It's basically a problem of statistics. Consider that something like 1 in 20,000 eggs carries salmonella. It means that most of the time you are not going to get sick from raw eggs. I have tasted every raw cookie dough and cake batter that I've ever made. But billions of eggs are sold every year. That means hundreds of thousands of people get sick from raw eggs. Some die. From the perspective of the CDC and the USDA, that's a big problem. So they tell you: don't eat raw eggs. Pretty much every food regulation works that way.
I think the counter would be something like, OK, I buy your premise on eggs. But we can track that on eggs - we can see salmonella cases, figure out they are coming from eggs; if you look for that data presumably you can find it (and if you can't, that would be a whole other article).
But I looked and I can't find any data on food poisoning from Pizza caused by poor storage; it doesn't seem to be a thing. Let's assume for one moment that it isn't a thing - I don't think it is, you might think it is but take it as a given that it isn't.
In that case we have two situations - one where the USDA is justified in not letting people prep for runs like Rocky, and one where the USDA is just having people throw out a massive amount of food for no reason. I think the second one is a negative; it might be necessarily negative given that they might not want to break out every kind of food hard enough to develop "real" guidelines.
This advice reminds me of the pediatric advice to never sleep with your baby.
The "abundance of caution" mindset comes partially from not being able to tailor advice to the particular hearer, so it must apply to the lowest common denominator.
Imagine this principle but apply it to programming, we get Java and excessively verbose code. Same principle applying to project management, and we get routine committee gridlock.
The food handling guidelines are not just about spoilage, they also factor into account pathogens borne by pests that may access food when unattended and may be extremely likely to be present in food preparation and serving situations. But, still, I see the risk as massively overstated in general.
I've let pizza sit unattended for multiple weeks (by accident), come back to it, and eaten it. It dehydrates. Tomato sauce by itself may not dehydrate fast enough and you will sometimes see mold on exposed portions. In fact, the toxicity of the spaghetti was certainly because it was akept moist by the sauce. The combination found in pizza has already been partially dehydrated by the oven, and finishes easily even in rather moist air. Guess you might have problems in Florida or the swampy parts of the south.
A counter-thesis on how this dialogue between John Q Public's common sense with clean counter top vs TikTok trash racoon following USDA guidelines: the reason why USDA has to do this, is that idiocracy is real, and that certain demographics DO get food poisoning in predictable manner. Mr. TikTok's desire for compliance, if not by some kind of Karen reflex, would be that he universalizes his particular living environment to everyone else. But same goes for John Q Public's roast, not everyone is middle class enough to find this trivial.
If programming is "10% writing code and 90% understanding why it's not working", than understanding is 10% stating the facts and 90% understanding contextuality of how universal rules are not good ones.
That TikTok is hilarious! "If you're not eating overnight pizza you aint have a life worth living" 😂 (wish there was a paraphrase version of quotation marks, something like "~").
Thanks to your research I feel a lot more confident now eating overnight pizza (but of course will consult a food science lab before I do). However I'd have to get over my sensitivities to grains, dairy, and nightshade vegetables (eg tomatoes). I can still have the oregano if it's been left on the counter overnight though.... (I wonder if that TikTok guy considers my life worth living 😂)
On of my FB friends liked to post how regulation is good. I kept commenting on that thread for months every time I discovered a new instance of failed regulation. As a moderate libertarian I can't help but enjoy govt critiques like these:
"Remember, we want to know if it’s safe to eat such-and-such food after such-and-such time; the USDA tells us no, but what they actually mean is something like “some foods might be a significant risk after several hours, but we can’t trust you to sort out which ones, or to keep close track of your cut-off time, so we are saying two hours is the limit for virtually all foods to keep your dumb ass safe and our smart asses covered”."
"See here - note that the big risk factors are either being made with raw milk, post-milking contamination, or both."
Did you mean for there to be a link there?
Very probably! I'll try to figure out what I was trying but failing to link to. Thanks!
