How long does it take for food to go off

Common themes discussed on the Chowhound website include tipping (many of the posters live in the United States), dining etiquette and food safety. In the latter category, the questions tend to go along the lines of, “Left a cooked turkey out on the counter overnight, is it safe?”, “Left raw salmon on the counter for 45 minutes, is it safe?”, and “Left uncooked beef stew out for 2½ hours, is it safe?” Some of the questions make me think the poster is paranoid while others leave me wondering if they’re just stupid.

Raw salmon isn’t going to go bad within 45 minutes and the same goes for uncooked stew left out for 2½ hours, cream cheese or butter for 12, or strawberries and blueberries for five (to give a few examples).

But turkey, chicken or minced meat left out overnight or even longer? Unless you keep your kitchen temperature at 10 degrees Celsius or colder, why would you consider eating it?

Replies to that type of post are usually fairly unanimous in their advice (“Throw it away!”) but there’s often a dissenter arguing that the food won’t necessarily make you ill (as in, “We do that in our family and nobody’s ever been sick”).

To me, it’s not worth the risk.

Poultry is notorious for being the cause of food-borne illnesses that come from salmonella and E coli – pathogens that are introduced to the birds during slaughtering and processing, while Clostridium perfringens multiplies in meat that isn’t kept at a constantly cool temperature.