I love blue cheese!
Two hours. Two.
For my money, you could leave it at room temperature until it grows silvery blue fuzz.
Then you could throw it away. (Or not.)
Family of 4. Shop for a weekly menu. At least for dinners everything is usually made with ingredients.
Sometimes it can take an hour waiting in line at the store and another hour driving home. Depends. Sometimes I need to take a break when I get home.
OP, your cheese was already spoiled in the factory 
You wash your mouth out!
/I’m a Complete and Utter cheese snob, I usually have four or five types in the fridge, plus four or five types of crackers.
grrrr…
This is one of those stupid little things I find annoying. ** No, not all sliced cheese is “cheese product”! Some of it is actual cheese. **Yes, there really is a an actual cheese called American cheese which tastes like an extremely mild cheddar.
Read the damn label.
If the label says “American pasteurized processed CHEESE” then it is actual cheese. It is not great cheese, but it is cheese. These days it typically also has the word “deluxe” on the package, such as “Kraft Deli Deluxe American Cheese Slices”.
Cheese product and cheese food are not actual cheese, but cheese-flavored cheese-like things.
As a general rule, if they’re individually wrapped slices they’re not cheese (though there are exceptions). If they can continue to exist as slices when not individually wrapped it is most likely cheese.
In addition, there are things like packaged swiss cheese slices, which are also actual cheese.
To answer the OP - 2 hours at room temperature is not a problem for any of the above, especially if the package is unopened.
Just in case there’s still any doubt: I work in a restaurant, and the official food safety rules say that sliced cheese can sit on the dress table at room temperature for 4 hours. That’s room temp in the kitchen with fryers, broilers, ovens and grills all around. And we’d probably use that stack of cheese up way before the time expired, but just in case we didn’t, we’d just change the timers and it would still be just fine.
Italics mine.
Every lifestyle has good and bad points. I would give the manager an earful, leave my full cart with him/her, and walk out of the store if the line at a grocery checkout was longer than about 3 people in front of me. My time costs money and IMO stores have an existential obligation to staff adequately. They *will *do without my business if they fail to do so.
Your situation must be very different.
I agree - will you tell the people at my workplace who keep cutting hours and reducing our cashiers to stop doing that? Thanks.
Seriously, customers do not realize how much power they have. Don’t scream, don’t cuss, just tell the manager or, better yet, corporate office that there is inadequate warm bodies for the cash registers. They’ll listen to you before they listen to us.
[end hijack]
Isn’t that (changing the timers) the sort of thing that the health department would get very upset with you over?
QFT.
American cheese is a completely legitimate variety of cheese. Not to my taste particularly, but a true cheese. I like it better than most Colby varieties. Just because it says American doesn’t automatically mean it’s a cheese product or cheese food.
People from Wisconsin know this. And some better educated residents of other states.
Bingo. Drives me nuts too. I like all cheeses, I usually have four or five types at home. At work I have my own refrigerator. Sometimes it’s just easier to buy some presliced cheddar, swiss or yes American. I often do a quick shop before the deli is open on my way to work.
And waiting in line for an HOUR? That’s crazy.
Just so everyone knows: Nacho cheese Doritos are not actually made with cheese.
Yep. Everyone does it.
Indeed. That said, I do like American cheese product from time to time. Nothing wrong with processed cheese in my book. It’s not something I would eat on its own like a nice aged Gouda or Stilton or Maytag blue, but I like it for its meltability.
I forgot a bag of groceries in my second car with three packages of 24 wrapped slices when we flew to Tunica, Mississippi for my WSOP Poker Tournament for 6 weeks. When we got home the temperature was 80.
We tried a couple of slices when we found the groceries seven weeks later and they tasted fine. We finished the whole batch and all was fine and tasted great.
Btw, I won $76,870 during the tournament.
I occasionally buy “American” because my meager budget. Individually wrapped like yours. Not my first choice, but I am poor and on a limited income. The stuff is pasteurized. I have left the open main package out at room temperature for 24 hours or so. I’m still alive.
After an Apocalypse and we live in a dystopian world, Kraft slices will still be around. Eat them. They’re fine, IMHO.
So I can eat rats with dandelion greens and Kraft cheese, good to know.
Mr.Wrekker is fond of saying after a few days of grass clippings and leaves a nice fat rat or your beloved pet cat will be mighty tasty eatin’
Yuk!