finished foods out on my counter for extended periods of time if it has been freshly and properly prepared, or I plan on finishing or pitching it that day.
However, your examples baffle me. Leaving pasta out all day just seams like an unpleasant eating experience, indifferent of the health implications. Soup and lasagna? I can’t imagine wanting either of those early enough in the morning to prepare them so that I could leave them out “all day”. If I’m grabbing leftovers from the fridge, I wouldn’t leave it out. It’s already got a container and a space on the shelf; I just put the rest back where it came from after I take my serving. Sitting on the counter isn’t going to improve it.
Vegetables of course live their entire pre-picked lives without refrigeration and are generally fine on the counter when fresh. I would refrigerate prepared fresh vegetables if I knew I wasn’t going to finish them or they were particularly moist, like cut tomatoes or a dressed salad, or known to turn quickly like avacado.
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort?wprov=sfla1
I’m unable to find micromort numbers for food-poisoning or food preservation techniques, but my wild guess is that leaving an average vegetarian leftover overnight at an average kitchen temperature on the averagely cleaned kitchen counter, unrefrigerated and even not covered at all, then eating it the next day (maybe reheated) is gonna be negligible amounts of risk compared to many many many other risks people take everyday without blinking their eye about it (such as walking, driving, climbing stairs, swimming, drinking alcohol, using cleaning products, inhaling/eating environmental pollution, not washing hands after toilet, …)
I have a degree in microbiology and I am not sure. I could look it up but im comfotable with my gut. Raw food that needs to be refrigerated we don’t leave out for any longer than necessary and use cooler bags and such. Cooked food we won’t put in the fridge till its almost room temp
The ignorance in here of how food can go bad is impressive. Refrigerate within one hour. You don’t need to let it cool down before putting it into the refrigerator.
https://www.cdc.gov/food-safety/prevention/index.html
Bacteria can multiply rapidly if left at room temperature or in the “Danger Zone” between 40°F and 140°F. Never leave perishable food out for more than 2 hours (or 1 hour if exposed to temperatures above 90°F).
Refrigerate perishable food (meat, seafood, dairy, cut fruit, some vegetables, and cooked leftovers) within 2 hours. If the food is exposed to temperatures above 90°F, like a hot car or picnic, refrigerate it within 1 hour.
Package warm or hot food into several clean, shallow containers and then refrigerate. It is okay to put small portions of hot food in the refrigerator since they will chill faster.
IDGAF. My wife leaves dinner wrapped up on the table or on the stove overnight all the time. Only thing I put away immediately is seafood.
According to all that, we should be dead, several dozen times a year. Do explain. Perhaps our ignorance is lining our stomachs?
At this point you should do your own research, nothing I say will change your mind.
My siblings and I are the same way. We’ve all got iron stomachs. When we share leftovers with friends, they get upset stomachs, but we’re never careful with food being left out too long, and we never have bowel issues with it.
Probably have some sort of ungodly tolerance built up for it, parents were poor while raising us and we ate whatever was available.
Here’s the thing, restaurant level food safety is there to prevent 1 in a million chances of something happening, and usually would only effect those with weak immune systems. It’s a huge overabundance of caution born out of a desire to avoid lawsuits, and if you are serving to the public, you should 100% follow it.
But at home? Personally, I think 1 in a million is overly cautious. I’m fine with 1 in 10,000 and trust my immune system to handle it. I am too poor to throw away perfectly good food because I got lazy after dinner and waited 3 hours to put it away instead of 2. I survived all of college off of pizza that was left at room temperature. And yea, you can cite that one case of the guy who got botulism or something after eating a 3-4 day old pizza, but I want you to think about the millions upon millions of pizzas people eat every day without following restaurant-level food safety and realize how crazy it is to base your entire personal food safety philosophy around avoiding extreme edge cases.
Eat day old pizza, thaw your chicken in the sink, store your food in large containers if it makes more sense than small ones. I promise, you will be fine. You are far more at risk driving to the grocery store to get your ingredients than you are from eating food that’s been at room temperature for a few hours.
I honestly don’t see how some of these people manage to get out of bed in the morning. Did you know falling out of bed imparts more kinetic energy to your body than getting shot with a .45ACP?! Best just stay in bed.
