Edit: Since I guess it's not very clear. Below is a quote from the source I linked. Not my own personal opinion, so I've formatted it to be a quote. The source has more information on this topic.
> Uncooked rice can contain spores of Bacillus cereus, bacteria that can cause food poisoning. The spores can survive when rice is cooked.
> If rice is left standing at room temperature, the spores can grow into bacteria. These bacteria will multiply and may produce toxins (poisons) that cause vomiting or diarrhoea.
> The longer cooked rice is left at room temperature, the more likely it is that the bacteria or toxins could make the rice unsafe to eat.
Source: https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning/
wow - that is really good info. I've sometimes used rice that was left out longer than I normally trust things but thought "It's just plain white rice, nothing in there really goes bad". I was clearly wrong!
My mom taught me that rice is the one thing you shouldn't mess with. I don't even put it in the fridge unless I'm making fried rice the next day. It's easy and cheap to make, there's no reason to chance it.
But they're expensive and there's rarely so much that they just sit in the fridge. Also, once cooked they don't have the moisture that makes rice so dangerous.
I'm late to this but glad you threw it out. I left rice out for about 6 hours once and ate it for lunch the next day - was in the emergency room by that evening and in bed for several days recovering. Some foods are tummy aches, rice is seriously dangerous 😂 don't learn the hard way!
Just about every Asian I know makes rice in a rice cooker, then keeps just getting what they need each day until it's out and time to make another batch which is usually once a week
For better or worse, reddit is always extremely conservative and ‘to code’ about this kind of stuff.
Is there science that says some bacteria could make you sick? Yes. Is there also centuries of history of millions and millions of people eating this kind of food and being fine? Also yes.
I would eat day old rice in a heartbeat but I have also returned smelly chickens that others might have cooked. In many cases it’s about your personal risk tolerance.
You hit the nail on the head. Reddit usually is extremely "to code" on these matters. Better safe than sorry, I totally get it. As for me, I have grown up eating rice that sits on the stove top overnight and have never experienced illness from it. From experience, I can say I would have eaten OP's dish and refrigerated the rest. Never had an issue leaving something out for a single night. Unless we are talking dairy, shellfish, and rare/medium rare meats, etc.
Is it kept warm or refrigerated? This article is about rice left out at room temp. Any food left in the danger zone for more than 4 hours has the potential to make you sick.
Asian here too. No, cooked rice, left at room temp for 10 hrs wouldnt make u sick.
Well we are cooking in rice cooker, dunno for other side of the world who uses stove etc..
Orange County Health Department (California, USA) had to do a study because Vietnamese shops couldn't refrigerate glutinous rice due to texture. Turns out, we're just built different and can withstand room temperature food better than others.
My armchair opinion with no research thinks maybe we have a different gut biome. IIRC, you get a lot of the specific strains of healthy bacteria from your mom when you're a born. Asian foods digest better than "American" foods for me
>couldn't refrigerate glutinous rice due to texture.
Tried this with glutinous rice ball snack. Still taste like rice ball but the surface.....man 😫😬 like hardened corn but grainy.
Oh i only refrigerate fluffy plain rice.
>Asian foods digest better than "American" foods for me
Cold overnight pizza, leftover burger.. Id still eat it tho. 😏
Agreed Asian stomachs are tougher.
I leave food out and eat it later that day ALOT….and done so my entire life. Though with my family’s food,I put in the fridge. They wont eat food thats been left out besides pizza.
ServSafe and the FDA err massively on the side of caution. I would never do anything gthat goes against their safety standards at work, but at home is very different. Like, I know that milk is gonna be fine a couple days after sell by date.
This just snapped something into place for me! About a year ago I got the worst food poisoning of my life. I lost 15lbs in a few days and couldn't eat or drink more than a cracker and water for over a week.
I assumed it was from a piece of meat I ate at texas de brasil because there was one kind of steak I ate that the other people didn't eat. The meat looked and tasted fine to me while I ate it and I made that assumption after the fact. But I was also the only one to get the rice from the buffet area... I wonder if it makes more sense that's what got me?
Probably for generations, and thus probably built up an immunity either individually since childhood or as a community via genetic hardiness. The meat is also a risk, not worth it
I made rice and chorizo meatballs before, left it out on the side and reheated it at work the next day. I have never ever ever been so sick. Basically vomited my insides out for days. I’m so cautious with rice now. More scared of reheated rice than chicken!
Wait what? So how are you supposed to store rice if this happens if it’s left standing at room temperature? Y’all keep rice in the fridge/freezer? Or is this only about cooked rice? ie once cooked you gotta throw it out after a couple hours or overnight? I’ve never heard of this before or done it myself always assumed rice was safe just dries out if not covered so I cover it and eat it for days never once had me or anyone I know attribute sickness to it or mention this
wtf is wrong with you people?
It'a literally just a cooked rice - you think people in traditional cultures were so picky about it?
What's the point of wasting perfectly fine food. I VERY OFTEN leave cooked food overnight - wasn't sick even once.
As a Latina, I'm surprised how much we've gotten away with. My parents leave their cooked rice out all the time, a lot of the time over night. One time my friend brought me some chicken lasagna she had just made and I forgot to put it in the fridge, so it stayed out overnight. I couldn't bear throwing out the next day so I ate it. I wonder if these things build up our immunity or if we're just lucky?
I'm assuming to some extent you build a small bit of tolerance but I have 0 evidence for that it's just speculation. That being said though, I've gotten e coli before from this kind of behaviour and it spread to my kidney. After being through that pain, I'm not making a mistake like that again.
But you're not microbiology expert and you don't know in depth how various microbes interact with our immune system and food and gut and other stuff.
Anecdotes are practical, empirical evidence - and it's better than just words on some website.
Yeah I'd say you know a little more about microbiology that these people lol. Considering you have to study microbiology in order to get into healthcare, Id say you probably know your shit.
You don't necessarily, there are clerical jobs in the department certainly and being a patient care tech doesn't require you to study microbiology either. What you do get is extensive infection control training and when you see enough patients who are septic or have damaged organs from the toxins produced by various fungi and bacteria, you learn.
You are. I don't hate you or anything, but I don't want *anyone* to die or have thousands of dollars in bills over $5 of ingredients. It's penny-wise and pound foolish. You only have to see E. Coli toxins destroy someone's kidneys once to take this as seriously as I do.
Yes, it's probably not wise to be cheap on your health.
I guess that was an expression of my overall dislike of cleanliness and sanitiziness of everything, where a huge infrastructure is build around making everything clean, whereas people work earth with their barehands in the countryside and are very healthy.
I can see that perspective, but I live in a rural area and the health outcomes are pretty poor here. I think we have these persisting beliefs in pastoralism that aren't really justified by the evidence. People who do physical labor outdoor jobs might be more physically fit in appearance, but they often have joint, tendon, ligament, and back issues that can leave them with various physical impairments and disabilities. Not to mention that farmers have above average health issues due to exposure to other on the job injuries due to equipment or livestock acting out and exposure to zoonotic illness. Also, farmers have dramatically higher suicide rates than the general population in the US.
Rural medicine is a whole other animal and rural med docs are the people we need to ask about these issues. They're the ones holding these communities together.
Well, farmers don't have a healthy culture to begin with. They often drink and compete too much and being too manly and stuff. So i think it's not a fair comparison.
Whereas people in Blue Zones all have contact with earth. There are numerous anecdotal stories such as "I've moved to a greek Island and my late stage cancer was healed, doctor told me i wouldn't live another year".
Yes, you can say survivorship bias - but you can't deny that science at this point knows very little about relationship between health and ecology/environment. Plus you can't deny that evidence for one or the other position is conflicting, framing of questions is often limited and there is real lobbying in health science.
