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

“a few hours” – unless it’s fish on a hot day nothing spoils in a few hours.

Tea isn’t going to go off; there’s very little in there that a bacteria could make a home out of.

Soup might start going sour after 12 hours or so. Probably won’t do you any harm but might taste weird. Use your senses: if it looks and smells like soup you’re likely okay. If it looks and tastes like something has gone wrong, it might make you sick.

Source: I regularly make stock, leave it on the stove overnight still full of chicken bones. If I don’t have time to strain and fridge it in the morning I just boil it hard for half an hour and leave it out all day to deal with it in the evening. Probably wouldn’t recommend this in summer though.

Food isn’t trying to kill you as much as you think.

Well. It kind of is. But not the food you cook and make from ingredients – just the food you buy in a pouch from the convenience store. That shit is gonna kill you in the end.