Who in their right mind would think that food left out is safe?

Its nice to know that our overlords at Consumerist HQ keep their Kittehs in the fridge in order to reduce spoilage.

There is nothing worse in universe than a spoiled cat. We let our Kitteh out of the fridge and now you can smell the spoilage every time he demands us to give him belly rubs.

I never assume food from my own garden is safe. The only upside there is I know what chemicals were used (none). Beyond that, everything gets rinsed, usually twice.

Food left out is safe? WTF? That's crazy.

I think we will finally be safe if we start eating "SOYLENT GREEN"... Come on people get with the program!!!

How is this helping? Numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5 on this list are beyond anyone's control. It boils down to "nothing is safe! fear for your lives!"

That kitteh looks like mine and mine isn't allowed in the fridge, except on alternate Thursdays.

I think letting kitties walk on countertops and in the fridge isn't all that safe either. That is, unless you like litterbox tainted food.

I don't think that cooking food keeps me safe from mad cow disease; I know that the extreme unlikelihood of the meat containing that disease keeps me safe from it (regardless of what the hysterical media would have us believe).

@homerjay: You don't know anyone who eats pizza that's been left out for a while? I know a guy who leaves leftover pizza out all night and eats it for breakfast. Gross.

What foods I eat after being "left out" depends on what the food is and what the conditions are.

@serreca: We did this about three times a week in college and nobody ever got sick. An average pizza is very dry, oily, and salty.

@serreca: Pizza is the exception to every rule.

Cool.. I was wondering what I should panic about this week. Now I don't have to read Drudge Report.

@homerjay: one of my aunts? Lol...she used to leave her food out on the tables, with nothing more than some kind of tiny mesh...tent...thingie on top of each dish, presumably to keep flies and other bugs away from them. We tried to eat as little as possible at her house--everything tasted weird because she was leaving everything out in the open and didn't seem to believe in refrigeration. x_x Not necessarily spoiled, but weird. I think that food just tastes different when it's left out in the open and left uncovered, without a proper lid or covering of some kind on top. Blech. :(

I ordered a Steak Tartare appetizer at a work function once. My coworkers freaked about it, so I didn't have to share. :-)

When they say to discard meat left out for over 2 hours, I assume they mean raw meat. Although there is definitely a perception in the US that as much of the Earth's surface should be Lysol'd as possible, so you never know. I regularly leave cooked meat out for 24 hours. It's too hot to put in the fridge when I finish cooking at night, and I often forget to do it before I go to work in the morning. I am yet to experience any digestive discomfort, let alone food poisoning.

There are people out there who don't eat leftover pizza for breakfast?

Oh strange new world, with such people in it.

@ne1butu: I used a spray bottle to give my cats a squirt if they were caught on the counter!

I had a roomie who loved his turkey. About every two months he'd make a (really good!) turkey dinner. Then he would leave the remains of the turkey on the table or counter for about 3 days picking the leftover meat off the bones of the thing. He refused to refrigerate it for some unspecified reason. I'm amazed he made it out of college without a disease.

Number 7 - All my chopping boards and washing up liquids are "anti-bacterial" so I'm safe?

Wrong!

I hate the proliferation of those "anti-bacterial" things. It's a false sense of security. If you really do want to disinfect, boiling water and chlorine bleach.

Personally I'm all in favor of having a bit of dirt around so you have some sort of natural resistance to illnesses.

I can has expired salza?

@inno: Reading your comment made me throw up a little bit in my mouth. I hear countless stories of food poisoning in fast food restaurants and they are perfect compared to some of these comments.

Oh, hi! Just, uh... checking for mice.

@Troy F.:
What foods I eat after being left out depends on how hungry I am. Which is usually hungry enough. And lazy enough.

Refrigerator cat is not sanitary!

Most of these seem like good ol' common sense to me. Not saying that I always follow them...

Which reminds me, do people still go by the 5 second rule, or is it just me?

@sir_eccles: exactly my sentiment on the matter. A little will help you build up antibodies and keep your immune system cranked up in case of a full fledged infection. All this anti-bacterial crap is just promoting evolution of the bacteria, same as if you don't take all the antibiotics you're prescribed.

You know that 1% your lysol left behind, well now its got the gene it needs to resist lysol and when it reproduces you'll now have two lysol resistant bacteria, then 4, then 16....well I can't count that high, but you get the picture.

@serreca:

Yeah I've done that tons of times..... never gotten sick from it. Same with like ...an arby's roast beef, hamburger etc etc. However they are always kept in some kind of sealed container (like a closed paper fast food bag) because i dont want bugs touching it. Sometimes microwave reheated fast food (after its been in a cold fridge) ruins it.

@Tallanvor:
I tried that with my cat, trying to keep her off my coffee table. It worked for a while.

Then one day, she jumped up there, and I sprayed her. She didn't budge. I sprayed her in the face, she shook it off and stared me down. I gave her 3 more sprays right to the face, and she held her ground.

It was at that time I realized she wanted to be on that coffee table a lot more than I wanted her down.

Irradiate everything!!!! Mwa ha ha ha ha!

@Shutaro: FRIDGE INSPEKTOR FINDS EVRYTHNG IN ORDER KTHX

(that was painful)

@inno: This kind of idea is exactly why most people need a list like this.

