# Left food out for a few days, still safe to eat? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 5, 2018, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949 "2018-01-05T23:22:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2018, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/41 "2018-01-07T23:00:10Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I’m sorry, but in the spirit of fighting ignorance I have to reply to this. The rules are written to be easy and unambiguous. But there’s a huge difference in how fast bacteria grow at 65F or 80F, and thus a huge difference in how dangerous the food is after how many hours. > > Although I’ll concede that another day has passed, and I can’t imagine it’s still worth salvaging at this point. > > Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk Have you ever worked in the food industry? You seem intent on picking apart everything I post “in the spirit of fighting ignorance.” You admit you are not a food scientist. Neither am I, but I’ve managed a restaurant and had to take food safety classes, so I think I have at least some credibility. I have had the responsibility of making sure the food is safe for hundreds of people, not just for one, or a family of four at the most. So, please do not characterize my comments as “ignorance.” **puzzlegal** , in the unlikely event I am ever invited to your house for dinner, I would find a way to politely decline. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2018, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/42 "2018-01-07T23:18:17Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Also, it’s not even a useful test. Dogs can routinely and with impunity eat things that would land a human in hospital. Doubly so, as there are things that will make your dog sick, or even kill him, that won’t bother a human in the slightest. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/43 "2018-01-08T06:12:13Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Have you ever worked in the food industry? You seem intent on picking apart everything I post “in the spirit of fighting ignorance.” You admit you are not a food scientist. Neither am I, but I’ve managed a restaurant and had to take food safety classes, so I think I have at least some credibility. I have had the responsibility of making sure the food is safe for hundreds of people, not just for one, or a family of four at the most. So, please do not characterize my comments as “ignorance.” > > **puzzlegal** , in the unlikely event I am ever invited to your house for dinner, I would find a way to politely decline. I have not worked in the food industry, but my brother and my husband have. I have a lot of doctors in the family, too. The reason I have disagreed with your posts is the same reason I disagree with the “reefer madness” propaganda that says that if you ever try pot you will end up dying of a heroin overdose. Because there are actually real dangers in both spoiled food and illegal drugs, but if you grossly exaggerate them, observant people will notice that, and will disregard the rest of what you say. “It is dangerous to leave food out at room temperature for more than a few hours” is true. “You will probably end up in the hospital if you do so” is not true, it is observably false to anyone who has ever been in a college dorm, or many other places where people are careless about food safety. Quite a lot of our ancestors died of food poisoning, but all of them lived long enough to engender our more recent ancestors, despite horrendously bad food handling through most of human history. You will be glad to know that all of tonight’s leftovers were safely refrigerated within 4 hours of cooling to room temp. Even the ones I plan to re-cook to make soup. (And I wasn’t certain whether the chicken was fully cooked, so I poked a thermometer into it to check.) But I won’t be offended if you prefer to eat elsewhere. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/44 "2018-01-08T06:18:11Z")
This guy didn’t leave it out for a few hours though. He left it out for _two days_, at room temperature. Huge difference. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/45 "2018-01-08T07:12:44Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I have not worked in the food industry, but my brother and my husband have. I have a lot of doctors in the family, too. > > The reason I have disagreed with your posts is the same reason I disagree with the “reefer madness” propaganda that says that if you ever try pot you will end up dying of a heroin overdose. Because there are actually real dangers in both spoiled food and illegal drugs, but if you grossly exaggerate them, observant people will notice that, and will disregard the rest of what you say. > > “It is dangerous to leave food out at room temperature for more than a few hours” is true. “You will probably end up in the hospital if you do so” is not true, it is observably false to anyone who has ever been in a college dorm, or many other places where people are careless about food safety. Quite a lot of our ancestors died of food poisoning, but all of them lived long enough to engender our more recent ancestors, despite horrendously bad food handling through most of human history. > > You will be glad to know that all of tonight’s leftovers were safely refrigerated within 4 hours of cooling to room temp. Even the ones I plan to re-cook to make soup. (And I wasn’t certain whether the chicken was fully cooked, so I poked a thermometer into it to check.) But I won’t be offended if you prefer to eat elsewhere. 🙂 Disagree with my posts if you want. I’m just offended that you feel I’m posting ignorance. I’m no doctor, but I do have experience in the food service industry and have taken the mandatory classes. So I will continue to refute any erroneous claims you make in your own posts. I do not feel I am making any wild exaggerations. I feel you are not speaking from a position of education or experience, instead you are backing your claims with rectally derived Wikipedia cites. I feel you are the one making dangerously wrong claims about food temperature, and anyone who heeds your advice is risking a trip to the ER. Fortunately, the observant people in this thread seem to be disregarding you. