Can I eat it?

[Homerboy]

Apparently it was MY responsibility last night to put away the stew after it cooled off.... and I forgot.

So, last night, from 6pm to 6am there was a covered glass bowl of stew (heavy gravy, beef, carrots, peas etc) left on the stove top. It was piping hot when placed there out of the oven and left there until morning.

Question is: Is it safe to eat?

*** my vote is I can eat it. My wife is being squeamish. (moreso I think just to tell me I did something wrong versus really being squeamish)

 

[sjwaste]

Yup. If you're at all worried, heat it back up for a few minutes. I would eat it.

Maybe you should avoid feeding it to pregnant women, small children, the elderly, and immuno-compromised. I'm also not a doctor.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

Yes, although I would not let it sit out again and be careful not to reheat the entire thing just to have a bowl.. This is something my SO does (or did before I stopped her..) She'd take a pot of whatever and heat the whole thing up then scoop out a bowl. By day 2-3 it's been heated and cooled 5 times at least. ick.

 

[edro]

If you eat it, you will die. (eventually)

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

 

[satyajitmenon]

/firstworldproblems

 

[MotF Bane]

If you die, can I have your stuff?

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Enjoy your worms.

 

[Pheran]

If you eat it, you will die. (eventually)

Best answer. :biggrin:

 

[Azraele]

I found this in a search:

"The official line is four hours; after four hours, if certain illness-causing bacteria have colonized your food, they may have bred to the point of making the food unsafe to eat."

 

[spidey07]

Really, it's fine. It was covered, everything in it was very well dead from the oven and it probably didn't reach room temperature for 2 hours depending on the post it was in (cast iron FTW!).

 

[darkxshade]

If you leave food out overnight, it becomes alive and eats YOU!

 

[rudder]

If it doesn't kill you it will only make you stronger.

I would eat it. Of course I lived in a third world country growing up... so I have an iron stomach.

 

[Broheim]

whenever I make soup I just leave what's leftover in the pot (or whatever you'd call a giantass pot meant for soup) and put in the garage, it can stay out there for a few days no problem.

 

[Perknose]

Eat it.

The "official line" sourced by Azraele is crafted by lawyers with the idiots that live and vote amongst us in mind.

 

[DrPizza]

Heat it to above 160 for 10 minutes, and it'll be fine. Truth is, if you ate it at room temp, it'd probably still be fine.

 

[NetWareHead]

Yeah i've done this plenty of times and the food never killed me. This is actually the preferred method of eating pizza when we were in college. Makes excellent breakfast cold the next morning after having sat out all night.

 

[Sixguns]

Yeah i've done this plenty of times and the food never killed me. This is actually the preferred method of eating pizza when we were in college. Makes excellent breakfast cold the next morning after having sat out all night.

I have a friend who would do something like this. He would order 2 pizzas on sunday and leave them under his bed and eat them all week. Dont know how he didnt die eating all that cheese that had been sitting there for a week.

 

[Homerboy]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I never intended NOT to eat it.
this was simply to prove a point to my wife (who would have likely eaten it too anyways, but she was just bitchin' at me for forgetting)

 

[Spikesoldier]

eat it to boost your immune system

be hardy

 

[ElFenix]

if it had a lid on it water probably condensed in the seam between the lid and pot, effectively sealing it. so, very little of anything got into that pot between when it was taken out and when you got to it this morning. and if it was properly hot in the oven (baked stew?), nothing was living in it when you pulled it out.

 

[Homerboy]

Yeap. Slow baked stew is the best.

 

[spidey07]

if it had a lid on it water probably condensed in the seam between the lid and pot, effectively sealing it. so, very little of anything got into that pot between when it was taken out and when you got to it this morning. and if it was properly hot in the oven (baked stew?), nothing was living in it when you pulled it out.

I always make my stew in the oven, can control the temperature better. Brown floured meat, deglaze with onions and wine, brown veggies, add more wine/stock and herbs, stick in 225 degree oven covered for a few hours.

 

[destrekor]

Eat it.

The "official line" sourced by Azraele is crafted by lawyers with the idiots that live and vote amongst us in mind.

No, that's actually the official food science answer.

If there were indeed some bugs around that would like to make a home of some food you left out, depending on the specific characteristics of that food item, it can become potentially lethal even in as little as a few hours. Of course, temperature, wet/dry/sweet/acidic, open/covered, other environmental concerns, and a little bit of the unknown... are all at play.
It's difficult to know if you have a few of the little baddies rolling around on your counter top or utensils even... or if the area is quite clear of hazards.

999/1000 times, unsafe food practices won't result in harm.
Being the unlucky one who suffers from a near-death case of food poisoning (or death) after leaving a bowl of rice out for 3 hours?
Yeah, you can gamble (I do that a lot), but it does indeed help to know when you are TRULY pushing against the odds, or if it would be a ridiculous idea to NOT eat said tasty treats.

Understanding how to keep food safe is good knowledge, and official answers like that are always based around absolute fact: it is the minimum time necessary before different invaders can establish a baseline colony or turn into spores (depending on food and bug in question).
Is it likely they will have had a chance to jump into that serving dish and establish a colony as soon as it is physically possible for them to do so? Possibly, if they are nearby. It's not often you get C. jejuni plotting away on your cookware, but if it were, you can bet something left out might be pretty bad in the minimum time necessary for colonization. Still, decent odds in favor of walking away without illness (or of the food even being colonized in that case), but still not the most favorable odds.

 

[ElFenix]

It's not often you get C. jejuni plotting away on your cookware

On June 29, 2011, the Wyoming Department of Health was notified of two laboratory-confirmed cases of C. jejuni in two persons working at a local sheep ranch who had castrated and docked the tails of lambs with their teeth.

wtf