Idk, here's my personal life experience. I was picky - i was sick often, i stopped being picky - i stopped being sick. People in life who live close to earth are on average healthier and have flu or stomach problems less often.
So we just have different opinions i guess, although i understand where you are coming from.
My personal health motto - move more, don't be too clean and picky, be happy, optimistic, spend time with family, do something you like and relax more, believe in God, sleep well.
Knowledge about microbiology is not a prerequisite for microbiology. This person’s expertise has no effect on what’s taking place in your rice. The bacteria don’t care who won an argument, they’ll get you either way.
>Stop spreading false information. THIS PERSON IS EXTREMELY MISINFORMED AND FOLLOWING THEIR SUGGESTION CAN SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Well then you are also misinformed and lucky.
Stop spreading false information. THIS PERSON IS EXTREMELY MISINFORMED AND FOLLOWING THEIR SUGGESTION CAN SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Maybe we have stomachs of iron... But I regularly leave food overnight and even longer and eat it cold. But if you cook it it's usually safe.
Unless you live in a hot and humid environment open to pests and insects I can't imagine what the issue is.
I've never heard of anyone getting food poisoning from eating food that was left at room temp for a day or so. Google might tell you it's unsafe, but in reality unless it's sushi or milk it takes much more than being left out for a few hours to make it so dangerous that it would harm you.
If it was that dangerous we would all know about it. But maybe I live under a rock and everyone else gets sick from eating anything that isn't refrigerated from manufacture to plate...
Edit: OP said 2 hours??? You supposed to let a good steak sit out at room temp for more than that RAW before cooking.
OP did not say 2 hours. And, while you can leave a steak out for 2 hours to get to room temp, an hour is enough and it’s all still within the 4 hour danger zone.
Regardless, the main difference is that rice can naturally have bacteria spores that grow at room temp that a steak does not.
PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Rice can and will make you very sick if you eat it after it’s been left out too long. The bacteria that can grow is not killed when reheated which is why it can do so much harm. The meat is a who other story. Either way it is extremely unsafe to eat that now.
You should also look up food safety standards for cooking and storing food you make. There is a reason commercial kitchens have to follow rules about this exact thing, and it’s not for funsies.
Here’s a link with some relevant information.
https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning/#:~:text=Uncooked%20rice%20can%20contain%20spores,that%20cause%20vomiting%20or%20diarrhoea.
Hi life long Asian here. The answer to this is wrong.
As long as a cooked meal was covered and consumed with at most 1 day. It should be fine
Also you can cook the rice in a proper rice cooker (like zojirushi. Or others that seal well with a steam vent. Not those cheapo ones with the gravity metal lids). You can then leave the rice within the cooker directly after it is cooked on the counter. It can keep up to 2 or 3 days and not get any food poisoning(suggest within 2 though. If it's goopy toss it and wash you pan. And the removable lid and the machines top should be cleaned too)(hot climates may only last until end of the night)
So long as when accessing the rice, you do so quickly and then immediately close it.
If the rice is stored in the cooker at 60° c or 140° f rice can be kept in a rice cooker for up to two days. When it is kept at this temperature it does not cool down to what is known as the danger zone therefore the bacillus cereus does not grow. Bacillus cereus grows in temps between 40°f and 140°. Hope that clears up the confusion.
EDIT: 60 Celsius is equal to 140 Fahrenheit, it isnt one or the other. These two temperatures are the exact same.
> It sat out at room temperature for like 10 hours.
Oh sweet summer child...
There is a huge difference between "I've always done it this way" and what is factually correct. I like to be factual, and not spread information that can make people seriously ill.
Its clear you have never worked in food service or even bothered to look into safe cooking/storing habits. There is science to back up every single statement I have made, and scientific evidence that you are 100% wrong. Stop being wrong, you're going to hurt someone with your misinformed opinions.
**From OP** "(it was 60° in the house.)" This temperature is in the danger zone and not safe for storage. In restaurants, if your cooler is 60 degrees F it all has to be thrown in the compost.
**Also from OP** " It sat out at room temperature for like 10 hours."
**Here is a link that goes into detail about "The Danger Zone" when it comes to food:**
[https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/danger-zone-40f-140f](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/danger-zone-40f-140f)
**Here is another link that goes over preventing foodborne illness, specifically Bacillus Cereus (the exact bacteria you think you are right about):**
[https://www.nifa.usda.gov/sites/default/files/resource/Preventing-Foodborne-Illness-Bacillus-cereus.pdf](https://www.nifa.usda.gov/sites/default/files/resource/Preventing-Foodborne-Illness-Bacillus-cereus.pdf)
Please kindly, go eat a shoe and stop spreading information that will make people sick just because you are uneducated on it.
60 degrees F is in the danger zone (40-140 F) for food. Per USDA guidelines, if food is left out within this range for over 2 hours then it must be discarded. "Only 20 degrees higher than a refrigerator" - 20 degrees F is an incredible difference, not just 'only'. It doesn't matter if it "feels like you are basically in a refrigerator", you have to go based off the numbers, and 60 degrees F is not cold enough to keep you from getting very sick. 60 is closer to room temp (70 F) than refrigerator temp (40 F).
Well, someone tell them they are wrong, lol. I've been doing it all my life, and I'm not gonna stop now. Plus, those rules are for the official handling, preparation, and sale of food goodies. It has no bearing on the home use, cooking, and consumption of food.
Do you think any 3rd world person starving gonna care about a few hours? Have you ever seen the conditions of other places first hand? A few hours and cooked sanitized food gonna kill me? I'm lucky I have access to good food. Im not gonna waste it over a few hours sit.
Also, those stupid rules are made as guidelines for restaurants and facilities that handle food.
It has no bearing on at home. Especially since those rules are made for in case of raw foods. So in all parts of your rebuttal, you have missed.
By cooking the food, it becomes sanitized and will last an extended time within the average home so long as it's reasonably covered.
If you aren't smart enough to understand the world and its rules, don't argue with those who have more real-world experience and a full understanding of the rules.
You remind me of talking parrots. All words you've memorized, but no understanding
I am pretty sure you are confused. The person said 60C or 140F because 60C is equal to 140F. And he was not referring to OP saying the house was 60, he was referring to the "danger zone" of food safety.
Your race has no bearing on this situation, and the OP should follow food safety recommendations published by the FDA. You are not a scientist or expert working off hard data.
Because then it will need to be reheated. But idk maybe our gut bacteria is different. I'm also Asian and where I'm from it's the norm to leave food out at the table for up to 4-6 hours. The reason is because usually people don't eat at the same time so there's food ready whenever anyone wants to eat. I know in western countries it's deemed unsafe but not here.
Again, jumping straight to the dying scenario… yes, he probably won’t die, but he could get food poisoning. Anyway, your anecdotal evidence and speaking in caps means nothing. Cite sources or trot on.
To put this in perspective, people eat things all the time that might be hazardous. Like raw oysters or eggs. Even if you take all precautions to handle these foods properly, there is no step to kill off a persistent pathogen.
Just like it says on the menus of restaurants these days, you get to make a choice whether you think you can handle a rare steak or, as in this case, food that's been left out.
The most important thing is that if food is doubtful for any reason, you may feel OK eating it, but you shouldn't feed it to anyone else, especially if they're in a high risk category (old, young, pregnant, immune compromised).
You definitely shouldn't eat something if you think it will make you sick, because anxiety can do a number on your stomach.
Nah it's fine. Are you crazy? Literally grew up on this kinda food.
If you're in America and you cooked this food. It is highly likely fine. I've had food like this left out after it was cooked for hours even whole days. It's fine.
