Why do soups and teas go bad and unsafe to drink if left out in room temperature for a few hours but it’s perfectly safe to drink a glass of water left out overnight?

Question

Wouldn’t bacteria also grow in the water left out and release toxins?

In: 43

Answer 1

Unless you’re *severely* immunocompromised, leaving virtually anything on the counter out for a few hours is going to be perfectly safe. If you cooked it properly, whatever bacteria were populating it are already dead; several hours is simply not enough time for the bacteria in your kitchen or wherever to reproduce enough to cause you harm.

For *years* in my early 20s, lazy bachelor that I was, I’d leave soups and the like on the stove overnight all the time. Never once had a problem, not so much as a tummyache. Perhaps avoid leaving things out overnight and then eating them as I did, but a few hours? Perish the thought. Discarding perfectly good food just because government guidelines are designed to accommodate literally everybody, including people who would die from the common cold, is just unreasonable.

Also, tea is totally non-nutritive, I have no idea where you got the idea that bacteria might grow in it as they would in food.