AIBU to eat the dinner I left out accidentally overnight?

[WattThreeWords]

Gnocchi bake. Gnocchi, pepper, olive oil, tomatoes.

Out of oven 8pm. Realised at 6.30am I hadn’t put in fridge, so put it back then.

AIBU to heat it up for dinner tonight?

YABU - it’s full of toxins and you’re going to thrown your guts up

YANBU - don’t waste that delicious dinner. Heat it up and enjoy

Wouldn't be a problem for me. Have done similar hundreds of times and I'm still alive.

Yes, RICE is a particular problem. Basically if you don't get it in the fridge pretty quickly you shouldn't re-heat it as re-heating even to high temperatures doesn't kill whatever it is that makes a specific type of bacteria grow on it enough to create toxins. I't called re-heated rice syndrome, seriously. Pasta I am fairly sure would be fine being left overnight.

The OP will be fine though as this dish doesn't contain rice and from experience, my mother used to cook, leave it to cool overnight and then put in the fridge the next morning. I wouldn't put hot stuff in the fridge just because that raises the temperature too much in the fridge.

I would, but I have a stomach of cast iron. My parents were war babies and disapproved of waste. Sell by dates were a modern affectation: oh, the culinary relics we found after my dad died 😬

I would.

I leave all food out for 24 hours- we eat a meal over two nights, don't put in fridge. My parents also did this. So 47 years later, I'm still alive. Meat, rice, dairy, the whole lot

I’d eat it no problem, but then I’m happy to eat most things that others on MN think will kill you. Shock horror I even eat cold leftover rice. Never had so much as a slightly upset stomach from it, never mind died.

Gnocchi and pasta have the same bacteria as rice (bacillus cereus, produces heat resistant spores) so are just as risky.

Putting hot food in the fridge raises the temperature inside your fridge. So could potentially lead to other things in the fridge going off.

We routinely leave unfinished casseroles etc out on the work surface and finish them the next day. Even with meat. Never got ill.

Id definitely eat it! But I also ate a chicken breast for lunch today that I'd left out by accident last night after cooking it. I have an iron stomach 🤣

Modern fridges are fine with hot food, it will not spoil the rest of the food in the fridge.

I never do this though, I wait for food to cool. I was replying to a poster who needed to know what to do if she cooked five litres of hot soup which couldn’t be put into smaller dishes to cool.

Everyone saying that they leave food out for hours and then eat it - you don’t have cast iron stomachs and it doesn’t mean it’s safe.

It’s dangerous and you have been lucky that the bacteria/toxins haven’t been present. Food poisoning is awful, even a mild bout. It isn’t worth the risk for the sake of moving the food to the fridge.

Meanwhile half the world doesn’t even have a fridge.
It will be fine.
You might gets the runs occasionally but actual food poisoning is rare and serious food poisoning even rarer.

We often eat left over Chinese thats been stored overnight in the microwave, never been ill yet!

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

They don’t cook food and leave it out in a warm room overnight though.

If food has given you diarrhoea then that is food poisoning. It’s very unlikely you’d get diarrhoea without sickness too.

Food poisoning is not rare, it’s very common. Millions of cases in the UK every year, and this thread is giving some insight as to why.

I recently got a thermometer for my fridge and was SHOCKED how much it made a difference to the temperature even putting cooled food in made.

But yes I agree it’s not hard to cool food before putting it away 😂.

No. Its high risk once its been in the ‘warm’ zone for more than 4 hours.

If you re heat it hot enough and long enough you will kill most live bacteria, but you wont get rid of heat resistant bacteria and the toxins that some bacteria make. Those toxins will make you very ill.

If your kitchen is naturally very cold, you might get away with it, but why risk it?

Even mild food poisoning can disrupt the gut microbiome, increasing your risk of IBS and potentially mental health issues.

Severe food poisoning can cause all sorts of horrible things like kidney damage, brain damage, chronic gut issues, autoimmune conditions; and if you’re pregnant, birth defects. (Not to mention death).

I’d be fine to eat that. Although it sounds quite dull and to me a ‘bake’ usually has some kind of cheese!
But then I’m another one who’s pretty relaxed about this and I’ve never had a bout of food poisoning from memory.

You will probably be fine, but personally I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it knowing it had sat out all night. We have been getting a lot of flies in our kitchen over the summer and I wouldn’t be able to get past the thought of flies having landed on it overnight. So sadly I’d have to bin it, which is a shame as I really hate food waste!

Oh the cheese gets mixed in afterwards, fresh with each portion (ricotta in this case)

If left out covered in a closed container, I’d nuke it in the oven or microwave, add cheese and happily eat.

However - if it was left uncovered I wouldn’t due to risk of flies having been on it.

I'd eat it no prob

My friend and her husband got horrific food poisoning from a vegan cottage pie (made with lentils). She left it defrosting on the side all day and then heated up for dinner.