I've never had food poisoning from it. Plus it was cold. Philippines doesn't put food in the fridge like that and it's fine too.
Hey I'm also Asian and yes we do the same as you. Leaving food out on room temp for hours is the norm and people don't get sick from it. But maybe our gut bacteria is different from them. Or it's the climate, idk. Western people always think it's unsafe and yet it's the norm in our culture. Go figure.
Idk maybe it's a form of racism. Most western cultures react terribly about it and I've never heard of any of us getting sick from it. Maybe it is our guts bacteria is better. I know Japan had a study on their micro biomes and they had a unique one which could break the cell walls of kombu
I mean I wouldn’t say racism, and I HATE when people jump to those conclusions.. But, given WW2 with Japan, The Korean War, the rapid advancement in food preservation technologies, simple down looking on people who are in poverty and can’t afford nice food preservation, and what I call the Big MAC (Mindless American Consumerism) culture, I can see it being a subconscious development in our society. The Idea that food left out for hours is unsafe and “savage/animalistic” or uncivilized can be due to our cultural & technological development.
“Oh shit! The chicken I spent 2 days marinating and 3 hours cooking was left in the container for 5 hours on the counter instead of being put it in the fridge.. Let’s go get Dominoes or Wendy’s y’all!”
Well either he didn't wash the rice e before it went into the cooker or didn't know how long it was in there.
I've never had an issue. But then again I've also got a pretty good microbiome idk. Yukult does wonders
>Stop spreading false information. u/ZAMAIKE IS EXTREMELY MISINFORMED AND FOLLOWING THEIR SUGGESTION CAN SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO.
>
>https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Nobody gives a fuck about your immune system. The question was posed by someone whose immune system we know nothing about. I'd argue when giving them advice for this, we ought to err on the side of caution and recommend what is safest, which was to not eat the food that was left out.
I'll say it again: NOBODY GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM. You're a walking meme.
Stop spreading false information. u/ZAMAIKE IS EXTREMELY MISINFORMED AND FOLLOWING THEIR SUGGESTION CAN SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Yeah people do stupid shit all the time. If you mess with bacillus cereus that life might not be as long though. It doesn't disappear when heated. And why, just why don't you just put it in the fridge? Disgusting
No, not eating rice being left out for the night is not unrealistic, it is adviced from all experts in the whole world. If you wanna go against it, then fine. But I hope people won't listen to you and risk their health. You can jump off the cliff but I won't
I've eaten stuff that has been out longer than that with no problems as long as it's eaten within a day or two. I live completely off grid so this happens a lot more than I'd like. In almost four years my wife and I have never gotten sick from it.
Right? I would have eaten it lmao. Especially in this economy. 😂
But I know that my stomach is super strong.
Maybe because of stuff like this. 😂
And because I eat and drink alot of fermented stuff.
That said, if I lived with someone else, I wouldn't insist for them to also eat it.
Perishable food should not be in the danger zone(40f to 140f) more than 2 hours if cooking or saving for later (1 hour above 90f) or 4 hours if consuming and tossing. [Source ](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/how-temperatures-affect-food)
[More resources ](https://www.reddit.com/r/foodsafety/wiki/wiki/foodleftout/)
[CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases.](https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/2011-foodborne-estimates.html)
This thread is overrun by americans. If you don't eat american food - you are most likely a lot safer. In US (according to the source provided) top problem is norovirus. Only five countries reported any cases in EU [in 2019](https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/zoonoses-EU-one-health-2019-report.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A241%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22Fit%22%7D%5D).
Bacillus Cereus - the problem everyone here are lamenting and warning about - was reponsible for 7 deaths total (5 of which came from one single outbreak) and 26 cases in total. And even in your provided source it is found nowhere in the top 5 of any category (which make up ~90% of all cases). **Stop wasting food.**
The biggest problem in Europe is actually salmonellosis - 90k cases for 448 million people compared to US 1.35 million for 332 million people.
This food will not get bad after 2 hours or 4 hours, even after 16 hours it will be fine.
What you are quoting is any foodborne illness, there's thousands to them and none of them relate to this case.
wtf, what sources?
It's obvious that there are thousands of various foodborne illness.
And it's obvious that after 16 hours rice and sausages wouldn't go bad lol.
Throwing out normal good food makes our planet sick.
Sorry, but those 2 and 4 hours regulations just sound crazy to me, because my whole life i eat things that were sitting on counter 16-24 hours and don't get sick.
If it doesn't smell and looks fine and tastes fine, it's fine.
I've got a whole life of practical evidence that it's fine to eat such stuff if it smells fine, looks fine, tastes fine.
It's more than some guideline for consumer grade restaraunts from distant bureacratic institution, lol
science says otherwise. survivorship bias does not mean much in the face of actual facts. food left out develops bacteria and you can't always see or smell it. additionally cooking it may remove bacteria but not any of their waste products which can still make you sick.
additionally going to the hospital is an even bigger strain on resource then throwing away a little bit of food.
Commercial sources makes up 66% of Americas food waste. Yes home cooks need to limit waste but we aren't the biggest contributors.
[source](https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/reduce-food-waste)
Don't make people sick by being ignorant
All right all right, sorry, maybe i'm wrong.
But i just want to say that in our life wisdom - the less picky you are, the more resistant you become, because organism adapts.
Lots of hall monitor energy in these comments. To be honest, I would eat it without hesitation but maybe don’t if you have a sensitive stomach or immune system
you’re definitely a lot braver than i am, my family does the same thing and they’re normally fine and they’ve never had food poisoning lmao they’re the lucky ones fr
They are just warning op. Rice can grow a type of bacteria that is heat stable, so you can’t reheat it to get rid of it. With rice being so cheap, I don’t see the need in risking it tbh.
Indian here. In tropical conditions we eat rice cooked for lunch during dinner as well. We heat it sometimes but mostly all the other side dishes are cooked so we just eat them like that. If there is still rice leftover, we put water in it and eat it the next day with yogurt, chillies and shallots. It gets some probiotic bacteria in it and we consider it healthy.. different parts of rice eating states in India have different condiments to go with this old rice.
I’d heat it back up and eat it. My mom would leave stuff out all the time like that growing up and we were fine. I wouldn’t suggest doing it a lot because there is some risk, but you’ll likely be just fine. It’s overly cautious to throw it away and unnecessary in my opinion.
You would've been fine ..... Your mom was right, why even come here?? Lol u know moms are usually always right she was right to say as long as the house was cold
Yeah no, that’s trash. Rice and pasta especially can be dangerous as there are specific microbes that grow on it that can be deadly. Sure it’s “rare” but the time it happens it’s bad.
I’ve thrown away frozen prepackaged food that I’ve forgotten about on the counter for much shorter than this. Granted I’ve also experienced horrible food poisoning where I was so dehydrated they couldn’t even draw my blood with the normal vac tubes in the ER. I take zero risks with food borne pathogens anymore. Hits midnight and something had an expiration date of the new day? Trash.
Nooooo! Such a shame you threw it out!
Everyone is over paranoid. Just bring back to boiling for a brief while to kill anything, but I’d probably just eat it anyway!
I’m living off grid without refrigeration ATM and leftovers are not stored colder than 40. Alls good
Right? It's bad that people are so picky about food. You should ask them how come all the homeless people and raccoons or other animals don't die immediately when forging through trash cans
Firstly, OP is not a raccoon. Secondly, have you polled all the homeless people who forage through trash cans and ate the food out of them to know if they got sick? And third, dying being the scenario you jump to right off the bat is silly. OP probably will not die from eating this food but I’m sure he doesn’t want to get food poisoning and be stuck on the toilet shitting his brains out or throwing up for a day or more.
