You’re not supposed to defrost meats in warm water due to harmful bacteria growth, you’re not supposed to leave food at room temperature for long without being refrigerated because of harmful growth but, when you go to a buffet, food can sit out for hours under heat lamps and be fine?
In: Biology
The first one is kind of an old wives tale and isn’t backed up by science, except in the case of particularly thick cuts where it will take a very long time to thaw the inside with hot water, keeping the outside in the “danger zone” for long enough for notable bacteria growth to happen. Here’s [an actual study on the matter](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1750-3841.2010.02037.x) and here’s [a more reader-friendly article.](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/dining/a-hot-water-bath-for-thawing-meats-the-curious-cook.html).
When you’re talking about food at home, you’d likely be perfectly fine if you cooked some food, left it out at room temperature for an hour or two and then finished eating it. That being said, the advice tends to take into account that you’re likely going to put it back in the fridge, warm it up again, and consume more later – potentially multiple times. This gives way more opportunity for bacteria growth later.
With a buffet, you cook the food which kills everything, set it out and keep it warm (some stuff like meat might be kept warm enough to slow down but not completely stop bacteria growth), and then either the entire thing is eaten over a few hours or it’s discarded.
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