Reboiling spoiled soup
January 30, 2025 9:50 PM Subscribe
I have not done this, nor do I intend to. But
theoretically if I leave a pot of soup out overnight and in the morning decide to reheat it, that would kill any bad germs in it and I could then eat it, right,?
theoretically if I leave a pot of soup out overnight and in the morning decide to reheat it, that would kill any bad germs in it and I could then eat it, right,?
No, that is not correct. Soup is in essence a growth medium for bacteria, specially if it has meat in it, and not all bacteria are killed by high heat.
posted by mumimor at 10:04 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]
posted by mumimor at 10:04 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]
Generally speaking: it will kill the germs, it will not remove the toxins created by the bacterial growth. It is not safe to do that.
posted by so fucking future at 10:07 PM on January 30 [11 favorites]
posted by so fucking future at 10:07 PM on January 30 [11 favorites]
Here's a good article on keeping stock at room temperature and then boiling before eating from Harold McGee in the NYT. In summary, this is something that some people do with stock, for days even, but is high risk. Ten minutes of boiling does kill any bacteria and inactivate most toxins, but there are a few toxins that are heat stable at boiling temperatures (it's unclear to me if these toxins are commonly produced in stock).
Soup would be even higher risk than plain stock, because you have to make sure everything in it reaches boiling temperatures for long enough. Simply reheating would definitely not be enough, you'd need extended boiling.
posted by ssg at 10:35 PM on January 30 [4 favorites]
Soup would be even higher risk than plain stock, because you have to make sure everything in it reaches boiling temperatures for long enough. Simply reheating would definitely not be enough, you'd need extended boiling.
posted by ssg at 10:35 PM on January 30 [4 favorites]
In my household, I'm the scavenger who regularly eats up the stuff that the others I live with have judged to be not worth the risk. Of the three of us, I'm also the one with the least downtime due to GI tract upsets. Never been sure which way the causality goes there.
I would almost always be happy to breakfast on a pot of soup that had been left out on the stove overnight if it smelled OK to me. That said, I wouldn't do it if it smelled bad, and I would also not do it if anybody in the house had had any kind of GI disease within the past two weeks.
Yes, bacteria will grow relatively quickly in unrefrigerated soup. But unless your kitchen is particularly filthy, by far the richest source of microbes likely to colonize foods subjected to unsound handling practices is you and the people and pets you live with. Eating bacteria and fungi that are already in and on you is unlikely to make you sick unless there are enough of them to cause perceptible spoilage.
I am much less cavalier about foods that have not been cooked since entering the house; soil bacteria are a whole nother thing.
posted by flabdablet at 10:54 PM on January 30 [7 favorites]
I would almost always be happy to breakfast on a pot of soup that had been left out on the stove overnight if it smelled OK to me. That said, I wouldn't do it if it smelled bad, and I would also not do it if anybody in the house had had any kind of GI disease within the past two weeks.
Yes, bacteria will grow relatively quickly in unrefrigerated soup. But unless your kitchen is particularly filthy, by far the richest source of microbes likely to colonize foods subjected to unsound handling practices is you and the people and pets you live with. Eating bacteria and fungi that are already in and on you is unlikely to make you sick unless there are enough of them to cause perceptible spoilage.
I am much less cavalier about foods that have not been cooked since entering the house; soil bacteria are a whole nother thing.
posted by flabdablet at 10:54 PM on January 30 [7 favorites]
If it's so hot that the interior walls and the underside of the lid are pasteurized, and the lid stays on continuously after the heat has peaked, and the lid is very well fitted to the pot and has no lids, then I have been known to be totally fine with eating the soup the next day, or reheating it and putting it in individual heat-and-eat containers.
posted by amtho at 11:37 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]
posted by amtho at 11:37 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]
People often really misunderstand the USDA danger zone. Food doesn't turn to poison after a few hours on the counter. It's just that you can't be 100% certain that it won't give anyone in the world a rumbly tummy.
"High risk" for the stock method above is also a really slippery term. High risk of what? Higher risk than what? You're certainly more likely to get killed by your daily car commute than you are by reboiled soup. On the other hand, your car commute probably won't make you vomit or have diarrhea unless you are in a pretty rough accident.
Food waste is a huge problem, burning almost half a trillion dollars yearly on a global scale. Almost 20% of food is wasted after it's sold in retail markets.
Food borne illness in the USA is relatively small compared to any other major source of illness.
I can tell you I've never made anyone sick with the food I cook, and I sometimes eat things that would be outside the usda guidelines. I can tell you those guidelines are designed to be highly conservative and idiot-proof. And for good reason! You don't want anyone to follow the rules and get sick. But the converse is not that you get sick if you skirt the rules.
Nobody can tell you the hypothetical reheated soup is perfectly safe, but nobody can deny that thousands of people have done just that and been fine.
The largest source of food-borne illness in the US is by far fresh produce (eg Fig C). Personally, I occasionally eat the beans-on-toast I left on the counter after breakfast at lunch or even later. No problem and no risk that bothers me.
But I'll never buy bagged cut lettuce again, that shit is expensive and isn't even that safe the moment you buy it. There are about 10 outbreaks of food-borne diseases per year in the US due leafy greens.
Some food for thought.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:02 AM on January 31 [12 favorites]
"High risk" for the stock method above is also a really slippery term. High risk of what? Higher risk than what? You're certainly more likely to get killed by your daily car commute than you are by reboiled soup. On the other hand, your car commute probably won't make you vomit or have diarrhea unless you are in a pretty rough accident.
Food waste is a huge problem, burning almost half a trillion dollars yearly on a global scale. Almost 20% of food is wasted after it's sold in retail markets.
