Ask Lemmy

From the CDC website:

“Bacteria can multiply rapidly if left at room temperature or in the "Danger Zone" between 40°F and 140°F. Never leave perishable food out for more than 2 hours (or 1 hour if exposed to temperatures above 90°F).”

https://www.cdc.gov/food-safety/prevention/index.html

I like to find a balance between being worried about bacteria and trusting my immune system to deal with anything that comes along. However, my immune system tends to over-react to things that aren't a threat (allergies to cherries, peaches, cats, dogs, kangaroos, pollen, dust, etc.) so I'd be pretty pissed if it couldn't handle some bacteria.

I'll cut the bad parts off an old pepper and still put the good parts on my omelette in the morning. I'll cut the moldy bit off a piece of cheese and use the rest. Bread...nope. I can handle it being a bit stale, but moldy is too much. I'm not afraid of bread mold, but I don't like the taste.

Last year I tossed the Thanksgiving turkey out the next day because my wife and I forgot to deal with it and left it sitting on the kitchen table next to the radiator. That seemed to me like it would be a bit too much of a challenge to my immune system.

Vegetarian/Germany. I'll leave food on the counter too as long as I'm still planning to eat it the same day. Never had issues. If I'm planning to only eat it the next day, I'll refrigerate it.

Omnivore, southeast USA.

When I worked in food service, I was taught that it takes four hours at room temperature for bacteria to reach dangerous levels in food, so that's what I go with. I assume there's other factors at play, but four hours is easy to remember and apply and I don't like to take chances with that stuff.

US omnivore.

Most fruit stays on the counter in the fruit bowl (except berries, I want more than a day to eat them), bread, and all unprocessed veg (besides lettuce, again I find it goes bad fast) stays out.

Anything that I have prepared and cooked goes in the fridge when we are done eating it or when it's approaching room temperature. Sometimes a little warmer if I'm impatient. If we had a pot luck / carry in food sometimes sets out a couple hours NBD, still fridge after.

Red meat gets salted or seasoned and sits out to approx room temp before cooking if I think about it. I don't do that from frozen (I use sous vide for that defrost), with very large cuts (rib roast for example) or with chicken because I have never noticed it cook unevenly.

The only food that ever really sits out on the counter after preparation is rice or baked goodies (banana bread, cookies, etc.). Anything that sits out overnight is now trash except pizza if it was a late night snack. Anything out is quite rare anyway since we usually clean the kitchen before bed.

Edit: Eggs of course in the fridge, they are washed. Butter also fridge, I know it can stay out but I usually like it harder, we aren't spreading it that often compared to measuring.

General rule: If the store I bought it from was refrigerating it, so am I.

Omnivore, European. I leave my food outside if I plan to eat it the same day, and wait till it has reached room temperature before I put it in the fridge. Most of the time we leave food in a small room we have which is slightly cooler than living room (16ish degrees in winter I think) and it stays good for as long as there is food left. I have also eaten food that was left in kitchen at room temperature for about two days, but only once or twice with highly acidic food (chili or bolognese).

As long as it smells good and looks good, it’s good. Never had food poisoning in my life.

American/meat-eater

Bread stays out but is wrapped

Butter stays out in a butter bell (that's not a common thing in America BTW but they should be)

Some sauces and condiments and such that are packed full of salt and vinegar and such stay out

Leftovers and such go into the fridge after a few minutes to a few hours, there's not exactly a hard rule here, just kind of based on what feels right and whenever we get around to it. Overnight is too long, with few exceptions if it's been out that long we'd probably throw it out.

One exception to that is if I make stock, there's a good chance that's going to sit out for a good while to cool down. It takes a while to get a big pot of liquid down to a reasonable temperature to put in the fridge. I also figure it's been simmering for several hours, so odds are there's no bacteria alive in it, so I throw a lid on it to try to keep it that way, especially when I do it in the pressure cooker because it's basically been autoclaved at that point and it's staying in a pretty damn close to totally airtight vessel.

