I gave my oysters to the cat.
Posted on 02/25/2018 6:48:42 PM PST by nickcarraway
Day-old pizza is God's gift to college students, starving artists and anyone who thought it was a brilliant idea to order that extra-large double-meat at 2 a.m. after coming home from the bar, only to go sleepy-peepy halfway through the first slice.
But while cold pizza is a bona fide breakfast of champions, what about room-temperature pizza? Will you get sick if you throw down a few slices of the pepperoni that sat in a greasy cardboard box next to your bed for the last eight hours?
The official answer — don't risk it. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published some food safety guidelines for students in which it answered this very question. According to the USDA, you should throw away any leftover food that's been sitting out at room temperature for two hours or more, whether or not it contains meat.
The reason is that bad bacteria grow the fastest on foods that are in the "danger zone," temperatures between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 degrees Celsius to 60 Celsius). The bacteria actually double in number every 20 minutes.
Does that mean that every pizza is contaminated with pathogenic bacteria that will explode in number if the pie is left out for more than two hours? Absolutely not. Benjamin Chapman, a food safety specialist at North Carolina State University, told Lifehacker that leftover pizza hasn't made enough people sick to count as a public health risk.
Chapman says it's probably because pizza toppings and crust are generally too dry to be bacteria-friendly environments and that tomato sauce is too acidic. Not all toppings are created equal, though. Pepperoni is dry cured, so it's built to last. But eating old veggie ingredients or moist chunks of chicken is probably pressing your luck.
To get a sense of the general risk level of pizza, check out this public health report from Ontario, Canada. According to a review of global food poisoning databases, pizza has been implicated in a number of foodborne illness outbreaks worldwide, and that includes pizzas of all types (plain cheese, meat, veggie) in both restaurants and in homes.
For some perspective though, that report cited a few hundred individual cases of food poisoning over more than a decade of worldwide pizza-eating. In the U.S. alone, we eat an estimated 3 billion pizzas every year.
So should you finish off those last two pieces of stuffed-crust Hawaiian from last night's poker game? The odds of getting sick are probably similar to the odds of drawing a royal flush. So the real question is, are you feeling lucky?
Well that really blows. It’s the not KNOWING it might make you sick that protects you, not whether or not it actually CAN. Isn’t that the liberal take on everything?
Ive left pepperoni pizza out and just nuked it in morning many times and never had an issue. I dont let it go more than 12 hours though.
>>According to a review of global food poisoning databases, pizza has been implicated in a number of foodborne illness outbreaks worldwide, and that includes pizzas of all types (plain cheese, meat, veggie) in both restaurants and in homes.
I’m betting it was from raw or undercooked pizza dough (like the illnesses from raw cookie dough).
https://www.quora.com/Can-I-eat-a-raw-pizza
>>The FDA advises against the consumption of any uncooked dough because of the risk of bacterial contamination like Salmonella and E. Coli. The interesting fact I was able to gather through some articles is that a part from the fairly obvious culprit of raw eggs (which are normally not used in pizza dough) one of the components that could pose some health risks is the flour. Flour, according to Dr. Karen Neil in an article on the Daily Mail, goes through a much less stringent pathogens killing process when compared to other ingredients like sugar, margarine and baking soda.
This means that consuming uncooked flour could expose you to a higher chance of bacterial contamination.
Never ate C rats, but MREs have tiny bottles of tobacco.
yup, but with dating, inquiries are also required.
while not a date, I got a loonytoon the other week LOL
Hilarious!
Another waste of tax dollars to confirm common sense.
www.sofmilitary.co.uk/products/Small-Tabasco-Sauce-Bottle-from-Rations-310517.JPG
I’m with you - have eaten pizza that had been left out (in the original box) over night and am pretty sure any ill effects were from all the beer the night before....
The bachelor cook’s motto: Hot grease kills germs.
Cold fish left out from the previous day fish fry is always good, germs can’t permeate the grease it was fried in. Same with fatty foods such as pork. Lettuce on the other hand will get you sick easily if left out. The oil,salt and acidic make up of pizza is what keeps it edible for a day or so when left out.
Thanks, I howled laughing.
The army has fed us some very questionable things as well, and I’m sure they put something in the food to quell the soldier’s sex drives heh. I doubt it worked.
My father-in-law served in the Pacific aboard an ammunition ship.
Again: When you are hungry..shoe leather boiled might be like Filet Mignon...
Here is Charlie Chaplin's famous scene eating his shoe in The Gold Rush.
Gas station sushi is always better the next day.
I’ve ate several sandwiches not noticing the mold until I was half way through.
I rest my case.
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