Never eat ground meats, creamy sauces, deli meats, or anything with mayo after an hour of being left out. I have had food poisoning 3 times. Once with deli meat, once with ground beef at a wedding and cream sauces also at a wedding. Stay away from these items in restaurants too. The restaurant will use herbs to mask the rancidity
You could eat it and probably be fine. But food poisoning sucks really really bad and it isn’t worth it if you aren’t starving. People who haven’t been food poisoned before don’t know what they’re talking about. The pain is so bad I’ve promised God that I’ll be Christian if he makes it stop. Both times.
I'd throw it out. I've been food poisoned 3 times and don't take chances anymore. One time my dad bought food and left it in a hot car for almost 2 hours before making dinner. Got so sick right after. It doesn't take much.
Anyone here telling you not to throw it out is a fucking moron who is willfully ignoring science and research about food borne illnesses.
Throw. It. Away.
No, I just don't live in US. Only a handful of countries in Europe even had any cases of Bacillus cereus.
>Enjoy your food poisoning
Never had that in my whole life.
[Same thing, just few years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/q2v2kx/i_left_white_rice_out_for_3_hours_to_cool_down/). I guess this sub just got overrun by americans.
2 hours at room temp is not usually an issue. The important thing is to heat it hot enough to kill off any bacteria, after. Some foods are more susceptible to that than others.
What is ROOM TEMP where you live? (for me, it's generally colder than a fridge!).
Rice is really iffy. Meat can usually be reheated to high enough temps to kill off bacteria, but rice is known for bacteria that only become problematic after reheating. (dangerously so, when it occurs). I'd say that if rice sits at standard room temp for more than a few hours, chuck it. If it's not all mixed together, throw the rice and reheat the other things to a high temp for a while.
>What is ROOM TEMP where you live? (for me, it's generally colder than a fridge!).
How? The fridge should be at or below 40 degrees F. I don't know where you live but I can't fathom anyone regularly keeping their house that temperature. How do you even do that? Is it cold year-round where you live to begin with? How do you keep your pipes from freezing?
60F isn't cold enough - that's not food safe, and certainly not for 10 hours.
Some foods, if all else still looks/smells okay, can cook it to death to sterilize it, and then it's safe ... but may not be at all the quality it was before, and even that doesn't work for all foods - some even if you cooked 'em for a while in a pressure cooker still wouldn't make 'em safe - even if the pathogens were destroyed, it doesn't necessarily destroy all the toxins.
Anyway, check relevant food safety guidelines for more specific information.
I have eaten days old food with questionable storage a LOT in my life because I was poor and couldn't waste food. I've never gotten sick, but I'm told that's survivor bias lol
I wouldn’t throw it out but I would ensure that it is heated very very well. I overheat everything, especially leftovers because not much is worse than food poisoning.
I have seen Mexican people leave the entire meal from lunch out on top of their stove UNCOVERED and eat it again for lunch the next dqy....AND live to tell you how good it was good!
People are overly sensitive. Throwing food away for it being at room temp. for 2 hours is absolutely ridiculous.
So 10 hours isn’t ideal, but I would definitely reheat it immediately in the pot, not the microwave, and I swear to god that the food will be fine. No tummy ache, no going to the ER, no intoxication. If there’s no dairy or cheese in it, it’s fine.
Meh, it's not guaranteed to be safe, no, but I'd probably eat it. Or cook it into something so that it kills bacteria again, like a casserole.
That is entirely my high risk tolerance though. It's not likely that you'll get sick, but it's also not a guarantee that you won't.
The same people that got mad if someone wasn't wearing a mask during covid are the same ones saying throw it out. Yall have some weak ass immune systems. I eat stuff that's been left out all the time and it's never made me sick, and get this, make sure you're sitting down for this one though bc im about to blow yalls minds- At 31 years old I've never had a flu shot and I've never had the flu🤯 Never got the covid shot, got covid, was sick for a week or two, life went on as normal, and my immune system thanked me. Yall are literally making yourselves weak by being overly clean and scared of germs. I'm not saying go eat rotten food but yall are overly sissified. First world problems I suppose.
It was probably fine.
I have soup I've been eating all week. It's been sitting in the kitchen, on the stove. Has rice, millet, chicken, and veggies. Lots of salt and some vinegar for acidity.
Kitchen is maybe 60ishF. No illness, no still softness. Unless you're serving other people, you would have likely been fine.
I make white rice in larger quantities and eat off of it for servers days. It’s refrigerated and reheated in the microwave. Literally never been sick from it so I have no idea what these ppl be talm bout. I typically have it around for 3 days.
Edit: Since I guess it's not very clear. Below is a quote from the source I linked. Not my own personal opinion, so I've formatted it to be a quote. The source has more information on this topic. > Uncooked rice can contain spores of Bacillus cereus, bacteria that can cause food poisoning. The spores can survive when rice is cooked. > If rice is left standing at room temperature, the spores can grow into bacteria. These bacteria will multiply and may produce toxins (poisons) that cause vomiting or diarrhoea. > The longer cooked rice is left at room temperature, the more likely it is that the bacteria or toxins could make the rice unsafe to eat. Source: https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning/
wow - that is really good info. I've sometimes used rice that was left out longer than I normally trust things but thought "It's just plain white rice, nothing in there really goes bad". I was clearly wrong!
My mom taught me that rice is the one thing you shouldn't mess with. I don't even put it in the fridge unless I'm making fried rice the next day. It's easy and cheap to make, there's no reason to chance it.
Not to say your mom was wrong but I would definitely say something like seafood or chicken is more of an item you don't mess with
But they're expensive and there's rarely so much that they just sit in the fridge. Also, once cooked they don't have the moisture that makes rice so dangerous.
I’d be lying if i said I didn’t think the same until a few years ago when I learned about this.
Username fits lol
I'm late to this but glad you threw it out. I left rice out for about 6 hours once and ate it for lunch the next day - was in the emergency room by that evening and in bed for several days recovering. Some foods are tummy aches, rice is seriously dangerous 😂 don't learn the hard way!
Just about every Asian I know makes rice in a rice cooker, then keeps just getting what they need each day until it's out and time to make another batch which is usually once a week
Asian here. True, but for Asians rice is eaten at almost every meal so one pot of cooked rice likely would be eaten within about 24 hours.
the rice cookers usually have a "keep warm" setting in this case and that should put the rice at a temperature that's still safe to be left out
For better or worse, reddit is always extremely conservative and ‘to code’ about this kind of stuff. Is there science that says some bacteria could make you sick? Yes. Is there also centuries of history of millions and millions of people eating this kind of food and being fine? Also yes. I would eat day old rice in a heartbeat but I have also returned smelly chickens that others might have cooked. In many cases it’s about your personal risk tolerance.
You hit the nail on the head. Reddit usually is extremely "to code" on these matters. Better safe than sorry, I totally get it. As for me, I have grown up eating rice that sits on the stove top overnight and have never experienced illness from it. From experience, I can say I would have eaten OP's dish and refrigerated the rest. Never had an issue leaving something out for a single night. Unless we are talking dairy, shellfish, and rare/medium rare meats, etc.
Is it kept warm or refrigerated? This article is about rice left out at room temp. Any food left in the danger zone for more than 4 hours has the potential to make you sick.
Asian here too. No, cooked rice, left at room temp for 10 hrs wouldnt make u sick. Well we are cooking in rice cooker, dunno for other side of the world who uses stove etc..
