I read The Kitchen Habits That Are Truly Dangerous and the Ones That Are Just Gross the other day. I didn’t think much about it.
I just had a piece of leftover pizza for second breakfast, which reminded me of it and I actually thought about it.
Pizza, in particular, may seem more acceptable to eat without refrigeration than other foods because it’s primarily made of bread, which can sit out at room temp thanks to its low “water activity” (a measure of how much free moisture is available for microbes to grow). But according to Smith, the baked crust isn’t enough to render the pizza safe, since the sauce and toppings increase the product’s overall moisture.
I don’t believe this.
The thing about the crust probably depends on the crust type. I firmly believe that one should be able to hold the edge of the crust and not have the slice bend and let all the toppings slide off. In other words: Crispy thin crust.
Tomatoes are the safest thing to can that exists. They are so acidic that one can screw up the process and still not die of botulism. Sausage exists to preserve meat. Cheese exists to preserve dairy.
Stephanie Smith, a consumer food safety specialist with a microbiology background and professor at Washington State University.
Your appeal to authority only means that she knows how to use pronouns incorrectly. One may generously assume she knows something about bacteria under lab conditions. It says nothing about her actual knowledge of actual food on actual counters.
It’s SO annoying not to be able to trust anything one reads. It’s all garbage – and if it’s not garbage, show me the evidence. Column-inches are no longer a thing. Make the article as long as it needs to be. If people want to trust you blindly, they can stop reading early.
Marked Up 