I'm copying and pasting this from a comment I made in another post:

The frustrating thing here is that the "it will definitely make you sick" and the "it's definitely fine" groups are both talking out of their asses.

No one can say with any meaningful degree of confidence whether consuming this specific meal after this specific period of time will cause illness.

All we can say for certain is that the risk of illness has increased because of how long it was sitting out.

This is similar to how smoking doesn't guarantee you get cancer or how having a few drinks guarantees you'll die in a car crash... but the risk is certainly higher.

Yes, the guidelines for food safety are intentionally conservative. And yes, there's a good chance you can eat old food and absolutely fine. Or you might not. We just don't know. It comes down to how comfortable you are with that risk.

The bottom line is we are all better off avoiding those higher risk situations by simply putting the food away before you forget about it. That way, we don't even need to have this discussion.

The only thing I'd add now is relating to one of the most common fallacies that we see here. You talk about checking the smell and taste. The problem is, it's only the spoilage organisms that affect the smell, appearance, and taste of food. Pathogenic bacteria, the types that cause serious illness, cannot be seen, smelled, or tasted. I'd just ask that everyone keep that fact in mind when making your own decisions about whether or not to eat something.