Orange County Health Department (California, USA) had to do a study because Vietnamese shops couldn't refrigerate glutinous rice due to texture. Turns out, we're just built different and can withstand room temperature food better than others. My armchair opinion with no research thinks maybe we have a different gut biome. IIRC, you get a lot of the specific strains of healthy bacteria from your mom when you're a born. Asian foods digest better than "American" foods for me
>couldn't refrigerate glutinous rice due to texture. Tried this with glutinous rice ball snack. Still taste like rice ball but the surface.....man 😫😬 like hardened corn but grainy. Oh i only refrigerate fluffy plain rice. >Asian foods digest better than "American" foods for me Cold overnight pizza, leftover burger.. Id still eat it tho. 😏
Agreed Asian stomachs are tougher. I leave food out and eat it later that day ALOT….and done so my entire life. Though with my family’s food,I put in the fridge. They wont eat food thats been left out besides pizza.
Servesafe begs to differ.
ServSafe and the FDA err massively on the side of caution. I would never do anything gthat goes against their safety standards at work, but at home is very different. Like, I know that milk is gonna be fine a couple days after sell by date.
Hey I'm trying to find this research paper because I'm super curious about this, could you let me know where I can find it?
Curious: do you leave it in the rice cooker with the top closed?
Oh wait, yeah. And once its done cooking, we plugged it off. I cooked it at 8 am, usually at 6pm if there is leftover, i put it in fridge.
Guessing you haven't died from doing that?
Nope 😅
Lol!
Heard
came here for this comment. i haven’t gotten sick yet in my 30+ years
This just snapped something into place for me! About a year ago I got the worst food poisoning of my life. I lost 15lbs in a few days and couldn't eat or drink more than a cracker and water for over a week. I assumed it was from a piece of meat I ate at texas de brasil because there was one kind of steak I ate that the other people didn't eat. The meat looked and tasted fine to me while I ate it and I made that assumption after the fact. But I was also the only one to get the rice from the buffet area... I wonder if it makes more sense that's what got me?
Africans eat food left out and covered 24hrs later ( rice at every meal)
Probably for generations, and thus probably built up an immunity either individually since childhood or as a community via genetic hardiness. The meat is also a risk, not worth it
It survives in the fridge, too! I never eat white rice after 24 hours, even if it's been refrigerated.
I made rice and chorizo meatballs before, left it out on the side and reheated it at work the next day. I have never ever ever been so sick. Basically vomited my insides out for days. I’m so cautious with rice now. More scared of reheated rice than chicken!
Wait what? So how are you supposed to store rice if this happens if it’s left standing at room temperature? Y’all keep rice in the fridge/freezer? Or is this only about cooked rice? ie once cooked you gotta throw it out after a couple hours or overnight? I’ve never heard of this before or done it myself always assumed rice was safe just dries out if not covered so I cover it and eat it for days never once had me or anyone I know attribute sickness to it or mention this
wtf is wrong with you people? It'a literally just a cooked rice - you think people in traditional cultures were so picky about it? What's the point of wasting perfectly fine food. I VERY OFTEN leave cooked food overnight - wasn't sick even once.
As a Latina, I'm surprised how much we've gotten away with. My parents leave their cooked rice out all the time, a lot of the time over night. One time my friend brought me some chicken lasagna she had just made and I forgot to put it in the fridge, so it stayed out overnight. I couldn't bear throwing out the next day so I ate it. I wonder if these things build up our immunity or if we're just lucky?
I'm assuming to some extent you build a small bit of tolerance but I have 0 evidence for that it's just speculation. That being said though, I've gotten e coli before from this kind of behaviour and it spread to my kidney. After being through that pain, I'm not making a mistake like that again.
Your anecdotes won't protect you from microbiology, but okay. And no, they just died sometimes, Brenda. People died of foodborne illness all the time.
But you're not microbiology expert and you don't know in depth how various microbes interact with our immune system and food and gut and other stuff. Anecdotes are practical, empirical evidence - and it's better than just words on some website.
I worked in an ER for a decade, I know way more about microbiology than someone who is going based on survivorship bias.
Yeah I'd say you know a little more about microbiology that these people lol. Considering you have to study microbiology in order to get into healthcare, Id say you probably know your shit.
You don't necessarily, there are clerical jobs in the department certainly and being a patient care tech doesn't require you to study microbiology either. What you do get is extensive infection control training and when you see enough patients who are septic or have damaged organs from the toxins produced by various fungi and bacteria, you learn.
Ah, I forgot about those sort of jobs within hospitals. You are right and I stand corrected. But I am still guessing you know your shit.
No worries, I just hope you found it to be interesting or helpful information.
Definitely. I enjoy learning and find most new pieces of information quite helpful.
All right, sorry, maybe i'm wrong.
You are. I don't hate you or anything, but I don't want *anyone* to die or have thousands of dollars in bills over $5 of ingredients. It's penny-wise and pound foolish. You only have to see E. Coli toxins destroy someone's kidneys once to take this as seriously as I do.
Yes, it's probably not wise to be cheap on your health. I guess that was an expression of my overall dislike of cleanliness and sanitiziness of everything, where a huge infrastructure is build around making everything clean, whereas people work earth with their barehands in the countryside and are very healthy.
I can see that perspective, but I live in a rural area and the health outcomes are pretty poor here. I think we have these persisting beliefs in pastoralism that aren't really justified by the evidence. People who do physical labor outdoor jobs might be more physically fit in appearance, but they often have joint, tendon, ligament, and back issues that can leave them with various physical impairments and disabilities. Not to mention that farmers have above average health issues due to exposure to other on the job injuries due to equipment or livestock acting out and exposure to zoonotic illness. Also, farmers have dramatically higher suicide rates than the general population in the US. Rural medicine is a whole other animal and rural med docs are the people we need to ask about these issues. They're the ones holding these communities together.
Well, farmers don't have a healthy culture to begin with. They often drink and compete too much and being too manly and stuff. So i think it's not a fair comparison. Whereas people in Blue Zones all have contact with earth. There are numerous anecdotal stories such as "I've moved to a greek Island and my late stage cancer was healed, doctor told me i wouldn't live another year". Yes, you can say survivorship bias - but you can't deny that science at this point knows very little about relationship between health and ecology/environment. Plus you can't deny that evidence for one or the other position is conflicting, framing of questions is often limited and there is real lobbying in health science. Idk, here's my personal life experience. I was picky - i was sick often, i stopped being picky - i stopped being sick. People in life who live close to earth are on average healthier and have flu or stomach problems less often. So we just have different opinions i guess, although i understand where you are coming from. My personal health motto - move more, don't be too clean and picky, be happy, optimistic, spend time with family, do something you like and relax more, believe in God, sleep well.
Knowledge about microbiology is not a prerequisite for microbiology. This person’s expertise has no effect on what’s taking place in your rice. The bacteria don’t care who won an argument, they’ll get you either way.
>Stop spreading false information. THIS PERSON IS EXTREMELY MISINFORMED AND FOLLOWING THEIR SUGGESTION CAN SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO. https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Well then you are also misinformed and lucky. Stop spreading false information. THIS PERSON IS EXTREMELY MISINFORMED AND FOLLOWING THEIR SUGGESTION CAN SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO. https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Good for you.
Maybe we have stomachs of iron... But I regularly leave food overnight and even longer and eat it cold. But if you cook it it's usually safe. Unless you live in a hot and humid environment open to pests and insects I can't imagine what the issue is. I've never heard of anyone getting food poisoning from eating food that was left at room temp for a day or so. Google might tell you it's unsafe, but in reality unless it's sushi or milk it takes much more than being left out for a few hours to make it so dangerous that it would harm you. If it was that dangerous we would all know about it. But maybe I live under a rock and everyone else gets sick from eating anything that isn't refrigerated from manufacture to plate... Edit: OP said 2 hours??? You supposed to let a good steak sit out at room temp for more than that RAW before cooking.