Speaking of, people worry about getting shot in the US. Unless you’re in a gang or otherwise run with violent people, your odds of dying to a bullet are minuscule compared to dying in a car wreck. Guess which event is deemed probable.
Our risk/reward calculations have gone fucking nuts over the past couple of decades. I’ve had people call me an idiot online, and insinuated IRL, because I skinny dip in the local creek. No one has ever articulated the risk(s). I’m simply an idiot for taking the, uh, risk?
I knew this thread would bring out people quoting the over engineered specs for restaurant safety. You probably have the best take in this thread.
That’s not guidance for restaurants. Anecdotal evidence isn’t fact.
Anecdotal evidence is evidence though. And I think the point of the above post is valid, commercial food service should be held to the strictest guidelines to eliminate as much risk as possible. At home, for myself, I’m not going to worry about it beyond basic common sense and trusting my own senses. I also think it is good to be aware of guidelines and generally exercise caution.
All that said, I am always forgetting to put food away and eat it for lunch the next day anyway - have never had a problem in decades (vegetarian).
All Q-tip packages say to not put them in your ears because they can cause damage. Hundreds of millions of people around the world use them to clean their ears. But apparently all these millions of people are suffering from hearing damage because “anEcDoTaL EviDEnCe iSN’t FacT”.
You don’t need to let it cool down before putting it into the refrigerator.
It really depends on how hot it is, how much there is, and how big the fridge is. Basically just try not to put so much energy in the fridge that other things start to heat up as well; then everything in your fridge is in the ‘danger zone’, or at least uncomfortably close to it. Also saves energy.
Personally I always leave things out to cool off and only put it away quicker if there’s meat in it.
You can use a temp probe into food to prove that waiting isn’t needed.
Thanks for your US input, really appreciate it. But think about it, most of the people that already commented live outside the US. It seems your guidelines are pretty heavy, also another US american commented the guidelines are so strict because they need to apply to the whole vast country.
Are we all really ignorant, or is it possible there is also a cultural difference in play?
The WHO’s manual on food safety here.
I’ve been out of the loop on this for a while, however— yes, food safety practices differ culturally, but actual regulations are fairly similar. The WTO has recommendations upon which standards for imported food are created, resulting in a lot of uniformity in international food safety guidelines. But! There can be equitablility and equivalence allowances for different practices that achieve the same result. FDA conducts inspections on foreign food manufacturing that allow for these differences.
More countries have implemented HACCP in food industries based on WHO guidelines.
Local differences can still result in products considered safe in one region and not suitable for commercial sale in another. For instance in Canada all commercial eggs have to be refrigerated, in part, because we wash our eggs, which removes the protective cuticle so they’re more prone to becoming contaminated. In other countries it’s against regulation to wash commercial eggs and they can be stored at room temperature. But! It’s a food safety risk to leave a refrigerated egg at room temperature for too long because condensation forms on the shell, creating a favorable environment for bacteria.
Some countries don’t allow certain preservatives, additives or chemicals. Borax and lye are used in traditional recipes and legal in some countries, while being against regulations in others.
However, heavy regulations aren’t just based on risk to the weakest consumer, but on variance in circumstance. Not everyone who handles food is a perfect professional, equipment breaks down, cold trucks can overheat, and plenty of other shit can go wrong in the supply chain. Your food might already be heavily contaminated by the time it reaches you and that can’t always be seen or smelled.
Adhering as well as you can to your local food prep guidelines can be overkill 99/100 times, but that 1/100 can prevent slight discomfort/illness/death. It’s about how much risk you want to take on.
Bacteria doesn’t care about culture. The guidelines are pretty simple: bacteria generally grows on food within a temp range.
It’s not like parts of US has more food-affecting bacteria than others.
Other nonsense in this thread: “if it smells ok it’s ok to eat” some bacteria can’t be detected by scent.
Rice, a common food outside of the US, has a particularly bad bacteria that can survive being cooked and should not be left out or even reheated more than once for example.
My Filipino wife leaves rice in the cooker overnight almost every day, reheats it the next. Please explain to her that she died several decades ago from this practice.
Anecdotal. Do your own research if you need too.
there are about 63,400 cases of food poisoning from Bacillus cereus every year in the US
Well, bacteria actually care a lot about culture if you allow for this pun.