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/46 "2018-01-08T07:27:35Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > “It is dangerous to leave food out at room temperature for more than a few hours” is true. “You will probably end up in the hospital if you do so” is not true, it is observably false to anyone who has ever been in a college dorm, or many other places where people are careless about food safety. :dubious: :rolleyes: > [@pulykamell](#): > > Im usually pretty lax about this stuff, but two days is pushing it. I once got food poisoning from food that passed the smell test, but was left out a wee too long, so it’s not an experiment I care to retry. I’d probably still risk it after the better part of a day, but definitely not two. > [@chizzuk](#): > > FWIW, I know someone who ate a TV dinner that had been left out for two days–in a moment of absent-mindedness, they stuck it in the drawer of a filing cabinet instead of the break room refrigerator, then ate it anyway when they found it. They ended up in the hospital.with salmonella. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/47 "2018-01-08T08:00:18Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > If chili has been sitting a few days at room temperature, the fats in it will have at least gone rancid, and it is likely to be host to any number of bacterial colonies which may or may not cause some degree of gastroenteritis. At worst, it could be host to _Clostridium botulinum_ or associated bacteria in genus _Clostridium_, commonly found in the environment and which produces Botulinum toxin. This typically produces a foul odor but this isn’t universal, and even a tiny amount of toxin can be fatal or leave the victim with permanent neurological impariment. > > Dump the container, clean it thoroughly, and make more chili. It’s not worth the risk. > > Stranger Not to mention that the toxins produced by coliform bacteria (which flourish at temps between 40-100F like a bowl of chili at room temp for 2 days) aren’t denatured by heat so even pressure cooking won’t get rid of them. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/48 "2018-01-08T08:07:01Z")
Are we arguing about whether food poisoning will always/usually land you in hospital? In my experience (that is, primarily, observation of cases other than myself), it usually won’t. It will usually just leave you uncontrollably shitting, vomiting, moaning and suffering in the comfort of your own home. I’ve had food poisoning several times in my life (from foods that smelt and tasted quite normal) - only once was I hospitalised, and that’s because the incident happened at a camp site in France. If there had been a house and a bed available, I’d probably have been confined to that. That’s not to trivialise food poisoning of course - it does kill people, and it is sufficiently unpleasant for the rest that it is to be avoided. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/49 "2018-01-08T12:42:53Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Are we arguing about whether food poisoning will always/usually land you in hospital? > … that and the odds of getting sick at all, yes. I don’t want to trivialize that risk, either. There are lots of low-frequency/high-severity risks worth avoiding. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/50 "2018-01-08T13:00:52Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > that and the odds of getting sick at all, yes. > > I don’t want to trivialize that risk, either. There are lots of low-frequency/high-severity risks worth avoiding. I’d say the risk of getting sick from eating a wet, meat-based sauce that’s been sitting out at room temp for 48 hours is moderately high. Risk factors for food poisoning are typically: Food type - moist foods containing proteins are typically highest risk Temperature Time (typically measured in single digit hours) Risk might be mitigated a bit if the sauce is particularly acidic, but we don’t know that. the best (and only responsible) advice that can be given in this thread is to ditch the sauce. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/51 "2018-01-08T13:30:19Z")
I’m usually on the side of “eat it” on these questions, and a lot of foods don’t go bad nearly as easily as most people think. But chili is about the worst possible food you could have left out, and two days is a really long time. Yes, there’s still a better than 50% chance that it won’t hurt you, but given the consequences of being wrong, you want odds a _lot_ better than that. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/52 "2018-01-08T14:36:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But chili is about the worst possible food you could have left out. Depends a little bit if it was made including tomatoes, as that will affect the acidity, but the people who think it should never include tomatoes are pretty strong in their view, so I don’t want to start _that_ fight. And as you say, 2 days is a very long time. This was a really obvious ‘ditch it’ for me. I can think of worse things to leave out at room temperature for too long (chicken stew, or anything with cooked rice). Most of the really-high risk things like whipped cream would not be palatable after 2 whole days (but they would be unsafe before they’re unpleasant, in most cases) ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/53 "2018-01-08T17:56:18Z")
In case the OP is still alive & well AND still has the chilli (which seems increasingly unlikely), I’ll briefly offer my thoughts. I eat a lot of stuff way past its use-by date, and happily consume food left at room temperature for hours or even (as a younger man) overnight. I have never, I believe, had food poisoning, certainly not to the extent described in this thread. I would NOT eat this chilli, even if it was the best one I had ever made. ---
**Author:** ![Hi\_Neighbor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hi_neighbor/32/494_2.png) [@Hi\_Neighbor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hi_Neighbor)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2018, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949/54 "2018-01-09T15:30:20Z")
I threw it away. If it was out for one day, I probably would have tested my luck and kept it. But it was out at room temperature (~68 F) for about 46 hours. I thought maybe the spices/high sodium would have slowed bacterial growth or that maybe freezing it first would kill off any harmful bacteria. But after reading the responses it looks like there was no saving it. I am very sad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-food-out-for-a-few-days-still-safe-to-eat/805949.md?page=2)