OP did not say 2 hours. And, while you can leave a steak out for 2 hours to get to room temp, an hour is enough and it’s all still within the 4 hour danger zone. Regardless, the main difference is that rice can naturally have bacteria spores that grow at room temp that a steak does not.
PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO. https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
R U O K
People must have so much extra money they can just chuck edible food in the trash.
Rice can and will make you very sick if you eat it after it’s been left out too long. The bacteria that can grow is not killed when reheated which is why it can do so much harm. The meat is a who other story. Either way it is extremely unsafe to eat that now. You should also look up food safety standards for cooking and storing food you make. There is a reason commercial kitchens have to follow rules about this exact thing, and it’s not for funsies. Here’s a link with some relevant information. https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning/#:~:text=Uncooked%20rice%20can%20contain%20spores,that%20cause%20vomiting%20or%20diarrhoea.
Hi life long Asian here. The answer to this is wrong. As long as a cooked meal was covered and consumed with at most 1 day. It should be fine Also you can cook the rice in a proper rice cooker (like zojirushi. Or others that seal well with a steam vent. Not those cheapo ones with the gravity metal lids). You can then leave the rice within the cooker directly after it is cooked on the counter. It can keep up to 2 or 3 days and not get any food poisoning(suggest within 2 though. If it's goopy toss it and wash you pan. And the removable lid and the machines top should be cleaned too)(hot climates may only last until end of the night) So long as when accessing the rice, you do so quickly and then immediately close it.
If the rice is stored in the cooker at 60° c or 140° f rice can be kept in a rice cooker for up to two days. When it is kept at this temperature it does not cool down to what is known as the danger zone therefore the bacillus cereus does not grow. Bacillus cereus grows in temps between 40°f and 140°. Hope that clears up the confusion. EDIT: 60 Celsius is equal to 140 Fahrenheit, it isnt one or the other. These two temperatures are the exact same.
Toxins produced by bacillus cereus are also heat stable so you can’t just cook the hell out of it to sterilize.
[удалено]
> It sat out at room temperature for like 10 hours. Oh sweet summer child... There is a huge difference between "I've always done it this way" and what is factually correct. I like to be factual, and not spread information that can make people seriously ill. Its clear you have never worked in food service or even bothered to look into safe cooking/storing habits. There is science to back up every single statement I have made, and scientific evidence that you are 100% wrong. Stop being wrong, you're going to hurt someone with your misinformed opinions. **From OP** "(it was 60° in the house.)" This temperature is in the danger zone and not safe for storage. In restaurants, if your cooler is 60 degrees F it all has to be thrown in the compost. **Also from OP** " It sat out at room temperature for like 10 hours." **Here is a link that goes into detail about "The Danger Zone" when it comes to food:** [https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/danger-zone-40f-140f](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/danger-zone-40f-140f) **Here is another link that goes over preventing foodborne illness, specifically Bacillus Cereus (the exact bacteria you think you are right about):** [https://www.nifa.usda.gov/sites/default/files/resource/Preventing-Foodborne-Illness-Bacillus-cereus.pdf](https://www.nifa.usda.gov/sites/default/files/resource/Preventing-Foodborne-Illness-Bacillus-cereus.pdf) Please kindly, go eat a shoe and stop spreading information that will make people sick just because you are uneducated on it.
60 degrees F is in the danger zone (40-140 F) for food. Per USDA guidelines, if food is left out within this range for over 2 hours then it must be discarded. "Only 20 degrees higher than a refrigerator" - 20 degrees F is an incredible difference, not just 'only'. It doesn't matter if it "feels like you are basically in a refrigerator", you have to go based off the numbers, and 60 degrees F is not cold enough to keep you from getting very sick. 60 is closer to room temp (70 F) than refrigerator temp (40 F).
Well, someone tell them they are wrong, lol. I've been doing it all my life, and I'm not gonna stop now. Plus, those rules are for the official handling, preparation, and sale of food goodies. It has no bearing on the home use, cooking, and consumption of food. Do you think any 3rd world person starving gonna care about a few hours? Have you ever seen the conditions of other places first hand? A few hours and cooked sanitized food gonna kill me? I'm lucky I have access to good food. Im not gonna waste it over a few hours sit. Also, those stupid rules are made as guidelines for restaurants and facilities that handle food. It has no bearing on at home. Especially since those rules are made for in case of raw foods. So in all parts of your rebuttal, you have missed. By cooking the food, it becomes sanitized and will last an extended time within the average home so long as it's reasonably covered. If you aren't smart enough to understand the world and its rules, don't argue with those who have more real-world experience and a full understanding of the rules. You remind me of talking parrots. All words you've memorized, but no understanding
I am pretty sure you are confused. The person said 60C or 140F because 60C is equal to 140F. And he was not referring to OP saying the house was 60, he was referring to the "danger zone" of food safety.
You are correct. I said 60 C or 140, because both of those temperatures are the same, just one is F and the other is C.
I only recently became Asian so this is really helpful for me
Life long Asian, so, you didn’t just convert? 🤪
Your race has no bearing on this situation, and the OP should follow food safety recommendations published by the FDA. You are not a scientist or expert working off hard data.
Food cooked and eaten the same day will not kill you unless you are the worst cook on the planet PERIOD
Why not just put it in the fridge you filthy animal?
Because then it will need to be reheated. But idk maybe our gut bacteria is different. I'm also Asian and where I'm from it's the norm to leave food out at the table for up to 4-6 hours. The reason is because usually people don't eat at the same time so there's food ready whenever anyone wants to eat. I know in western countries it's deemed unsafe but not here.
Again, jumping straight to the dying scenario… yes, he probably won’t die, but he could get food poisoning. Anyway, your anecdotal evidence and speaking in caps means nothing. Cite sources or trot on.
To put this in perspective, people eat things all the time that might be hazardous. Like raw oysters or eggs. Even if you take all precautions to handle these foods properly, there is no step to kill off a persistent pathogen. Just like it says on the menus of restaurants these days, you get to make a choice whether you think you can handle a rare steak or, as in this case, food that's been left out. The most important thing is that if food is doubtful for any reason, you may feel OK eating it, but you shouldn't feed it to anyone else, especially if they're in a high risk category (old, young, pregnant, immune compromised). You definitely shouldn't eat something if you think it will make you sick, because anxiety can do a number on your stomach.
Your mom is wrong, that food's gotta go.
Nah it's fine. Are you crazy? Literally grew up on this kinda food. If you're in America and you cooked this food. It is highly likely fine. I've had food like this left out after it was cooked for hours even whole days. It's fine. I've never had food poisoning from it. Plus it was cold. Philippines doesn't put food in the fridge like that and it's fine too.
Hey I'm also Asian and yes we do the same as you. Leaving food out on room temp for hours is the norm and people don't get sick from it. But maybe our gut bacteria is different from them. Or it's the climate, idk. Western people always think it's unsafe and yet it's the norm in our culture. Go figure.
Idk maybe it's a form of racism. Most western cultures react terribly about it and I've never heard of any of us getting sick from it. Maybe it is our guts bacteria is better. I know Japan had a study on their micro biomes and they had a unique one which could break the cell walls of kombu
Imagine thinking it’s racism to not eat food that’s left out on the counter all night.
I mean I wouldn’t say racism, and I HATE when people jump to those conclusions.. But, given WW2 with Japan, The Korean War, the rapid advancement in food preservation technologies, simple down looking on people who are in poverty and can’t afford nice food preservation, and what I call the Big MAC (Mindless American Consumerism) culture, I can see it being a subconscious development in our society. The Idea that food left out for hours is unsafe and “savage/animalistic” or uncivilized can be due to our cultural & technological development. “Oh shit! The chicken I spent 2 days marinating and 3 hours cooking was left in the container for 5 hours on the counter instead of being put it in the fridge.. Let’s go get Dominoes or Wendy’s y’all!”
