And as for paranoia…yeah, of course, but I think people who’ve had food poisoning are rather understandably paranoid. It isn’t something anybody would choose to go through, especially more than once. Although it’s a great way to drop six/seven pounds overnight.
I would guess that over 90% of the food I avoid b/c it’s been sitting out, IMO, for “too long” is probably just fine.
But since I can’t say that with 100% accuracy, I just avoid it anyway. Even though the odds are in my favor.
I’ve had food poisoning, and not from leaving something out (damn you Central Square Purity Supreme!) so I’m a bit paranoid about refrigerating stuff. It can stay there for a while. In any case, our Golden has been know to filch food off of counters, so we often stash stuff being defrosted in the microwave just in case.
As for a, burgers never get plates, Chinese or Japanese food that comes with all parts of a meal don’t, but usually we pass around Chinese takeout, so it goes on plates. Pizza goes on plates so it doesn’t go on the pants.
I eat things that I’ve left out for 8 to 12 hours all the time. To this day, I’ve never had so much as gas from the encounters.
Is it really that big of a deal to leave food out all night? My only complaint is that the food dries up a bit. Isn’t it just raw food that quickly gets the bacteria that causes food poisoning?
Shouldn’t you be getting food poisoning from improperly prepared food?
Sometimes I decant fast food to “real plates”, sometimes not. I definitely prefer a real fork/spoon/knife to plastic, so if it’s brought home and eaten there I use real silverware even if I’m eating of the containers.
Food being left out… well, back when I was really poor I lived places that were vermin infested. If I had left food out on the counter I would have come back to see 10,000 cockroaches and 10 mice chowing down on it, after which I would CERTAINLY NOT eat the leftovers they didn’t want. So I don’t leave food out, even though it’s been decades since I had that sort of competition at mealtime.
Foods with mayo or milk I’m a little paranoid about, but only after an hour or two. Some foods I’ll eat if left out a long time, some I won’t, and ambient temperature is also a concern, but to be honest I’m more worried about contamination from raw meat than food poisoning from leftovers.
My in-laws are definitely from the leave-it-out-for-days camp. I don’t say anything while visiting, though - if the food is out of my comfort range I just fix something fresher for myself (after asking if anyone wants any, too).
I’ll put the fast food on a plate if I’m at home. If I’m not going to eat it right away, I put it in the refrigerator and reheat later. I was always told- keep it hot, keep it cold, or don’t keep it.
As GaryT said, your food poisoning was likely not caused by mayonnaise. The mayonnaise is deadly thing is a myth.
I recall reading somewhere that it probably never had anything to do with the mayonnaise itself, but rather the things that were put in the mayo. Unsafe handling of chicken, resulting in contamination of cutting boards, knives, mixing bowls, etc., is a prime suspect.
I don’t think leaving food out for a few hours is very risky behavior.
If you leave some food out that was cooked at high temperatures for long enough, you really shouldn’t have a lot of bacteria in there - bacteria are killed by high temperatures. Which is not to say that they are ALL killed, or that they won’t grow back - a pot on a stove is not an autoclave. But a pot of stew you just boiled for an hour is not a very bacteria-filled environment.
Now, if you only warm things up to body temperature, then let it sit at room temperature, you would be making the bacteria very cosy.
Take out food brought home almost always goes on a plate. Like others have said, if you order a few different things for variety, it’s nice to be able to sample as you wish. (The only thing I don’t bother getting a plate for are the sushi rolls I sometimes get, which come in their own little handy tray.) Plus I find that eating out of styrofoam or aluminum containers is a pain… something drips off an edge, the container’s unstable unless you keep a flat hand underneath (eating take out usually means eating in front of the TV), etc.
As for leaving stuff out, I don’t have a problem with things sitting around for a few hours. That’s what happens with the lunches I bring to work, which might even have mayo (gasp!) as an ingredient, so why should dinner be any different? I haven’t gotten sick yet.
Two reasons why I’ve found this to be a bad idea: 1) is that you can raise the temperature inside your fridge, which makes the fridge work harder and wastes energy and 2) you can warm up stuff thats already in the fridge and ruin that instead. My roommate’s gf is a “put stuff away even if it’s still warm” person, and more than once she’s shoved something into the fridge next to my fresh quart of milk… which is then sour by morning. :mad:
Of course, if you are a child of the Greatest Generation, you probably grew up with wooden cutting boards and ordinary soap (which sat dry and unused just before every meal) so the Five-Second-Rule could easily be extended to 30 seconds. These days, kids are brainwashed with anti-bacterial everything and their innate defenses are probably non-existent so someone sneezing down the street will probably give them a cold the next day.
Is that why you’re not supposed to eat stuff that’s fallen on the floor, because of bacteria? I thought it was just because of the floor pepper and cat hairs. You learn something every day, I guess.