Most vegetables and fruits are fine out on the counter for at least a day or two, and some will last weeks or months depending on temperature, humidity, how much light they get, etc. but most of them last a lot longer in the fridge so that's where they go. Onions, garlic, potatoes, pineapples, and bananas always live outside of the fridge. Other things like apples, citrus, tomatoes, peppers may go either way depending on how fast I'm planning to use them and how much fridge space I have. Cut-up produce always goes in the fridge.

Omnivore/Central Europe:

I am pretty special in my needs because i hate eating leftovers when they were out "too long" (where "too long" is a very random amount of time), so i normally wait until the food is room temperature; if i don't plan to eat within the next few hours it goes into the fridge pretty much instantly. But i know that this is my personal spleen and that it would be fine much longer.

Bread, any fruit, onions, potatoes, garlic and so on stay outside tho.

It's more important to make sure that your kitchen and cooking utensils are clean, and anything that was used for preparing meat doesn't get reused; and the dishes must be heated properly - that alone would mean it's probably save to stay out overnight if it's not 30°C in the kitchen in the midst of summer.

Depends on the food but most goes in. In addition to cooling, the refrigerator is critter proof (ants, mice). Not bread not catsup but most all leftovers

Rural US, no dietary restrictions, 40, married with children

Meat eater, cooler climate in Australia.

We generally put things in the fridge but are also pretty casual about leaving things out.

There's a lot of variables that would effect my inclination to consume something that had been left out for whatever period of time.

Cooked Rice is almost a perfect growth medium for bacteria. My Mrs cooks a batch in the rice cooker, doesn't refrigerate it, but consumes it all within 36 hours. That said, it has just been boiled so you're starting with almost no bacteria.

Dairy is the worst. Letting milk get to room temperature and leaving it for a half hour or so is going to dramatically reduce it's lifetime even if you put it back in the fridge afterwards.

Dutch omnivore. I will sometimes leave something on the counter overnight. Usually when I made a big pan of something which I can't fit into the fridge. But it's something that will be reheated/boiled. Like a soup or stew. My wife complains about it everytime I do that though 😄

Couple stories for you. Had a tray of 100 hot wings we ordered one night drunk. Left it on the counter for 3 days straight eating out of it until they were gone. They never were brought above or below room temperature for that entire time. We didn't die.

I also regularly order too much food. Forget to fridge the leftovers, and still eat the crap the next day. I've yet to be food poisoned from this.

Maybe I am just lucky.

American omnivore.

The only reason I leave things out is if they'll get soggy in the fridge. This generally applies to pizza and biscuits (in a bag). My gluten free bread is refrigerated because it gets moldy before I finish it, regular bread is on the counter.

If I happen to forget to put away leftovers, I'll refrigerate them when I get to them as long as they haven't dried out or anything. I've woken up in the middle of the night to do that.

From the USA, it is important to understand that FDA guidelines are generally geared to ensure a near impossibility for food-bourne illness. That includes people with compromised immune systems and gets applied to all food even if the odds are minimal that something will happen. For instance, a lot of fine dining chefs will forgo minimum cooking temperatures for some ingredients in order to provide a different product.

So, in a private setting and with healthy people, the FDA guidelines are likely overkill

I think context is also important. At home I eat all kinds of things that have been all kinds of places for various amounts of time. I grew up eating fruit straight off the vine after a quick shine with my shirt (and nectar in the case of honeysuckle).

When I'm handling food for my patients I take no chances. Even the ones without specific immune disorders are under high bodily stress while being exposed to shit that's basically been bred for resistance to antimicrobials. My husband has only had one hospital job but has been working in bulk production kitchens longer than my entire career in healthcare. If one item does go bad it can spread to the others pretty quickly. Another issue is that while I wash my hands plenty at home and also so compulsively at work that I have to use dimethicone lotion to keep my skin together, I can't actually guarantee that my coworkers do. Wish I could, but I'm not pressing my ears to the bathroom door in the breakroom to do it. I know I washed my hands before touching the patients' breakfasts but I'm too busy focusing on my own job to tell you for certain that anybody else did so yeah there really might be something growing on those trays an hour or two later.

