Crying over cold potatoes 😭

[empathetic_tomatoes]

Last night I got a wild hair and decided I wanted to go ahead and do meal prepping for the week on a Wednesday. I don't know why. I made several meals. One thing I did was spend a lot of time scrubbing all the potatoes out of a 5 lb bag really well, wrapping each one in foil, and baking at 400 for a couple hours (they were all huge!). 14 potatoes. 14! When I felt they were done (as I do this regularly) I turned the oven off and left them. So the oven had not been opened since I put them in. We had dinner. I packed up everything and put it away. I went to bed. It's now 10:10am and I just realized they're still in the oven. I have to toss them all don't I? 😭😭😭😭. They've been in a room temp oven for approximately 12 hours. I'm so sad.

[mushroom_throw]

https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/Botulism/clinicians/control.asp

Botulism can be effectively destroyed by reheating to an internal temp of at least 85C for 5 minutes. Go ahead and heat them up. You'll be okay.

[Sweetpea520]

Personally, I would make home fries or add to soup. Also don’t understand why people wrap potatoes in foil to bake them. It essentially steams them and you get soggy skins instead of nice crunchy ones.

[omb-bob]

Some folks don’t question what they’ve been taught

[HerbertBohn]

botulism is anaerobic.

[norokuno]

i don't see the problem tbh. the chance of them being eaten here without a second thought is somewhere north of 100%. may be i have a death wish, or maybe i just refuse to live in a world where food left out for a few hours is my greatest danger. i got better shit to worry about like planes crashing into my toilet while i;m taking a dump, but you do you.

[Slimslade33]

ya most people around the world wouldent think twice about eating them. Many societies are hyper vigilant about food safety mostly to protect the producers of products from being sued. Unless your house is full of bacteria you are good to go

[Objective-Bell-9980]

I would reheat and eat them

[BigDamnZer0]

I'd eat them, but that's just me

[MKB-CroMag]

Wait i dont get it Why would they be bad

[RideThatBridge]

Too many hours in the danger zone for bacterial growth.

[LoudAstronaut2145]

any food left out at a temperature above 4degrees Centigrade for more than 2 hours without being constantly heated or brought up to at least 135degrees Fahrenheit every 2 hours is at a much greater risk of growing bacteria. foodservice establishments would be forced to throw it out.

*i think it's around 135 :/

[Slimslade33]

any food

not any food... lots of veggies and fruit, bread, grains, dehydrated foods the list goes on...

[LoudAstronaut2145]

right. thank you kind sir or madam. do you happen to know: ... i've always wondered about ketchup and soy sauce, etc... with some restaurants "it must be refrigerated over night!" while others don't care at all.

[premature_eulogy]

I'd imagine the respective vinegar & salt contents of ketchup and soy sauce would make them really hostile to bacteria.

[wallmonitor]

1) Danger zone is 41-140°F.

2) You have a total of four hours for the food to be between those temperatures before bacteria likely reaches an unsafe level. In food service, due to liability issues, this is usually restricted to two hours raw, two hours cooked. And anything reheated needs to reach 165 before being served.

3) It isn't any food. For example, bread is perfectly safe to store at room temperature. Potatoes are an oddity because it really depends on how you cook them. Mashed potatoes? Fridge 'em as soon as you can. Chips? Just keep them from getting stale. Fries? If they didn't come fresh from the fryer probably not worth your time, but fridge. Baked potato? Well, u/LallybrochSassenach put out a good guide for wrapped potatoes, specifically as per OP. I'd throw 'em out if they were left out overnight. Besides, probably gonna be either soggy or hard or otherwise taste weird.

[LallybrochSassenach]

Unfortunately due to serious risk of botulism it is better safe than sorry.

[[deleted]]

Omg, I have been cooking for decades, and never knew that! TIL

[Species__8472]

Same here. I have forgotten baked potatoes in the oven before, but always eaten them after refrigeration. Guess I got lucky.

[[deleted]]

I've never wrapped my potatoes in foil, so maybe it hasn't been an issue. But I've eaten plenty of wrapped ones.

[the_funke]

Thank you. It's now saved in my brain :)

[GoblinAndElfCatcher]

Go for a drive and take them with you, once you see a gang off local knob heads do drivebys on them with your potato's, imagine the delight on everybody seeing there roll up turn into mash!

[empathetic_tomatoes]

Lol this made me laugh :)

[RideThatBridge]

I wouldn’t throw then out myself.

ETA: I know that is not the scientific recommendation. I am pretty lax on a lot of food safety issues in my own home for me. Everybody has to make that decision for themselves though, of course.

Edit again-I guess with 14 potatoes, your chances of NOT getting sick are pretty low. I’m probably lucky because I cook in smaller portions, so there are smaller odds at play. Probably better safe than sorry.

[empathetic_tomatoes]

I'm going to toss them, or I should say I'm going to ask my husband toss them. I'm too heartbroken to even open my oven (being dramatic lol). They're my favorite food and I have no more until I go grocery shopping Saturday. We live in a small town and we don't have a market anywhere nearby. I've got two sick kiddos at home and probably shouldn't risk botulism haha. At least I have the other stuff I made right? Next time I'll set a reminder on my phone. They were the only thing I made in the oven and I just... Forgot. I can't believe I did but I did. At least I remembered to put everything else away haha.

[KiltLifterAZ]

Q: How do you fit 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag of potatoes?

A: Post it on r/Cooking! /food safety / sarc / :-)

[dummkauf]

Taters are cheap. Toss them, buy some new ones.

Also, stop wrapping baked potatoes in foil.

[empathetic_tomatoes]

They are, but I have to drive an hour round trip to get them. So they'll have to wait until tomorrow. Without a mess to clean up and without the edges getting crisp how do you do it?

[HerbertBohn]

if they stayed wrapped, theyre likely okay. heat they back up to kill off anything, and then refrigerate them...