There is no such thing as a food being "too hot" to be refrigerated. The whole myth about not placing hot foods in the fridge started a looong time ago when refrigerators (or perhaps iceboxes) weren't efficient enough to face the task of cooling a very hot item.

On top of that, cooked meat is actually more dangerous than raw - though the article points out that cooking doesn't kill everything, it's important to know that it DOES kill some pathogens while a piece that has been cooked previously will receive no further heating and thus no further treatment against bacteria.

A further note: while most healthy adults will survive contact with adulterated food (whether they know they've eaten it or not), those who say "well, *I've* never gotten sick from..." are just lucky. If you continue the same patterns you WILL eventually pay a price.

[my bona fides: 20yr restaurant veteran, now doing private health inspections and food safety training]

@bobpence: Irradiated Cat?

FYI to all those who claim to have never had any kind of food poisoning: It's very likely you HAVE been sick and not known it.

You know that 24hr flu that we all get from time to time? Well, there's no such thing - this is actually your body's response to food poisoning. Go ahead, take a minute to think about this, I'll wait.

@cwlodarczyk: Or it might be that dose of epsom salt, or milk of magnesia I took after lunch. Hmmm...

i thought mad cow is a malformed prion protein, why would one be in a plant? can someone explain how the cow brains got on my vegetables?!

@cwlodarczyk: A few years ago, I realized all those times as a kid I would wake up at night puking and then feel okay the next day: food poisoning. I still haven't let my parents off the hook for that. My mom routinely defrosted meat on the counter and I'm sure that was the culprit.

@homerjay: seriously though, 1 or 2 hours? think of holiday meals where the feasting often lasts well into the nite (& it may take that long just to get the energy to get up from the table).

i admit, i'm the type to eat leftout pizza without a thought, but i think these guidelines are a little OCD.

My parents grew up in Germany during WWII and developed cast iron stomachs out of necessity. My mother regularly leaves the leftovers from dinner out, uncovered, on the counter overnight and slowly snacks on it until the next afternoon. My father will heat up canned soup, put the lid on, and leave it on the stove for a day or two before reheating and finishing.

They are regularly astonished and amused at my apparent food/germ paranoias. But I've gotten food poisoning too often to take any chances. I blame my cushy childhood.

@Daemon_of_Waffle: I suppose it *could* be. Are you advocating that we don't bother with something so controllable?

@Kevin V: One word: Manure.

@chumia40: Eating of one's own kind is the source of CJD/Mad Cow. There's also a human form of it that's found in Africa where some tribes believe in eating the brains of their just-departed elders, in hopes of "passing down" the knowledge. Too bad they're developing holes in their brains due to the human form of CJD wearing it away.

Still not sure why cattle ranchers ever thought it was a good idea to feed cows dead cows, sick dead cows at that.

As for food left out for 1-2 hours being thrown out:

Don't some countries/cultures sell raw eggs which are stored in the general food areas, not in the refrigerated section?

I believe the concern expressed about the leaving of some food at room temp for 1-2 hours is valid. How often are thanksgiving meals left on the table or in the kitchen counter during clean up when people return for a second round (mmmm...second round!)? I don't remember anyone having trouble with that, including young-ins, the elderly, or the immune supressed...

@FLConsumer:
That would be kuru, which for reasons that now escape me we found hysterically funny in high school biology.

On the whole putting-hot-food-in-the-fridge topic... it's true that you shouldn't have a problem with modern fridges, but the fridge in my apartment is older than I am. If I have something like a batch of homemade soup to put away, I'll put the hot vessel in a cool water bath until it's room temperature. It doesn't take long, and it's waaay better for my peace of mind than leaving it out on the counter.

This is why I don't eat anymore.

@cwlodarczyk: You mean to tell me that norovirus is a myth? There IS such a thing as a 24-hour stomach bug that isn't food poison-related. Maybe you meant to say that the majority of cases may be related to foodborne illness, but to say that stomach bugs don't exist is bull-dookie.

Another tip for Consumerists to keep from cross-contaminating food:
I can't count the number of times I've gone to someone's house and they use the same cutting board for meat and vegetables. Use a plastic cutting board for meat and a wood cutting board for veggies. Do not use the same board and do NOT use wood for meat.

And then there is that whole "put meat on the bottom of the fridge" issue that I always thought was common sense. But then I see someone's fridge with raw chicken on the top shelf and things like yogurt or fruit on the shelf under it. Gross.

In Australia eggs are sold unrefrigeratored, and I've never had a problem.

I wonder whether you'd be more immune to a local version of contamination over a foreign version. Is it possible for people to be more immune to say, a local version of e.coli, versus a strain from a farm thousands of miles away?

If so, you might be able to assume local is safe-ER, which would mean something but still, I wouldn't assume ALL local is safe. That's just stupid.

@testsicles: Only if you were infected substantially over time with the local strain, and if it didn't kill your immune system in the process.

Isn't the "eat local, build immunity" concept just for allergens though? Even then, is it more than just myth? It's my understanding that constant exposure to allergens, toxins, and contaminants can sometimes strengthen your immunity to them, but it can also sometimes make you much more susceptible, i.e. develop allergies.