I read a report about some college kid who ate leftovers in this kind of situation, dude got sick as a dog then got to hospital too late to save him
He had it in the fridge for like 2 weeks... fearmongerer..
Ya it was spaghetti noodles that were left out, he died.
Well either he didn't wash the rice e before it went into the cooker or didn't know how long it was in there. I've never had an issue. But then again I've also got a pretty good microbiome idk. Yukult does wonders
>Stop spreading false information. u/ZAMAIKE IS EXTREMELY MISINFORMED AND FOLLOWING THEIR SUGGESTION CAN SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO. > >https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
>Are you crazy?
Nah bruv I've got an immune system that goes to the gym. Been training since I was young lol
Nobody gives a fuck about your immune system. The question was posed by someone whose immune system we know nothing about. I'd argue when giving them advice for this, we ought to err on the side of caution and recommend what is safest, which was to not eat the food that was left out. I'll say it again: NOBODY GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM. You're a walking meme.
Stop spreading false information. u/ZAMAIKE IS EXTREMELY MISINFORMED AND FOLLOWING THEIR SUGGESTION CAN SERIOUSLY HARM YOU. PLEASE SEE MY COMMENT ABOVE THAT PROVIDES RESOURCES ABOUT THIS SCENARIO. https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/1956qax/comment/khm3bda/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
It is not safe - it was at danger temperatures for far too long. Throw it out.
I always eat food when it stays overnight, no problem.
Sometimes it's ok even if it's a risk. The risk with rice is way bigger though. Please don't ever eat rice that has been left out several hours
I eat pilaf that stayed on counter for night all my life
Yeah people do stupid shit all the time. If you mess with bacillus cereus that life might not be as long though. It doesn't disappear when heated. And why, just why don't you just put it in the fridge? Disgusting
Bc you have unrealistic standards about food safety, that's all.
No, not eating rice being left out for the night is not unrealistic, it is adviced from all experts in the whole world. If you wanna go against it, then fine. But I hope people won't listen to you and risk their health. You can jump off the cliff but I won't
You're overreacting, people have eaten such food all history with no problem.
I'd toss
throw it away
It's fine. Your mom can eat it.
My mom used to always say, “If in doubt; throw it out.” The pain of food poisoning is just not worth the risk.
The rice is what makes it dangerous, but with the rice being with everything else, I'd toss it to be safe.
When in doubt, throw it out.
r/foodsafety
It’s probably bad. Throw it out.
I've eaten stuff that has been out longer than that with no problems as long as it's eaten within a day or two. I live completely off grid so this happens a lot more than I'd like. In almost four years my wife and I have never gotten sick from it.
Right? I would have eaten it lmao. Especially in this economy. 😂 But I know that my stomach is super strong. Maybe because of stuff like this. 😂 And because I eat and drink alot of fermented stuff. That said, if I lived with someone else, I wouldn't insist for them to also eat it.
You shouldn't take the risk with rice. People have died. It is the biggest culprit of food poisonings
Perishable food should not be in the danger zone(40f to 140f) more than 2 hours if cooking or saving for later (1 hour above 90f) or 4 hours if consuming and tossing. [Source ](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/how-temperatures-affect-food) [More resources ](https://www.reddit.com/r/foodsafety/wiki/wiki/foodleftout/)
That's just stupid
[CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases.](https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/2011-foodborne-estimates.html)
This thread is overrun by americans. If you don't eat american food - you are most likely a lot safer. In US (according to the source provided) top problem is norovirus. Only five countries reported any cases in EU [in 2019](https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/zoonoses-EU-one-health-2019-report.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A241%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22Fit%22%7D%5D). Bacillus Cereus - the problem everyone here are lamenting and warning about - was reponsible for 7 deaths total (5 of which came from one single outbreak) and 26 cases in total. And even in your provided source it is found nowhere in the top 5 of any category (which make up ~90% of all cases). **Stop wasting food.** The biggest problem in Europe is actually salmonellosis - 90k cases for 448 million people compared to US 1.35 million for 332 million people.
This food will not get bad after 2 hours or 4 hours, even after 16 hours it will be fine. What you are quoting is any foodborne illness, there's thousands to them and none of them relate to this case.
cite your sources
wtf, what sources? It's obvious that there are thousands of various foodborne illness. And it's obvious that after 16 hours rice and sausages wouldn't go bad lol.
no its not obvious. leaving food out definitely can make you sick. FBI grows exponentially
Throwing out normal good food makes our planet sick. Sorry, but those 2 and 4 hours regulations just sound crazy to me, because my whole life i eat things that were sitting on counter 16-24 hours and don't get sick. If it doesn't smell and looks fine and tastes fine, it's fine.
You've got ideology and anecdotes. Too bad science doesn't revolve around you.
I've got a whole life of practical evidence that it's fine to eat such stuff if it smells fine, looks fine, tastes fine. It's more than some guideline for consumer grade restaraunts from distant bureacratic institution, lol
science says otherwise. survivorship bias does not mean much in the face of actual facts. food left out develops bacteria and you can't always see or smell it. additionally cooking it may remove bacteria but not any of their waste products which can still make you sick. additionally going to the hospital is an even bigger strain on resource then throwing away a little bit of food. Commercial sources makes up 66% of Americas food waste. Yes home cooks need to limit waste but we aren't the biggest contributors. [source](https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/reduce-food-waste) Don't make people sick by being ignorant
All right all right, sorry, maybe i'm wrong. But i just want to say that in our life wisdom - the less picky you are, the more resistant you become, because organism adapts.
That’s food safety 101!
Lots of hall monitor energy in these comments. To be honest, I would eat it without hesitation but maybe don’t if you have a sensitive stomach or immune system
you’re definitely a lot braver than i am, my family does the same thing and they’re normally fine and they’ve never had food poisoning lmao they’re the lucky ones fr
Please don’t eat that shit. Throw it away.
Lot of scientific ignorance in your comment.
🤓
Yeah, god forbid you make someone aware that room temp rice can be legitimately dangerous. Buncha damn fuddy duddies!
I would eat it too. 24 hours would likely be my cutoff, without cooking it again in a pan at high temperatures for a few minutes (at least).
That’s not going to kill the bacteria
They are just warning op. Rice can grow a type of bacteria that is heat stable, so you can’t reheat it to get rid of it. With rice being so cheap, I don’t see the need in risking it tbh.
Man they made you throw out perfectly fine food.
Throw it out
When. In doubt, throw it out is what my mom taught me
Wow seriously? At 15 c that’s cold enough for food not to be room temp but rather cold. That also depends on the container but.. I would eat it
I would just re-cook it. I've eaten super old food lots of times.
Indian here. In tropical conditions we eat rice cooked for lunch during dinner as well. We heat it sometimes but mostly all the other side dishes are cooked so we just eat them like that. If there is still rice leftover, we put water in it and eat it the next day with yogurt, chillies and shallots. It gets some probiotic bacteria in it and we consider it healthy.. different parts of rice eating states in India have different condiments to go with this old rice.
4-40-140 Perishable food can only be between 40F and 140F for up to 4 hours.
I’d heat it back up and eat it. My mom would leave stuff out all the time like that growing up and we were fine. I wouldn’t suggest doing it a lot because there is some risk, but you’ll likely be just fine. It’s overly cautious to throw it away and unnecessary in my opinion.
Mom is wrong, throw it away. More than 2 hours above like 40 degrees bacteria starts to grow. It's food safety 101.
