Mistakenly left quiche out out overnight, can I eat it?

[BumperliciousIsOneHotMother]

Bought home some yummy homemade quiche from SILs yesterday and guttingly left it out of the fridge over night. If I heat it can I still eat it?

God, I'd definitely eat it or give it to the kids - we eat things that have been out longer than that!

my sister in law is obsessed with food hygiene and THREW AWAY a lovely smoked salmon postal gift as it had been in the depot for FIVE hours! bonkers! er, it's SMOKED!

ha ha - was just thinking, I always end up sharing my night-time glas of water with our cats - doesn't bother me at all.

My MIL throws everything away if it's not been eaten at the dinner table...drives me bonkers.

My Dad goes to the other extreme and uses off milk in his tea rather than chuck it and if a yoghurt's a bit fizzy he still eats it (i draw the line just before that) - needless to say he's never ill either, but then he drinks so much whisky it probably counteracts all the bacteria

bleurgh, yes, can't do fizzy food or food that actually TASTES off! or rotten fruit etc - but if it smells OK, I eat it

My dd should be fine Wisteria - she eats half her food off the floor .

well you should know what you're talking about Florence

I'm only a chickenpox nurse really (normally CantSleepWontSleep).

oh........hello - I wish people would stop namechanging I never know who I'm talking to

Oh go for it! I had the exact same thing over Christmas... mum made a quiche and I left it out. Next day I had some and was fine.
I agree with Wisteria... people are much to fussy over things.

Being a microbiologist I would recommend heating it through thoroughly before you eat it as this will kill off/severely reduce any bacteria that may have grown.

I too support what most others are saying on here that it's good to be exposed to low levels of bacteria as you do build up a resistance to bugs. My dh and I are a prime example of this. I was brought up spending my weekends at the stables where I never washed my hands before eating. I have travelled the world and spent months camping out in the Indonesian rain forests - where we used to turn our torches off at night to eat so you couldn't see the insects flying into your food. I also had parents who were sensible about sell by dates i.e some things like salad, cheese etc are perfectly ok to eat past the sell by date if they look/smell ok. As a result I have a cast iron stomach and strong immune system. From 13 to 34 I never got any sickness bugs and have only had one recently which was due to catching it from my ds1 who was pooing/sicking everywhere but I felt bad for a couple of hours. Now my dh's mother is paranoid about food and cleanliness and he has such a sensitive stomach it is untrue. Fortunately he doesn't get sick all the time but he does get it the other end a lot. Interestingly when my son got sick at 7 months, she and my husband came down with the same bug and were severely ill for 48 hours whereas I felt a little bit queasy one night.

Being over clean is not the best thing for your dc but being sensible is. THe only time to really watch sell by dates is at Christmas when all the food companies extend their sell by dates - often based on very dodgy data (my sister used to work for one such company and was horrified at their practices - so much so she left and she's not overly paranoid about food either). Apologies for the long ramble!

Hi Josie - surely though if something has got any bacteria on it then heating just multiplies this - I was always taught not to reheat things for that reason.

Heating does kill off certain 'original' bacteria IYSWIM but not secondary ie picked up from other sources. One of the reasons that you can't reheat rice but it is fine cold for days..

I may be wrong but I was brought up by a cook and used to be a caterer...

Thank you all for the interesting discussion, I'm going to go for it! If you don't see me posting for a while assume I've died of food poisoning, and I'll tell DH my epitaph is to read "She always said Mumsnet would be the death of her"

Wisteria, depends on how you reheat things and what was contaminating the item originally. If you reheat slowly, you can have problems as all you may be doing is making the food source a lovely temperature for the bacteria to reproduce, give it a good decent blast and that helps kill off the bacteria if they are not in spore form. Certain bacteria cause poisoning by producing toxins once they have grown on the food the toxins remain and it is these not the bacteria themselves which make you ill. Rice is a bugger, has a large surface area due to it's pitted surface, bacteria get inside the pitts and unless you reheat thoroughly they remain, plus bacteria that produce poisonous toxins like to live on 'old' rice.

Primary and secondary contamination do not act differenty because one of the sequence in which they contaminated food, it is the type of bacteria that counts.

Bumperlicious - enjoy your quiche

Dinny - I can't believe the smoked salmon tale

Ah, I bow to your knowledge - I always thought things like quiches were better not reheated.

I shouldn't think either will kill you

I do know you should never reheat rice though if cooked at home or a takeaway - no matter at what temperature - you'll be alright 50 times but then the 51st time it'll get you and boy will you be poorly!

I would eat it! I left my left over turkey out over night (by big mistake), shuffed it in the fridge when I got up the next morning and prayed it would be oka! I figured it was winter, kitchen is cold with CH off overnight. We were all fine.

don't bow too low. Most of my knowledge of such things has been replaced with that regarding methods of burping a 4 week old, getting 3 year old to go to sleep etc - very small brain you see, only limited info can be stored therein .

Josie57 sorry to butt in on Q directed at you, saw a microbiology question and got typing I MISS MY JOB Waa Waa Waa!!!

Some people are making a bit of a leap from people like me not eating the quiche to assuming we live in oversterile environments! My kids have been known to eat stuff off the floor, which doesn't worry me, and are exposed to plenty of germs generally, but I would still choose not to eat some things where I thought bacteria that can cause food poisoning had had had a chance to multiply to dangerous levels, and I would always reheat properly if in doubt. You don't get rid of some things like botulism toxins like that but you'll kill a lot of bacteria. (And we haven't had a stomach bug for years here either.)

I'd personally be more willing to eat some (not all) kinds of bought products past an 'official' use-by date than I would be to eat a quiche that had been left in the warm all night...

Well, I'm still here [gron]

Thanks for all the advice!

That was , not the sound my belly is making!

So you survived to tell the tale then Bump! So glad to hear it - I must admit I have had moments of 'gawd I hope she is ok....'

Don't worry, i wouldn't have blamed you if i got sick (much)