It's basically a problem of statistics. Consider that something like 1 in 20,000 eggs carries salmonella. It means that most of the time you are not going to get sick from raw eggs. I have tasted every raw cookie dough and cake batter that I've ever made. But billions of eggs are sold every year. That means hundreds of thousands of people get sick from raw eggs. Some die. From the perspective of the CDC and the USDA, that's a big problem. So they tell you: don't eat raw eggs. Pretty much every food regulation works that way.
I think the counter would be something like, OK, I buy your premise on eggs. But we can track that on eggs - we can see salmonella cases, figure out they are coming from eggs; if you look for that data presumably you can find it (and if you can't, that would be a whole other article).
But I looked and I can't find any data on food poisoning from Pizza caused by poor storage; it doesn't seem to be a thing. Let's assume for one moment that it isn't a thing - I don't think it is, you might think it is but take it as a given that it isn't.
In that case we have two situations - one where the USDA is justified in not letting people prep for runs like Rocky, and one where the USDA is just having people throw out a massive amount of food for no reason. I think the second one is a negative; it might be necessarily negative given that they might not want to break out every kind of food hard enough to develop "real" guidelines.
This advice reminds me of the pediatric advice to never sleep with your baby.
The "abundance of caution" mindset comes partially from not being able to tailor advice to the particular hearer, so it must apply to the lowest common denominator.
Imagine this principle but apply it to programming, we get Java and excessively verbose code. Same principle applying to project management, and we get routine committee gridlock.
The food handling guidelines are not just about spoilage, they also factor into account pathogens borne by pests that may access food when unattended and may be extremely likely to be present in food preparation and serving situations. But, still, I see the risk as massively overstated in general.
I've let pizza sit unattended for multiple weeks (by accident), come back to it, and eaten it. It dehydrates. Tomato sauce by itself may not dehydrate fast enough and you will sometimes see mold on exposed portions. In fact, the toxicity of the spaghetti was certainly because it was akept moist by the sauce. The combination found in pizza has already been partially dehydrated by the oven, and finishes easily even in rather moist air. Guess you might have problems in Florida or the swampy parts of the south.
A counter-thesis on how this dialogue between John Q Public's common sense with clean counter top vs TikTok trash racoon following USDA guidelines: the reason why USDA has to do this, is that idiocracy is real, and that certain demographics DO get food poisoning in predictable manner. Mr. TikTok's desire for compliance, if not by some kind of Karen reflex, would be that he universalizes his particular living environment to everyone else. But same goes for John Q Public's roast, not everyone is middle class enough to find this trivial.
If programming is "10% writing code and 90% understanding why it's not working", than understanding is 10% stating the facts and 90% understanding contextuality of how universal rules are not good ones.
Very good, nice follow to your last article. And that Tik Tok is a keeper.
That TikTok is hilarious! "If you're not eating overnight pizza you aint have a life worth living" 😂 (wish there was a paraphrase version of quotation marks, something like "~").
Thanks to your research I feel a lot more confident now eating overnight pizza (but of course will consult a food science lab before I do). However I'd have to get over my sensitivities to grains, dairy, and nightshade vegetables (eg tomatoes). I can still have the oregano if it's been left on the counter overnight though.... (I wonder if that TikTok guy considers my life worth living 😂)
On of my FB friends liked to post how regulation is good. I kept commenting on that thread for months every time I discovered a new instance of failed regulation. As a moderate libertarian I can't help but enjoy govt critiques like these:
"Remember, we want to know if it’s safe to eat such-and-such food after such-and-such time; the USDA tells us no, but what they actually mean is something like “some foods might be a significant risk after several hours, but we can’t trust you to sort out which ones, or to keep close track of your cut-off time, so we are saying two hours is the limit for virtually all foods to keep your dumb ass safe and our smart asses covered”."
I ended up watching that TikTok, I dunno, maybe 40 times during the whole process of making this article. It does not get less great.