So at home, no I don't really care. But in high volume kitchens and institutional environments it's important enough that my husband actually knows all the specific times and temperatures off the top of his head.

South US, but in the mountains where it is much cooler. SO is vegetarian and I am an omnivore but skew vegetarian, especially at home. I leave heated things out to cool from hot to warm before putting in the fridge. About an hour, maybe 2 when I am being forgetful. Anything over that is taking risk. I’ve had a few nasty bouts of food poisoning before so I skew on the safe side.

My mom on the other hand grew up very differently. Lives by the beach in a much warmer more humid climate. She’ll leave moist dump cakes unrefrigerated for days. She’s more homeopathic than me, says the spices have been used for ages to preserve food. She’s not wrong, but you have to throw in a lot more cinnamon than what our Americanized palate is accustomed to. We are very careful about what we eat when we visit, and even then, small bites to try first.

It really depends on the moisture content; like the aforementioned soup. One thing that all organisms need to function is water, and soup is wet.

The vegetables are still alive and their 'immune' systems are still functioning (ish) so they aren't as susceptible to rot as actually dead things are, like meat (which also has a high moisture content).

Cooked food is not sterile; there are types of fungus and bacteria (like the plague!^1^) that create 'cysts' which are impervious to normal cooking temperatures. The only way to kill them is the soak the medium (i.e. your lasagna) in pure ethanol or burn it in a reallllyy hot fire. If you're not in the habit of soaking everything you eat in ethanol or eating charcoal, then they will eventually start multiplying again. They're basically the reason things go bad.

The bread I buy never goes in the fridge because I eat it fast enough that I don't really need to worry about it. Same probably goes with your pasta and other counter food. There is bacteria and fungus growing in it and on it, but it's not enough to really do anything. By the time there would have been a potentially dangerous amount of life inhabiting your counter food, it's already in your small intestine.

1. Yersinia Pestus, causitive agent of The Black Death, can form cysts and remain viable for centuries in the ground, however it is easily killed with UV or temperatures over 40°C. Also, we are now resistant to the plague but you still might lose your toes and finger tips.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_cyst

*I live in Canada btw, but most of the places I've lived in have had pretty much the same internal environment. ~21°C and fairly dry. Though I do lose the odd box of spinach if it freezes on the way home. 🫠

Northern Europe. Omnomnomnivour.

Sometimes forget to put the lunch boxes in the fridge over night. No problem eating them the day after.

If I thaw meat I don't have an issue with it being room temperature for a few hours before I cook it. Better than somewhat frozen.

That being said if I ran a restaurant I'd be much more careful. Best way to scare off customers and get the food safety inspector to hit you with his clipboard.

Omnivore, Netherlands. Forty years ago my parents had only one small fridge, so most of our food was kept in the cupboard or in the cellar. The fridge was for open containers or jars, some meat, eggs and margarine. Meat was deli meat for sandwiches, meat for dinner usually came from the freezer in the morning and was thawing on the counter all day. So I'm with you on this I guess.

Mostly vege/france. I don't mind leaving food out in the open, especially cakes, pies and cookies. I can confirm that sometimes a few days out are too much, but as long as you check for weird scent/look, you'll be ok. My parent recently ate boiled meat over the course of a week without putting it in the fridge, leaving it in its pot and reheating each day, they threw the last bit because it smelled bad, but they had no problem before that.

On the counter is fine for quite a while. I feel that putting warm food in the fridge will hurt the texture, so I always wait until it's room temperature and usually a few hours longer before storing it.

So for the remainder of the day on the counter is fine in my book. Overnight it goes in the fridge.