Like I said, the other commenters from the US say the US guidelines are extra strict so infection will be nearly impossible. This post is a pretty small sample, but from what I gather there is indeed a cultural difference. Not in the biology itself, but in what guidelines exist and how they are interpreted. We are of course talking about a private setting at home in this thread, not about restaurants or industrial kitchens.
Honestly, I feel your tone is a bit rude. Make your points, share tour thoughts, argue. But don’t act like everybody commenting here is stupid.
Find any sources from your country then?
90% Vegetarian. Chicken and Fish meat only. No religion.
I used to be a chef so I follow food safety guidelines with some wiggle room, since commerical kitchen standards are supposed to protect all kinds of people in a wide variety of circumstances, while I’m fairly healthy and in control of my kitchen/storage.
I don’t let food that’s supposed to be hot sit at room temperature for more than 2hrs max. I keep most starchy fruit and root veggies in loose, hanging bags and berries/greens/less starchy vegetables in the fridge. I usually only buy meat if I’m using it that day, only keep leftovers in the fridge for two-to-three days, and freeze anything else.
Super basic explanation: Bacteria are on anything not sterile or on fire. Most are harmless on their own but some produce shit that makes you sick. Like botulism is caused by the toxin the bacteria produce and not the bacteria itself, and it’s found on vegetables. The bacteria die with heat but the toxin remains. And with food production all mingled, bacteria from meats can be transferred to non-meat products, too. You can even get sick from raw flour.
Cooked foods have more available sugars for bacteria to eat, plus warm and moist, so it’s a great environment for bacteria to break out of hibernation, make babies and poop toxins.
Leaving cooked starchy foods out in ideal bacteria party conditions isn’t great, and food poisoning isn’t always throwing up and shitting your guts out. Sometimes it’s a slight headache or a sore throat.
But whatever, it’s about how much risk you want to take on.
One big reason for the US guidelines being so strict is that they apply to the entire country, which ranges from Florida to Alaska and everywhere in between, and they are worst case. Plus with a massive population fed by capitalist companies that value money over lives and frequently altered food for profit, deaths in a large population are going to happen.
I don’t leave stuff that needs refridgeration out for more than a few hours so that it holds up for several days and the time varies widely by food type. Food does need to cool down significantly before refridgerating, although sometimes I will put it in within a couple hours to avoid forgetting. For most foods I have a four hour limit outside the fridge.
Commercially raised chicken has a very high chance of having salmonella. Raw chicken is only out long enough to prepare and cook. Once cooked I don’t worry anymore than anything else.
I also use the dates as rough estimates and when to pay more attention to spoilage. I don’t worry about safety for canned foods that don’t have signs of spoilage, but a soup can a couple years past the best by date has likely probably separated and textures will be off. Dates on bags of chips are a sign they are will be going stale within a few months.
Anecdotal evidence rules! Everyone posting here is alive!
The estimated 420,000 folks who die annually from improper food and water handling refuse to post!!!
Great stuff!That’s an incredibly wide category. Any non-anecdotal data on how many of those deaths were people eating leftovers which they didn’t immediately refrigerate?
Mine’s anecdotal, but back in the '70s I worked with a guy who would eat the contents of an ashtray in bars, as a party trick!
When he died in his 50s, they never blamed the party trick!When he died in his 50s, they never blamed the party trick!
I mean, it wouldn’t make sense to blame the party trick if he was like … ran over by a car.
Okay, but if our standard of evidence is “person did x and died at some point later”, that would apply to every human doing absolutely anything.
…good? Shouldn’t we only take advice from those who survived their own food storage habits?
From the CDC website:
“Bacteria can multiply rapidly if left at room temperature or in the “Danger Zone” between 40°F and 140°F. Never leave perishable food out for more than 2 hours (or 1 hour if exposed to temperatures above 90°F).”
Well the US guidelines don’t add very much to the discussion tbh, especially meat vs. veggies. It shows however why US Americans are so sensitive about this topic.
Also they tried to basically shut down the CDC last weekend with mass firings they had to walk back
This is a thing pushed by American media. It’s a Boomer-era panic over summertime picnics and somehow mayonnaise causing potato salad to immediately after 30 minutes outside a refrigerator to become fatal if consumed.
It’s also the product of misunderstandings of buying meat at a supermarket, wrongly assuming that meat that is not refrigerated for more than 15 minutes will basically kill you.
