# Daughter ate milk cereals that had been on the table all day **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 15, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910 "2015-01-15T17:49:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Satellite\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Satellite\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satellite_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/41 "2015-01-16T04:47:19Z")
I’ve put bad cream in my coffee once. Took a mouthful, which was promptly spit back into the cup, which was equally promptly disposed of. Not even a tiny bit like yogurt. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/42 "2015-01-16T04:55:42Z")
So almost 12 hours later? We need an OP report. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/43 "2015-01-16T08:28:45Z")
H+14, she looks fine. Actually, she was _less_ grumpy than usual when I woke her up this morning. Again, thanks for your input. I’ll keep an eye on her for the next couple of days but I guess I can now go back to worrying about the paronychia on her left thumb :D. The thing is, she’s quite a picky eater. She inspects each spoonful before allowing it to enter her mouth and regularly asks what are the ingredients of each dish we serve. I’d never thought she’d find cereal-chocolate-milk-purée appealing but… ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/44 "2015-01-16T09:05:22Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Today’s pasteurized milk out of the jug is nearly sterile. 12 hours at room temperature does not present a realistic risk. Any bacteria in there would come from the air, and have time for only a few hundred cell divisions; not enough for most food borne illness to reach an infective dose. Although our 5-year-old gourmand had been eating from it earlier, so I’d have thought most of the bacteria would have come from her own mouth, via the spoon. Still not likely to warrant the attention of the CDC, though, I agree. > [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#): > > The thing is, she’s quite a picky eater. She inspects each spoonful before allowing it to enter her mouth and regularly asks what are the ingredients of each dish we serve. I’d never thought she’d find cereal-chocolate-milk-purée appealing but… Bonus! A new option for breakfast! Just make sure it’s properly aged before serving. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/45 "2015-01-16T12:38:02Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > Although our 5-year-old gourmand had been eating from it earlier, so I’d have thought most of the bacteria would have come from her own mouth, via the spoon. Still not likely to warrant the attention of the CDC, though, I agree. True. However, the bacteria in our mouths is not often the kind of bacteria that make us sick…or we’d be sick from them already. (Not good bacteria to get in a cut, though.) ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/46 "2015-01-16T14:33:54Z")
> [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#): > > H+14, she looks fine. > > Actually, she was _less_ grumpy than usual when I woke her up this morning. Again, thanks for your input. I’ll keep an eye on her for the next couple of days but I guess I can now go back to worrying about the paronychia on her left thumb :D. > > The thing is, she’s quite a picky eater. She inspects each spoonful before allowing it to enter her mouth and regularly asks what are the ingredients of each dish we serve. I’d never thought she’d find cereal-chocolate-milk-purée appealing but… Less grumpy than usual? Sounds like the little extra attention form the spoiled milk agreed with her. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/47 "2015-01-16T14:38:45Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > I’m more curious how a bowl of milk got left out for 12 hours. Did nobody clean up after breakfast!? Now, I’m just making a crazy wild guess, here, but **yellowjacketcoder** , you haven’t raised any children have you? ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/48 "2015-01-16T14:45:17Z")
> [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#): > > I’ll keep an eye on her for the next couple of days May I respectfully suggest something? After eating cereal in milk left unattended for 12 hours, perhaps you should not just keep an eye on your daughter–you might want to keep an eye on your kitchen habits, too. Children learn a lot from watching their parents. ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/49 "2015-01-16T15:54:47Z")
About the spoiled milk not like yogurt thing – true, probably 99.99% of the time (may vary depending on what’s floating around in your house). I homebrew beer, and one of the things I like to drink, read about, and experiment with is sour beer. This is beer brewed the normal way with grains but fermented, in most cases, with bacteria in addition to yeast (sometimes instead of). One way that was traditionally accomplished over the centuries was to place your pre-beer sugarwater (wort) in a place where it would pick up desirable microorganisms from the air. These desirable bugs include various _Lactobacillus_ strains, same/similar to those that make cheese, yogurt, etc. One can do this at home, or in the forest, or an orchard, or wherever and every now and then you will collect something that produces a nice result (which you can then use to inoculate future batches). I actually haven’t done this (yet) for beer myself, but I’m pretty sure I _did_ once produce accidental yogurt. Someone had placed a glass of milk on the kitchen counter, which had somehow been forgotten about for some (unknown) period of time. I think something had been placed in front of it and I simply didn’t see the glass. When I found it, the milk had turned basically solid, looking and feeling exactly like a firm yogurt, and odorless if not pleasant smelling. I came really close but elected not to eat it (mostly at the urging of my wife), though I’m pretty sure I could have. I have since learned that indeed, people do actually make countertop yogurt in a similar fashion ON PURPOSE, though usually you go ahead and inoculate it with live yogurt unless you want a hundred cups down the drain before you get a good one. TL;DR - accidental yogurt is totally possible. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/50 "2015-01-16T16:08:59Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > What do you think people did before refrigerators? And pasteurization? Apparently they died in large numbers. [Especially in the summer.](http://chestofbooks.com/health/general/Family-Physician-2/Infantile-Cholera-Or-Summer-Complaint-Of-Children.html#.VLk3hSiSWbA) ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/51 "2015-01-16T18:35:44Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > \ > [@WhyNot](#): > > \ **whiplash** Time to quit skimming over usernames so quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/52 "2015-01-16T19:34:50Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > May I respectfully suggest something? > After eating cereal in milk left unattended for 12 hours, perhaps you should not just keep an eye on your daughter–you might want to keep an eye on your kitchen habits, too. > > Children learn a lot from watching their parents. Point taken. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/53 "2015-01-17T11:03:57Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > **whiplash** > > Time to quit skimming over usernames so quickly. ::Evil laugh:: Time to start keeping score. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910/54 "2015-01-17T15:11:06Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Now, I’m just making a crazy wild guess, here, but **yellowjacketcoder** , you haven’t raised any children have you? Indeed. Our cereal bowls are usually cleared when we need to set the table for dinner! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daughter-ate-milk-cereals-that-had-been-on-the-table-all-day/709910.md?page=2)