Would you eat this chicken?

[annie987]

I cooked 6 chicken breasts last night and they came out of the oven at 9.30pm. I left them in the side to cool.
I just got up and I forgot to put them in the fridge!! Do I put them in the fridge now or bin them?
Thanks

I’d bin too, chicken I’m really funny about and couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

Safety advice for cooked chicken at room temperature is 2 hours. Even if that’s being cautious which it probably is, you’re far far past that 2 hours. Add in last nights higher temps and you’d be very silly to eat it.

You might get away with it of course. You most likely wouldn’t. There’s no way to know what bacteria have formed over night. Bacteria definitely will have. It’s food poisoning roulette to know how it would affect you or if the really nasty bacteria have taken hold. Speaking from someone who has had campylobacter and was severely ill for 9 days, I’d not risk it for those odds.

@AndMyHairWillShineLikeTheSea I would just make sure I reheated it to piping before eating it. It just so happened that I'd probably make a curry because I was in the mood for one.

I agree bin.
Near me there's a very nice cafe, the owner cooks bowls of fabulous fresh food daily, all out on the counter to be bought to eat in or take out. There are pieces of baked salmon, pesto chicken breasts, "artisan" sausage rolls, salads etc all sitting out from say 10.30+ till later in the day. You have to lean over the food to pay. How does this work from a food hygiene perspective?

The food poisoning in chicken comes from the toxins the bacteria have released, so if you curry it yes the heat will kill the bugs but not deactivate the toxins. Chilling slows the bacterial growth and so stops them producing the toxins in the first place.

Where does everyone live that it was warm last night? 4 degrees here and we're in the SE. My kitchen would've been almost as cold as my fridge
I'd eat them

Learn something new every day! Thanks!

I would have ate them too!
My dp has form for leaving food on the side overnight and I always put it in fridge and then eat the next day!

I would eat them

I've done this plenty of times but always covered in some form. Don't know if I'd risk it with chicken.

People saying last night was warm are obviously not in my part of Scotland. We had snow yesterday!

Bin

Eat it was only 3 degrees overnight here so my kitchen would have been cool overnight

Where does everyone live that it was warm last night?

I was thinking that! I had the heating on this morning....

Anyhoo, I would probably eat them.

Bin is right,

After three hours unrefigerated harmful bacteria starts to grow. The longer it’s out, the more it grows, and the more risk you have of being ill. Even if it smells and tastes fine.

So although you might be fine, you also might all be extremely ill, as such, bin and don’t take the risk.

I would eat it. It wouldn’t be cool enough for the fridge when I went to bed. It was cool in my kitchen last night.

It was 1 degree C in my part of the UK last night - my kitchen was probably colder than the fridge! I'd eat them...

Yeah, I'd eat them.

I put leftovers into an open lunchbox all the time (admittedly not since lockdown) and leave on the side to cool. Then fall asleep face down on the sofa and drag myself to bed forget all about them. Then I get up, put the lid on, shove in my work bag forget to put them in the fridge at work and eat a5 lunch.

I’ve never once had food poisoning and I put it down to my lax attitude building my tolerance up. I’d rather risk it than waste it.

I am more careful when feeding other people however, would hate to poison someone else.

I'd have eaten them. Wouldn't really have occurred to me it was an issue.

I love threads like this. I open them knowing full well whatever the food I would say I would eat it!

Eat it. Massive waste to chuck.