Minor emergency: How ng can pizza sit out and still be safe to eat?

[InsaneCdn]

I know. Stupid question.
The official answer is "two hours". But... that answer is even given for "how long can fresh whole eggs be unrefrigerated and still safe to use", and... THAT answer in real life is a lot more than two hours. Fluid milk... is definitely unsafe after 2 hours.

So... I made pizza today. Super-extra-dry sausage, fresh veggies, cheese, spices, freshly homemade crust.
Had lunch, ate half.
Left the left-overs cooling on the table.
Day got busy, and I forgot to put them in the fridge before we left for the afternoon.

They are in the fridge now... were out about 4 hours in a coolish house (it's still winter here, house is about 72 during the day)

Safe to eat? or not?

 

[TerryJ2]

I've had friends eat unrefrigerated, cooked, pizza two days later. It's got so many preservatives nothing will grow on it.
I've left out hard boiled eggs for a wk. Raw eggs, oh, 24-48 hrs to be on the safe side. I'm sure people who have grown up on farms know the exact amt of time but with-eggs I'm chicken. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

 

[InsaneCdn]

Terry... whole eggs in intact shells can be left unrefrigerated for a MONTH. Really. Now... commercial eggs, we don't know how long it's been from chicken to us, so I'd never push it that far, but I did forget to put the eggs in the fridge once, and called some expert number and they told us... in much of the world, fresh whole eggs in the shell are NOT refrigerated. That's why they were such a staple food 100 years ago.
Once they are cooked, though... I wouldn't trust them out for more than 2 hours (go figure).

 

[Hound dog]

Boiled eggs I'm pretty sure can be out for 24 hrs. Maybe 48... (in shell) I've not tried longer. But know this from many egg hunts over the years. If you rub mineral oil (no other oil works, it goes rancid or lets in bacteria) on your eggs, store bought cuz eggs from the hen doesn't require this step they have a natural oil on them that has been washed off commercial eggs, they last for months and months in a cool place. easy child has done this repeatedly. Shoot.....mine last forever in the frig and I just don't worry about it, never been a problem.

Your pizza is fine. I've left pizza on the counter for more than 4 hrs, stuck it in the frig, heated it the next day and no problem.

I pay no attention to expiration dates on anything. I rely on my nose and eyes to tell me something has gone bad. It's not hard to tell. I'm currently using mustard that is 2 yrs past it's expiration date and it's fine. The shelf stable milk in my frig is 2 months past it's date. Nothing wrong with it. (but it's in the frig because I'm rotating stock) Baked goods such as brownies/cakes might not rise quite as much but there is nothing wrong with the taste. There are so many preservatives in our store bought food........it usually last far far past the best by date or the expiration date. Never had an issue and I've done this all my life. lol

 

[DammitJanet]

Pizza I wouldnt worry about too much unless it had something like chicken on it. Or mayo. If you made something like an alfredo pizza then I might be a bit more careful but it doesnt sound like that is what it was.

We also leave the stupid eggs out for long periods of time. It comes from the fact that we raised chickens. Sometimes we had baskets full of eggs and the fridge was full...lol. Some would have to wait until I got a carton empty to put them in. I might get iffy if they had sat out over a month. You can tell if the egg is bad if it sinks or floats. I cant remember which one right now and Tony is asleep. I will post the correct answer in the morning. I think its if it floats. Normally eggs sink to the bottom of the pot of water when you put them in.

Speaking of this....Buck went to make chicken for dinner tonight and ruined an entire 8 pack of boneless chicken thighs. I hope he is throwing up all day with food poisoning. Tony went fishing yesterday and wasnt supposed to be home until quite late. I told him not to have dinner ready until at least 7:30-8:00. I went out to the kitchen yesterday afternoon at about 3:30 and he already had the chicken in the oven. Now mind you these are boneless chicken thighs that will only take less than a hour to cook. He wants to BBQ them. So he has them covered in foil to cook them before he puts the sauce on.

I asked him why he was starting the chicken so early and he said...well I dont know, I guess I can just turn it off and put it back in the oven later when its closer to when he gets home. I, in my most horrified voice said, NO! You cant take chicken out that you have started to cook and then leave it to cool on the top of the stove and then put it back in the oven in 3 hours and cook it again. You will have given it time to get food poisoning! He said...oh but I will cook any bad stuff back out of it. I do this all the time and this is the way I was taught to do it when I worked at the restaurants I worked at. Oh lordy, how many people did he make sick or kill?

Well I said you can eat it but Im going out to get something else for the rest of us to eat. No one else here is gonna eat that koi. We dont wanna die. He then piped up with his stomach is fine and he doesnt have a problem with eating anything he wants. I said I wont understand that. I have to be so careful about what I put in my body because my immune system is so compromised due to being disabled and especially after going through what I went through last summer with my stomach. That issue with the ulcer's and H pylori almost did me in. Im still taking prevacid daily.

Well Buck pipes up with he hasnt taken any stomach pills in over 8 months and he feels just fine. I said Buck that cant be possible. You came to us the end of January after being in the hospital. He said oh no he hasnt been in the hospital anytime recently. His stomach hasnt bothered him lately. He doesnt know what I am talking about. I wonder now if he wasnt in either in a psychiatric placement or even in jail. But something is up and I do think he wasnt in the hospital.

No one ate his chicken. I told Tony about it when he got home and Tony just said he would have eaten it but he was too tired to eat which satisfied Buck. Buck made way too much food, wasted a ton of food we couldnt afford to waste, and then when I told him to only make one small package of cornmeal because he was going to be the only one eating it, he still went ahead and made two. He was determined to waste all that food. I went out and bought frozen food for the rest of us. He said that microwaving stuff isnt really cooking. I said it wont give us food poisoning. He was ticked off. I had told him to go ahead and cook the food and we could put it in the fridge and microwave it when he got home. What a jerk.Or just put it in the fridge until it was time to put the bbq sauce on then. What a jerk.

