Can I Really Eat Pizza I Left Out All Night?

Most adults have found themselves in the situation where you wake up to find that you have left the pizza out on the counter overnight. And most of us have been running late, low on money, went to college or all the above have made the choice to grab that pizza on our way out the door. 

There has always been this perception that it was ok to leave the pizza out, it can’t go bad. Oh really? 

I’d be lying if I said I had not done this and survived, but it’s not something we should be doing. A report on yahoo.com quoted a professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas who also is an infectious disease epidemiologist.  

Brian Labus says that pizza needs to be handled properly once you have finished what you wanted. He brings up a good point when he says that you wouldn’t eat cheese that was left out all night, or pepperoni, and nearly all pizzas have cheese, and a lot have pepperoni on them.  

So how long can you safely leave pizza out on the counter before you refrigerate it? The article says that foods can be in a zone between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees Fahrenheit for no more than two hours.  

Those temperatures are the area where bacteria starts to grow and survive. If the pizza is in an area that is 90 degrees Fahrenheit or more, it should not be out longer than one hour. 

The article on yahoo.com also spoke with food scientist Bryan Quoc Le who said that pizza sauce and cheese can really breed bacteria that can leave you not only feeling sick but spending more time in the bathroom than you would like.  

He says that you can safely keep pizza in the fridge for up to four days, wrapped in saran wrap. After four days, you should throw out whatever is left.  

Again, many of us have eaten pizza and food in general we shouldn’t have. But that doesn’t mean we should continue to do so, to quote Molly Hatchet, we’re just “Flirtin’ With Disaster” if we do.