If I cook up some food and decide to keep it to reheat later or tomorrow, why is it important where I store it? Eg it needs to be refrigerated. I get that bacteria will grow in the danger zones – so room temperature means bacteria will grow. But if I’m heating the food up doesn’t that kill the bacteria that would grow anyway? So why does it matter?
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Bacteria themselves are killed by heat, you’re right. But **bacteria poop can be toxic too, and it’s NOT removed by heat**. The toxic chemicals are much less sensitive to temp than living bacteria are.
So if you leave food out a room temp for days then reheat it, sure that kills all the bacteria on it, but *all the toxic poop they have pooped over those few days remains in the food* and gets eaten! That’s the bad part. For food to be safe, there can’t *have been* bacteria either. Killing them and then eating their dead bodies and all their poop isn’t good enough.
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