AboutCarol Schlitt Expertise I can answer questions on home food safety, sanitation, home food preservation and commercial food safety (HACCP).
Experience I am an Extension educator, nutrition, wellness and food safety. I am a certified HACCP manager and a food safety instructor for the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Organizations International Association for Food Protection, American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (Certified CFCS), National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, Society for Nutrition Education.
Education/Credentials BS - University of Illinois
MS - Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville
Question We cooked a pot roast and left it on stove top to cool. At 10pm it was still too hot to put in fridge. Forgot about it, went to bed. If it was put in the fridge at 6am, is there a high probability of food poisoning?
Answer Hi Greg,
Anything is possible with potentially hazardous foods (meat, eggs, dairy products, fish, etc) left at temperatures that encourage the growth of bacteria. Some bacteria produce a toxin that is not deactivated by reheating the product.
Since we don't have a way at home to determine if a food is 100% safe, we have to use other means to determine if a food is safe. Those means are -- was the food allowed to be in the danger zone (40 to 140 degrees)for more than 6 hours. Restaurants have 6 hours to cool food down from 140 to 40 within 6 hours to ensure safety. Since your food was in the danger zone for 8 hours, I can not recommend consuming the food.
