Would you have eaten this?

[Millie Ivy]

We ate at mom and dads house last night, barbequed pulled pork (from our pig from the farmer!) and mashed potatoes.

I put some leftovers in our little plug in cooler in the car, not plugged in. and forgot about it until this morning. It has been warm here in texas but the lows last night were in the 40s and the high today is only 50 or so. I just took it out of the cooler and it tastes/smells fine.

What do you think?

[eastkygal]

We'd eat it here. I've been surprised at how long things will actually keep refrigerated and not. Most refrigerated things say at 45 degrees or below.

[kirstenb]

I would too.

[Millie Ivy]

Originally Posted by kirstenb

I would too.

Yeah, I was actually eating it as I posted, just was curious as to what others would have done.

It was yummy, and the kids finished off the potatoes. I will try to eat the rest of the bbq quickly though, because intuition tlels me it may spoil quicker now. I don't know if htere is any facts grounding that, but whatever.

[schendledecker]

I would have eaten it too. My mother says to heat things through really well if you want to kill possible bacteria.

[TzippityDoulah]

it woudl depend on the tempature of the food and if it had things like mayo in it (which makes food spoil much faster)


I'd eat it if the food didn't feel warm and i knew it hadn't gotten warm and didn' have mayo or anything like that. we leave a lot of foods out fo the fridge in our house. I figure they didn't have fridges 70 years ago and people still ate left overs...

[Dillpicklechip]

I feel that it's usually pretty safe to go by smell.

If you give it a good sniff and it still smells fine, I'd say it is.

[Minerva]

Given the temps you list, I'd eat it. That's cold enough.

Honestly, even wealthy people didn't usually have an icebox until the 20s. I assure you that leftovers were eaten up the next day (or so) without being refrigerated.

[Millie Ivy]

: Fun topic, eh?

I have a pretty good nose. I can usually tell when something is *close* to turning, but hasn't quite yet. But I normally am not using my super powers on food from the van, just the fridge. But yep, I figured people didn't throw food to the dogs after a couple of hours with no refrigeration!

thanks, ladies!

[Metasequoia]

I'd eat just about anything but not this. The one & only time I ever had food poisoning was from old pork. It was flavored with Mexican spices & I couldn't tell it was bad. Man, that was the WORST couple of days.