s it safe to eat leftover food that was left out on the counter to?

Question

Is it safe to eat leftover food that was left out on the counter to
cool at dinnertime, then forgotten until morning? Will additional cooking kill the bacteria that may have grown?

Answer 1

If it was left on the counter overnight, toss it. Even reheating it can't guarantee it's safe.

Answer 2

When I was managing restaurants, I was taught about this ideal called the "Rule of 4". Basically, you have 4 hours at which most foods can be at the time-temperature danger level. The dangerous temp range, therange at which bacteria grows best is between 41 and 140 degrees. This includes all of the amount of time COMBINED from prepping the items, the cook time during which thefood is not yet at 140, and all thetime after which it cools below 140, but not below 41. If you reheat the food within that amount of time, the time starts back where it left off. Cooking, boiling, freezing, etc., does NOT kill most bacteria, itonlyinhibits thegrowth of new cells while outside ofthat temp range. After 8 hours, there will bemore than 10,000,000,000 living bacteria cells in the food. More than 16x what ittakes to make you very sick. I like thestatement made earlier, andif Imay borrow it, "When in doubt, throw it out."

Answer 3

The maximum time for cooling foods to below 5 degrees Celcius is :
From 60 C to 21 C is 2 hours
From 21 C to 5 C in a further 4 hours

The Danger Zone Temperature is between 5 C and 60 C

Foods that have been in the danger zone for:
Under 2 hours - use immediately or refrigerate
Between 2 and 4 hours - use immediately - do not refrigerate
Over 4 hours - should be discarded.

Answer 4

depends what it is seafood?get rid of it for sure in a kitchen situation food is chilled quickly in a blast chiller and refrigerated stored at a safe temp of5 degrees c or under the safe zone for hot food is 63 or above anything between is considered danger zone but thats in industry where we have to keep our asses covered or be closed down at home you can afford to be more flexible judge by what it is and how long its out and how warm the room is if it smells definately dump it

Answer 5

I wouldn't take any chances and throw it away. It's not worth getting sick over or poisoning anyone in your family.

Answer 6

no toss it. Not worth the risk of a very uncomfortable illness.

Answer 7

No it is not safe and reheating won't make it anything but hot and spoiled.

Answer 8

oh God you bunch of babies,,as long as it hasn't been a heatwave,,throw the blo*dy thing in the nuker,,hey presto no germs,,what the hell did we do before fridges ???

Answer 9

really depends what kind of food it is and how warm it was during nighttime

stay away from sitting-in-the-heat meat though!

Answer 10

When in doubt throw it out!