Food borne illness in the USA is relatively small compared to any other major source of illness.
I can tell you I've never made anyone sick with the food I cook, and I sometimes eat things that would be outside the usda guidelines. I can tell you those guidelines are designed to be highly conservative and idiot-proof. And for good reason! You don't want anyone to follow the rules and get sick. But the converse is not that you get sick if you skirt the rules.
Nobody can tell you the hypothetical reheated soup is perfectly safe, but nobody can deny that thousands of people have done just that and been fine.
The largest source of food-borne illness in the US is by far fresh produce (eg Fig C). Personally, I occasionally eat the beans-on-toast I left on the counter after breakfast at lunch or even later. No problem and no risk that bothers me.
But I'll never buy bagged cut lettuce again, that shit is expensive and isn't even that safe the moment you buy it. There are about 10 outbreaks of food-borne diseases per year in the US due leafy greens.
Some food for thought.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:02 AM on January 31 [12 favorites]
For me, if I had simmered a meatless soup for an extended period in my heavy lidded pot and left it overnight, I'd probably heat it up in the morning and eat it. This would be even more true if it had tomatoes or a lot of acidic ingredients. My stomach is pretty robust.
I always think about food at parties - if you arrive at a party at 7pm and there's brie or pizza or cut up vegetables, etc, and then you stay at the party and you're having a hazy late-night discussion at 2am and you grab that last piece of pizza or make your point with a carrot stick, you don't think "oh my god, now I'm going to have food poisoning". And yet probably eight hours have gone by! Maybe a little more depending on when the food was prepared and put out.
The one time I've had real, serious bad food poisoning so far, it was from a freshly made pizza and I can only assume that the lightly baked fresh vegetables on top of it had been contaminated. I ate that pizza within about forty five minutes of cooking and wow I was so sick - I remember lying on the floor in the process of dragging myself into the bathroom.
Now, I would not serve that theoretical overnight bean soup to anyone who would be icked out by it or anyone who seemed to have a more delicate digestion,
With all this food stuff, we're talking about rules and guidelines that are designed to prevent mass events - the big pan of something that gets fifty people sick at a buffet - and protect the most vulnerable who can get sick from even minor exposure to bacteria or a toxin. That's absolutely as it should be, but when you're cooking for yourself in your own private kitchen it is wise to use your own expertise.
posted by Frowner at 6:33 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
I always think about food at parties - if you arrive at a party at 7pm and there's brie or pizza or cut up vegetables, etc, and then you stay at the party and you're having a hazy late-night discussion at 2am and you grab that last piece of pizza or make your point with a carrot stick, you don't think "oh my god, now I'm going to have food poisoning". And yet probably eight hours have gone by! Maybe a little more depending on when the food was prepared and put out.
The one time I've had real, serious bad food poisoning so far, it was from a freshly made pizza and I can only assume that the lightly baked fresh vegetables on top of it had been contaminated. I ate that pizza within about forty five minutes of cooking and wow I was so sick - I remember lying on the floor in the process of dragging myself into the bathroom.
Now, I would not serve that theoretical overnight bean soup to anyone who would be icked out by it or anyone who seemed to have a more delicate digestion,
With all this food stuff, we're talking about rules and guidelines that are designed to prevent mass events - the big pan of something that gets fifty people sick at a buffet - and protect the most vulnerable who can get sick from even minor exposure to bacteria or a toxin. That's absolutely as it should be, but when you're cooking for yourself in your own private kitchen it is wise to use your own expertise.
posted by Frowner at 6:33 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
I have nothing to add to this discussion, but I want to salute Czjewel for crafting an irresistible post. I mean, after reading
I have not done this, nor do I intend to. But
how does one *not* click the "[more inside]"? Bravo!
posted by martin q blank at 6:34 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
I have not done this, nor do I intend to. But
how does one *not* click the "[more inside]"? Bravo!
posted by martin q blank at 6:34 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
Yeah, for vegan soup I would/have done this, but only in winter when the soup would have been in the 50s over night.
posted by coffeecat at 6:52 AM on January 31
posted by coffeecat at 6:52 AM on January 31
That's another thing - if it were August and the overnight low was 78, I'd feel differently than if it were last week, when our chilly and poorly insulated kitchen was quite cool overnight.
posted by Frowner at 8:39 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 8:39 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
that theoretical overnight bean soup
I know it's been soup, but what is it now?
posted by flabdablet at 8:51 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
I know it's been soup, but what is it now?
posted by flabdablet at 8:51 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: martin q blank...Thank you! It wasn't thought out...I'm not that clever by half!
posted by Czjewel at 9:39 AM on January 31
posted by Czjewel at 9:39 AM on January 31
The problem with going by anecdotes is that it's really difficult to know what caused any particular case of food poisoning. The icky food could have been eaten a few hours, or a few weeks ago.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:46 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:46 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]
I have left food in a covered pot with a well-fitting lid, and reheated and eaten it the next day. Esp. in winter, when my house is never warmer than 65, and closer to55 overnight. As I get older and less tolerant of illness, I am more cautious. Boiling kills germs, but some stuff leaves toxins that will make you ill. It is really important to be super safe with geezers and infants and anyone with a compromised immune system.
I got mild food poisoning last summer from a takeout salad from a refrigerated case, so, yeah, lettuce.
posted by theora55 at 11:19 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
I got mild food poisoning last summer from a takeout salad from a refrigerated case, so, yeah, lettuce.
posted by theora55 at 11:19 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
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posted by axiom at 10:02 PM on January 30 [14 favorites]