re: Left a pot of tomato meat sauce out overnight. It's still good, right?

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Food poisoning comes from an overwhelming amount of bacteria. Leaving meat out for two hours, or sauce overnight, is not overwhelming

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Leaving a meat sauce out overnight can indeed be overwhelming. The concern is the bacteria log growth. Bacteria grows exponentially.

Overnight at room temperature is absolutely enough time allow certain bacteria to grow to an unsafe amount.

Was the bacteria even there to begin with? We don't know. Likely not, but it is possible. If it wasn't there, it didn't grow. If it was there, it positively grew and very likely to an unsafe amount.



Here's how you get sick from bacteria in food:

(1) Bacteria must be there (naturally or introduced).

(2) Bacteria need the proper environment to grow to the proper amount to make you sick (overnight at room temp is the proper environment).

(3) You eat the bacteria, then it's up to your immune system. Most healthy people will be fine and may have small symptoms they write off as a stomach bug. Or, the symptoms can be worse and they can feel like crap for a while. Elderly and people with weakened immune systems will have much greater symptoms.


Now that the bacteria has grown in the food, you can just re-heat it and kill it, right? Not necessarily. Heating only kills a certain amount of bacteria. If you have a large amount present, cooking may not kill all the bacteria. Plus, there could be some spores that heat will not kill.

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tomato meat sauce

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what in the inbred are you talking aboot?

Ragu? Bolognese?

If it was chicken or pork I’d be concerned, but what you’re talking about I’d eat it in a heartbeat.

Tomato sauces are usually highly acidic which inhibits and even prohibits a LOT of bacteria growth. Is/was there a slimy film across the surface? That would be rather telling of bacterial growth. (Use a flashlight to angle the light on the surface rather than tilt the container and thus disturb the surface. Discount some shininess for any oils you used and/or fats cooked out too.).

If you're talking 12 hours or less without refrigeration you are probably safe from growth and/or toxins with a strong tomato base. Remember that diseases have an incubation period of usually days, not hours, from contact to symptoms.

Should be fine I’ve microwaved pizza that sat out for 18 hours on a drinking binge and didn’t get sick

But then again my BAC probably killed any bacteria

I had salmonella last summer. I will do anything I can to never get it again.

Heat it back up and roll with it.

Doesn’t go bad that fast enough to bother you

damned good question. I grew up around NOLA area watching food left out on the stove covered-sometimes not and it was eaten the next day. Seafood naaah but no one got sick from anything else left out.

Breakfast!