I hope he gets so sick. he ate like 4pieces of it

 

[buddy]

We would eat the pizza here....smile.

 

[buddy]

Boy am I gonna feel badly if i don't hear from you for a while and find out you were all in the hospital with food poisoning!

 

[Hound dog]

Buck is an idiot, no doubt about it. And you just got your admission that he was never in the hospital over his stomach. Too bad you didn't record that admission.

Glad you left that chicken alone, Janet. Chicken is one thing I will NOT push my luck with.

 

[TerryJ2]

I knew that someone would show up here with-more info on eggs. Insane, lol, I was doing pretty much the opposite. I wonder how many perfectly good eggs I've thrown out?

Janet, lol about hoping he has food poisoning. Argh.

 

[HaoZi]

I rarely worry about pizza sitting out either, so long as you really heat it up before eating the leftovers.

 

[Kathy813]

I am not a leftover pizza fan but I remember that back in my college days, people would order pizza at night and then leave the leftovers sitting out overnight and eat it unheated the next morning for breakfast. I don't think it ever hurt anybody.

As far as hardboiled eggs, I remember many Easters where my mom would leave the colored hardboiled eggs out on a bowl for us to eat and they would be there for several days until they were gone and we never got sick.

I never did that with my kids because I had read that they shouldn't remain out for more than two hours but somehow my brothers and I survived our childhood. LOL

~Kathy

 

[1905]

You can leave pizza out for a long time. My kids have ordered pizza, left it on the table all night, I saw it in the AM and stuck it in the fridge, perfect! I throw out eggs if the expiration date is past. They were probably still fine, especially since they were refrigerated- who knew?

Buck should have just finished cooking the chicken. Tony could have had it later heated up or cold. He could have taken it for lunch. I would have been fuming, that was your familys dinner. Maybe Buck will eat the rest of it today, do you have any rat poison? Just kidding!

 

[SuZir]

Eggs stay good really long after expiration day. If it's just a week or two I don't even test. When we are talking about month or more, I do broke them to separate bowl (you really do smell if egg has gone bad) or if I'm boiling them, just check they are not floating. If not, they are good to go.

I have also eaten quite a many yesterday's pizzas next morning afte keeping them in room temperature for a night. Never got even slightly sick. I'm much more careful with chicken, mayonnaise and fish and shellfish, though.

 

[nerfherder]

Pizza keeps. The stuff it's made of is either bread, high acid/sugar (sauce) and the cheese... is cheese. High enough in lactic acid (and other preservatives, naturally occurring or not) that I've never gotten sick off it. And I've pushed my limits as a teen and young adult.

Eggs - sink if they're fresher, bob if they're not, float if they're questionable. When in doubt, if the shell's REALLY (not kinda) intact, crack into a seperate bowl *first.* Bad eggs look pre-scrambled and nasty. The older an egg is, the runnier the white and saggier the yolk is - which is why beaten egg whites work best with less fresh eggs. Super fresh eggs are not good for hard boiling, they won't peel well. Use the oldest eggs in your fridge for hard boiling.

Chicken... well. Salmonella is actually a natural part of their digestive flora, I've heard, which is why it's so likely a problem with 'em. My mom tried the "leave it out so the chill comes out before I cook it" routine on me, I'm not sure if that's what she remembered, or if she was trying to cover for a 10th decade brain f*rt. (That's right, when you're in your 90's, you're actually in your 10th decade.)

Commercial economy chicken? You're lucky if I feed it to dogs, let alone humans. Heck, I'd have issues feeding it to *my* chickens raw. ('course they'd gobble it up. Chickens are... kinda gross that way.) Janet, NO RESTAURANT I HAVE WORKED IN has ever allowed that kind of thing to happen. Buck can email me if he has doubts, or he can look up HACCP guidelines.

HACCP is a pain in the butt, but following it covers a MULTITUDE of food safety sins, and gives your staff someone else to b*tch about when you're getting on their cases about not keeping up with the hot/cold temp recording.

 

[AnnieO]

Eggs don't last long enough in our house to worry about it, but usually I'll eat most stuff past its expiration. You can usually tell by smell and sight. Pizza, even homemade, is likely fine for quite a while.

 

[DammitJanet]

No joke Nerf! He claims he was some kind of cook to the stars. Even claims he cooked for Tom Cruise and the Governor of SC at one time. I know the restaurant where he said he cooked for Tom Cruise and the time period involved. There is no way. The place is a seafood buffet style restaurant. A nice one but not one of the most expensive ones in Myrtle Beach and in fact it is in North Myrtle. I cannot even imagine a hollywood movie star would go there. They dont have a special room for events. There are more expensive buffets in Myrtle proper that also serve menu food that have banquet rooms which would have made much more sense if Tom Cruise was actually there. Or the guy just looked somewhat like Tom Cruise..lol.

I think Buck was what is known as a prep cook. He most likely cut veggies and made sure that they had enough meat and bread on hand. I dont even believe he actually cooked anything because the man cant even cook pasta. He burns every cake or pan of brownies he bakes.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Pizza keeps. The stuff it's made of is either bread, high acid/sugar (sauce) and the cheese... is cheese. High enough in lactic acid (and other preservatives, naturally occurring or not) that I've never gotten sick off it. And I've pushed my limits as a teen and young adult.

No high-acid/sugar sauce... no sauce at all. Just meat, veggies and cheese, on "bread".
Does that make a diff?

We didn't eat it today because... we were invited out, and no way could we eat a company meal on top of THAT much lunch, so we had something light.