Panicking about food poisoning is a moral panic about “bad parenting” and blaming people when it wasn’t widely known what causes food poisoning: not washing your filthy hands, cross-contaimination, and poor hygiene overall.
I’ve lived in West Africa and bought and cooked and safely eaten meat that had sat on a wooden plank lightly covered in flies before I got there to buy it. I survived. Mayonnaise will outlive humanity before it molds or goes bad at room temp.
In Newfoundland (and I’m assuming other historically fish-based economies) it was really common before refrigeration existed to split your fish (open it like a book on a drying rack) and heavily salt it to store it long term. The drying process could take days with flies swarming around before getting moved to a shack. You’d then soak the fish before cooking to extract some of the salt. It’s no longer necessary but we still do it for the tradition. I’ve eaten it many, many times and never got sick from it, and I can guarantee it was more than 30 mins between the fish dying and it being salted. Especially these days with the codfish population dwindling, it could take a couple hours sometimes to catch all your fish. We kill the fish as soon as it enters the boat so the first fish of the day could be 3+ hours before being treated at all.
That being said, food safety is still important. I’ve seen some people say it’s fine to leave stuff out for a while if you’re cooking it after because it’ll kill the bacteria when you cook it, but that’s not entirely true. I had to take some food safety courses and was considering being an inspector for a while, I can’t remember it all now but the idea was, bacteria can grow after 30 mins at room temperature and while that bacteria can die at 74°C/165°F, it can grow spores during that time that are heat resistant. You’re not gonna die from food that’s been out for 31 minutes but if you often eat food that’s been sitting out for an hour or more, eventually you might get sick. It’s a game of chance, really. I don’t worry about it too much for myself but if I’m feeding others, I try to stick to the rules. If I get sick from my own carelessness, fair enough, that’s on me. If I get someone else sick though, I’d feel awful.
From Nova Scotia. You got me missing fish and brewis.
I only really do it for Christmas now. It’s one of my favourite parts of Christmas though. Christmas Eve we do fish and brewis, Christmas Day breakfast is fishcakes with the leftover salt fish, potatoes, and drawn butter.
There are some bacteria that when they die, release toxins that are harmful. So cooking alone isn’t enough to render them harmless.
From the Canadian food agency’s website:
Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, E. coli O157:H7, Clostridium botulinum, Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium difficile.
I’ve read so many horror stories about the American healthcare system that I always imagined it was out of fear of needing medical attention.
Omnivore, southeast USA.
When I worked in food service, I was taught that it takes four hours at room temperature for bacteria to reach dangerous levels in food, so that’s what I go with. I assume there’s other factors at play, but four hours is easy to remember and apply and I don’t like to take chances with that stuff.
But I guess it makes a really big difference if it is chicken or carrots, right?
I think they’re referring to cooked food. In that case it’s about the same, cooked carrots left at room temperature will grow bacteria/fungi about the same as cooked chicken.
Salt/acid/moisture content are factors, too. Like a piece of cooked, brined chicken in an acidic sauce can be safer than just a bowl of cooked, mushy carrots.
I believe that guideline is only for perishable food like cooked foods, meat, etc. For shelf-stable things like bread and most fruits/veggies, it’s basically “do they look OK?”
Meat eater from the UK. I’ll leave stuff out for varying amounts of time, just smell it before I eat it or have a trial spoon first.
Never had any food poisoning in my life and I have eaten some very questionable things for sure.
In my personal opinion people wildly over exaggerate stuff like this and dates on packaging. My nose knows.
I like to find a balance between being worried about bacteria and trusting my immune system to deal with anything that comes along. However, my immune system tends to over-react to things that aren’t a threat (allergies to cherries, peaches, cats, dogs, kangaroos, pollen, dust, etc.) so I’d be pretty pissed if it couldn’t handle some bacteria.
I’ll cut the bad parts off an old pepper and still put the good parts on my omelette in the morning. I’ll cut the moldy bit off a piece of cheese and use the rest. Bread…nope. I can handle it being a bit stale, but moldy is too much. I’m not afraid of bread mold, but I don’t like the taste.
Last year I tossed the Thanksgiving turkey out the next day because my wife and I forgot to deal with it and left it sitting on the kitchen table next to the radiator. That seemed to me like it would be a bit too much of a challenge to my immune system.