Special case: Taco meat. I usually put the pan back in the (now cold) oven mostly to save space, and leave it there overnight. When I reheat taco meat I use enough heat to probably kill any bacteria anyway.

Vegetarian, Western Europe, very temperate.

I wouldn’t leave things out of the fridge past a couple of hours, a whole day is enough to get in trouble, even for non animal products. Pasta especially is susceptible to very fast acting bacteria that can literally kill you past a day out of the fridge.

France/omnivore (with a slight pref for veggies).

When the topic is food here or also on former similar platforms there is always this guy saying “omg you can’t leave your food for 30 minutes on the counter because bacteria you know” and I don’t get where that sentiment comes from. Many people agree and say you will get food poisoning from that.

To me it’s lack of education (fear of bacteria is not a bad thing, over-exaggerating it and forgetting or whole body is made to deal with them and some are even legit part of our body is… excessive), and a cultural thing.

I mean, in the US for example they will even shrink wrap individual fruits because ‘food exposed to the air is bad’ even though fruits have developed their skin just for that purpose, and even though most of the fruits sold over there have been so intensely chemically treated they could last for centuries before starting to decay (there may be hint of sarcasm here, just a hint).

Also, I wonder how many of those ‘worried persons’ systematically wash their hands before they grab any food? The same hands they grab their bacteria saturated phone with all day long, or pick their nose, or scratch their balls (or whatever part of the body they need to scratch), or shake hands with other people (whose personal hygiene and what they do with their hands they have no idea)… The risk is at the very least as high to grab some nasty thing just by not washing one’s hands before eating and preparing something to eat.

On the other, being French, I have no shame in admitting I appreciate some of our cheese that don’t fear being left to… age, attacked by bacteria ;)

My opinion is that food should not be left out in the air without any reason (it’s messy and risky) but depending the food it can. But it certainly is not a matter of leaving it 30 minutes, unless weather conditions are very specific. Never heard that 30 minutes remark, btw.

Vegetarian (nearly vegan)/not doxxing myself because I piss many people off unintentionally. Flies are my most consistent concern. So long as the food was shielded from insects and extended temperatures above 25c/70f, I really don’t care to put it away urgently. Tupperware is just exhausting to use. Soup standing overnight isn’t a strange sight, but I eat my leftovers promptly

Omnivore, Northern Spain.

I don't worry too much but that depends mostly on the season because my main concern are usually house flies in the summer.
I don't usually let stuff sit uncovered for more than 1 hour but I've occasionally left some covered things sit for hours in winter.

Europe. Technically meat eater but not an "identity" and generally prefer veggie.

This rule makes no intuitive sense, or factual sense. It sounds like one of those US-specific things that have spread through "everyone knows" like the 3 second rule.

We have other nonsense rules here, basically.

Vegetarian. Northern Europe.

I’ll leave food on the counter until it cools down. Don’t want to bring the temperature up in the fridge too much, and if the food is hot you risk breaking the glass shelves in the fridge from the temperature shock.

Never had any problems. Generally food will get reheated so that kills bacteria. Obviously spoilage produces toxins over time but that doesn’t happen that fast.

I’m generally more casual with it in the winter than in the summer as things spoil faster when it’s warm.

Also central Europe, no special diet.

Really the fridge is only for ingredients. Only when I know that I won't eat the food that I prepared in the next two days does it go back in the fridge. But in practice most prepared food will sit on the counter for up to two days while I slowly whittle it down.

I'll leave sauces and soups out overnight without worrying because they've been cooked for long periods of time and have a lid on.

But anything fresh especially salads and lightly cooked veggies I'll want in the fridge immediately, because those few hours out of the fridge make them limp and reduces their long term life.

But I'll happily open a container of leftover pasta that's been in the fridge 2 weeks! I know that wasn't the question but I'm dying to know how long people keep leftovers in the fridge. Vegan btw.