As we all know, the general rule is, that cooked meat must be refrigerated within 2 hours or so after its cooked.
However, why are foods like cheese & bacon rolls, and those little hot dog rolls you find at Asian bakeries deemed safe to eat in room temperature?
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Realistically the food left out like that is risky to eat lol. Technically if you made a cooked meat item (like those cheese/bacon rolls) you could have them out of the “danger zone” (41-135 degrees) for 4 hours before harmful bacteria/toxins start to form.
This is just a general rule meant to enforce the most food safety possible. If you ate the food after 4 hours it doesn’t mean it’s automatically dangerous to eat, it’s just way more likely to cause harm because harmful bacteria has now had favorable conditions to form.
So in a commercial setting, the health inspector would have no problem with food being kept at that temp for 4 hours, then thrown out.
But I’m gonna wager that most places who serve this type of food don’t actually do that. Given time and temperature, the harmful bacteria then create toxins, which cause the more nasty type of food poisoning. So maybe avoid them at the end of the day lol.
Salt, and certain preservatives, inhibit bacterial growth. It’s why smoked meat was used for such a long time before refrigeration. Honey also inhibits bacteria if the food is dry enough, as it pulls the moisture out of bacteria and kills them as well as containing some anti-fungal and -bacterial chemicals.
I would guess that those foods are treated with substances that prevent bacteria from growing but are edible.
Officially yes but damn if my mom didn’t make roast dinners and the left over joint of meat would often just be put somewhere cool for a day or so until we finished it off. Having said that she’d roast any piece of meat for hours so there would be no risk of moisture left for bacteria to grow in 😀
Refrigeration is just one way of preserving food. For meat, salt is another big one. It’s why meats like jerky and cured ham last so long. Generally if a food is dry and salty enough, it can be kept safely at room temperature, because all organisms need water in order to thrive and salt is kind of like negative water since it’s really good at drawing moisture out of things. For foods like jerky or those asian rolls, there may also be additional preservatives present.
Something locally I don’t understand is every pizza place by me (NY) has tons of pizza and pepperoni rolls/pinwheels out on their counters all day long, and no one gets sick.
Anecdotally, I know people who leave out food over night and eat it and are 100% fine.
The ELI5 part is likely that food spoilage may not be as quick in some foods as we think, and people with good, healthy immune systems may be able to withstand a certain amount of bacteria.
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