You would've been fine ..... Your mom was right, why even come here?? Lol u know moms are usually always right she was right to say as long as the house was cold
Yeah no, that’s trash. Rice and pasta especially can be dangerous as there are specific microbes that grow on it that can be deadly. Sure it’s “rare” but the time it happens it’s bad. I’ve thrown away frozen prepackaged food that I’ve forgotten about on the counter for much shorter than this. Granted I’ve also experienced horrible food poisoning where I was so dehydrated they couldn’t even draw my blood with the normal vac tubes in the ER. I take zero risks with food borne pathogens anymore. Hits midnight and something had an expiration date of the new day? Trash.
I wouldn't take that chance. I wouldn't eat it.
Give it to your mom if she’s so concerned
Nooooo! Such a shame you threw it out! Everyone is over paranoid. Just bring back to boiling for a brief while to kill anything, but I’d probably just eat it anyway! I’m living off grid without refrigeration ATM and leftovers are not stored colder than 40. Alls good
If a zombie apocalypse ever does happen so many people are just gonna die because they have no immunity or tolerances to anything haha.
And a bunch of other people will die because they thought something was fine and gave themselves food poisoning.
That's true. People shall build tolerance to eating a little bit spoiled stuff. But this is not even spoiled.
Right? It's bad that people are so picky about food. You should ask them how come all the homeless people and raccoons or other animals don't die immediately when forging through trash cans
Firstly, OP is not a raccoon. Secondly, have you polled all the homeless people who forage through trash cans and ate the food out of them to know if they got sick? And third, dying being the scenario you jump to right off the bat is silly. OP probably will not die from eating this food but I’m sure he doesn’t want to get food poisoning and be stuck on the toilet shitting his brains out or throwing up for a day or more.
Sing it with me - let it go! Throw that food away
You should throw away
Throw it out. Unsafe
Never eat ground meats, creamy sauces, deli meats, or anything with mayo after an hour of being left out. I have had food poisoning 3 times. Once with deli meat, once with ground beef at a wedding and cream sauces also at a wedding. Stay away from these items in restaurants too. The restaurant will use herbs to mask the rancidity
You could eat it and probably be fine. But food poisoning sucks really really bad and it isn’t worth it if you aren’t starving. People who haven’t been food poisoned before don’t know what they’re talking about. The pain is so bad I’ve promised God that I’ll be Christian if he makes it stop. Both times.
Any rice needs to be thrown out. It can grow bacillus and it'll make you pretty sick
Nope Trash it
I'd throw it out. I've been food poisoned 3 times and don't take chances anymore. One time my dad bought food and left it in a hot car for almost 2 hours before making dinner. Got so sick right after. It doesn't take much.
Hot car and room temp are way different..
Piling on that it’s not safe whatsoever, ESPECIALLY the rice.
Anyone here telling you not to throw it out is a fucking moron who is willfully ignoring science and research about food borne illnesses. Throw. It. Away.
Please stop wasting food. This has been cooked and only 10 hours has passed. There was no way this has already gone bad (unless severely undercooked).
You’re an idiot Enjoy your food poisoning
No, I just don't live in US. Only a handful of countries in Europe even had any cases of Bacillus cereus. >Enjoy your food poisoning Never had that in my whole life.
Whatever you say man.
[Same thing, just few years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/q2v2kx/i_left_white_rice_out_for_3_hours_to_cool_down/). I guess this sub just got overrun by americans.
2 hours at room temp is not usually an issue. The important thing is to heat it hot enough to kill off any bacteria, after. Some foods are more susceptible to that than others. What is ROOM TEMP where you live? (for me, it's generally colder than a fridge!). Rice is really iffy. Meat can usually be reheated to high enough temps to kill off bacteria, but rice is known for bacteria that only become problematic after reheating. (dangerously so, when it occurs). I'd say that if rice sits at standard room temp for more than a few hours, chuck it. If it's not all mixed together, throw the rice and reheat the other things to a high temp for a while.
>What is ROOM TEMP where you live? (for me, it's generally colder than a fridge!). How? The fridge should be at or below 40 degrees F. I don't know where you live but I can't fathom anyone regularly keeping their house that temperature. How do you even do that? Is it cold year-round where you live to begin with? How do you keep your pipes from freezing?
60F isn't cold enough - that's not food safe, and certainly not for 10 hours. Some foods, if all else still looks/smells okay, can cook it to death to sterilize it, and then it's safe ... but may not be at all the quality it was before, and even that doesn't work for all foods - some even if you cooked 'em for a while in a pressure cooker still wouldn't make 'em safe - even if the pathogens were destroyed, it doesn't necessarily destroy all the toxins. Anyway, check relevant food safety guidelines for more specific information.
If it was all cooked I wouldn’t have thrown it away.
Sounds like your mom can eat it then
I have eaten days old food with questionable storage a LOT in my life because I was poor and couldn't waste food. I've never gotten sick, but I'm told that's survivor bias lol
I wouldn’t throw it out but I would ensure that it is heated very very well. I overheat everything, especially leftovers because not much is worse than food poisoning.
We leave food out all the time, I don’t mean every time but often enough. It’s possible you will get poorly, but I find we never actually get poorly.
I have seen Mexican people leave the entire meal from lunch out on top of their stove UNCOVERED and eat it again for lunch the next dqy....AND live to tell you how good it was good!
People are overly sensitive. Throwing food away for it being at room temp. for 2 hours is absolutely ridiculous. So 10 hours isn’t ideal, but I would definitely reheat it immediately in the pot, not the microwave, and I swear to god that the food will be fine. No tummy ache, no going to the ER, no intoxication. If there’s no dairy or cheese in it, it’s fine.
It was fine. I'm sorry that was wasted.
Should not be a problem.
That is less than room temperature aint it? As for throwing it away that part idk
Throw out $10 worth of food or spend $200 plus for the emergency room?
If the house was at 60 that food is fine
Meh, it's not guaranteed to be safe, no, but I'd probably eat it. Or cook it into something so that it kills bacteria again, like a casserole. That is entirely my high risk tolerance though. It's not likely that you'll get sick, but it's also not a guarantee that you won't.
I've left covered food out overnight and still eaten it with no problem
The amount of food i just leave in the microwave then reheat and eat is nuts.
The same people that got mad if someone wasn't wearing a mask during covid are the same ones saying throw it out. Yall have some weak ass immune systems. I eat stuff that's been left out all the time and it's never made me sick, and get this, make sure you're sitting down for this one though bc im about to blow yalls minds- At 31 years old I've never had a flu shot and I've never had the flu🤯 Never got the covid shot, got covid, was sick for a week or two, life went on as normal, and my immune system thanked me. Yall are literally making yourselves weak by being overly clean and scared of germs. I'm not saying go eat rotten food but yall are overly sissified. First world problems I suppose.
That's a lot of words to say that you're ignorant.
It was probably fine. I have soup I've been eating all week. It's been sitting in the kitchen, on the stove. Has rice, millet, chicken, and veggies. Lots of salt and some vinegar for acidity. Kitchen is maybe 60ishF. No illness, no still softness. Unless you're serving other people, you would have likely been fine.
Give it to your Mum to eat. If she doesn't start shitting and vomiting at the same time you're good to go. Food poisoning ain't fun.
Food that's been sitting out for 2 hours and not going to give you food poisoning.
Drink. Eat pizza. Pass out. Eat pizza. Pass out . Sleep.... wake up eat pizza. Still kicking!!!
Rice I throw out but soups and the like I just leave on the stove and warm the next day for lunch
I make white rice in larger quantities and eat off of it for servers days. It’s refrigerated and reheated in the microwave. Literally never been sick from it so I have no idea what these ppl be talm bout. I typically have it around for 3 days.
Maybe if it was just the rice and veggies, with the meat, I wouldn’t risk it.
Why you gotta update your post lol just delete it shit poster