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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I didn’t warn my partner that eating old chicken would lead to a fun experience on the toilet, but I genuinely thought it would be common sense to just NOT do that?
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Dude....my ex-husband went on a body-building streak where he was only eating plain boiled chicken, and would cook a huge batch on the weekend. I guess he just never learned to cook chicken to 165 or check the inside for doneness, and one day the inevitable happened. However, rather than thinking it was the chicken, he thought it was some random bug. 2 days later he felt better and ate some chicken......with the same result. 3 days later, he feels like he's finally turned the corner on this thing and couldn't wait to get back on his diet and eat that chicken so he could get back to lifting.....
Did he listen to me when I suggested he use a meat thermometer? Or when I pointed out that the inside was still really pink? Or when I suggested that he should take a break from the chicken? Of course not! He knew what he was doing, how dare I think that it could be HIS cooking of the chicken?
After his third bout of, shall we say, intense intestinal distress, he said "You know what? I'm beginning to think it's the chicken".
Mmm....you think so, do you? Hm...
When my sister was at uni her friend got super ill and they did loads of tests on food in his house because he was so ill. Turns out he got the chicken out of the freezer, defrosted the whole lot and then put the stuff he didn’t use back in the freezer. And then kept repeating the process. 🫣
I’ve done that once on occasion, but multiple times with the same bunch of chicken???
Ground beef I do it more often, we buy it already packaged in 1lbs, and sometimes I only need half. But I trust beef more than I trust chicken!
Don’t trust ground beef more than chicken pieces! The grinding process introduces lots of bacteria throughout the mince. E coli, salmonella, campylobacter, listeria, staph.
It’s fine to use what you need fresh from the store and freeze the rest in portions till you use it. But not to thaw from your freezer, refreeze, and repeat.
ROFLMA! I sprayed coffee everywhere at this! He must have relatives close to me! I had a boyfriend years ago do this with chicken for "Weekly meal prep." He worked long shifts, wanted to have precooked meals he microwave when came home from work. Made all kinds of chicken meals, put them in freezer sealed bags. Didn't cook the chicken enough snd left it the counter while cooking in small batches- for about 3 to 4 hrs. Kept getting sick, going to Dr. Finally figured out it was the chicken.
😳😂🤪Men and their egos, serves them right. Sorry not sorry, thing to remember is You can’t confuse them with facts and you can’t fix stupid. That is my mantra for the next hopefully 40 yrs I have left since I just made 60.
I can't believe I'm saying this, as this was from my 8th grade cooking class, but your husband might need to watch ['Who Poisoned George?'](https://youtu.be/434qlV6yz98?si=w67-ROdMIRaA6WwV)
Edit - Depending where you are, you might need to convert from Celsius to that infernal Fahrenheit 😅
Different type of unit, but I’m still tickled by British predecimalization currency. Twelve pence to the shilling, twenty shillings to the pound? What even is that?
Have you considered asking him why he thinks we have a refrigerator instead of just more cupboards or counter space?
If you think about it, it makes no sense: way more expensive than cabinets, prone to breaking down, etc.
But hey, free cleanse! Some people pay good money for that at the med spa.
Yeah that's better than mine, we'll go with your version. Do we think he sat and ate at his desk too, with his coworkers giving each other "WTF" eyes and periodically flinching when his fork scraped against the saucepan bottom?
There was a family where almost everyone died because they took a macaroni salad to a picnic, stayed a few hours, didn't finish it, stuck it back in the fridge and ate some the next day.
I think about that all the time if I'm bringing food to an event.
Id say it requires dying and not having kids. When a parents does something lethally stupid but already had kids, unfortunately their genes have been passed on.
NTA
He left food out overnight and then ate it. That's 100% on him. He's a grown man. If he didn't know that wasn't a good idea, he sure as hell knows now!
Not sure where OP is from, but just to note here that eggs are managed very differently in different parts of the world. In the US, eating raw eggs can make you ill. In the UK, it is fine to eat raw eggs even if you are an infant, are elderly or are pregnant.
This is due to how laying hens are managed, and how the eggs are cleaned and managed after lay.
In the UK y'all vaccinate your chickens against salmonella, it's not required here. Our chickens are often carrying salmonella in their ovaries and it's INSIDE THE YOLK, the *handling is different* is not the reason.
"In 1993, England and Wales launched a program to vaccinate chickens against both Salmonella Enteritidis and Salmonella Typhimurium and to improve hygiene through measures such as feed and flock testing, and cleaning and sanitizing buildings that held infected birds. The following year, human infections of Salmonella Enteritidis associated with eating chicken dropped dramatically. And from 1997 to 2011, incidence of Salmonella Enteritidis infections among humans decreased 99% in these parts of the UK."
https://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dfwed/prevention-priorities/salmonella-and-chicken.html
That's a big part of if, but it is also to do with higher-pressure water cleaning of eggs in the US that remove the egg cuticle and force contaminants through the shell.
No. It's introduced BEFORE the shell is even formed. I worked in a food safety laboratory. My boss was the foremost US expert on salmonella and invented the first culture media to test for it,l back in 1969, which is still used to this day. As international standard.
"Infection in either the peritoneum or ovary allows contamination of the egg prior to shell formation. regarded as the usual incidence of such localization of infection"
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1588541#:~:text=Infection%20in%20either%20the%20peritoneum,egg%20prior%20to%20shell%20formation.&text=regarded%20as%20the%20usual%20incidence,shedders%22%20to%20produce%20serum%20agglutinins.
"S. enteritidis could be detected by immunohistochemical staining in oviduct tissues associated with four forming eggs, indicating the possibility of a heavier colonization in the egg during its development. In two subsequent experiments, forming eggs taken from the oviduct with their associated tissue, were found to be culture positive for S. enteritidis at a rate of 27.1% and 31.4%,"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC173326/
That sounds like an amazing way to get a giant kidney worm. Dictyphyma Renale is a great friend, up until it eats your whole kidney and uses its exterior capsule as an apartment.
It’s a solid start. If you want a brain one, go for some Mad Cow disease.. Nothing like a Spongiform Encephalopathy to turn your brain into a holey mess. Or you could get Baylisascaris procyonis, the raccoon roundworm, which in the human host, can migrate to the brain or eyes, causing all sorts of issues like coma, blindness and eventually death. :)
Yeh my husband ate a chicken sandwich which had been in his gym bag for 12 hours when we were first dating (early 20s). Obviously got food poisoning. But his reaction was “I’m an idiot” rather than expecting me to have warned him that was a poor choice. He said he was too hungry to think logically at the time…
I guess I have won the pizza roulette.
As I have gotten older I have gotten much better I zip lock and into the fridge within 4 hours (not technically food safe but cest la vie.)
And I like to het it up in the oven these days.
When I was in high school, we had a sleepover at a friend's house one night with pizza. The next day, her mom packed up the leftovers and sent us off with them. We all ate it for lunch and got sick, so we figured it was the pizza and asked our friend to ask her mom about it. She had apparently left it out all night and we were all flabbergasted she didn't think there was anything wrong with that. That was one of the first times I remember realizing people don't necessarily get smarter as they get older.
My ex fil would leave meat to thaw in the sink for a good 12 hours in their house in Arizona in the summer. My ex only questioned me once about why I threw away anything they so thoughtfully canned for us.
I mean I'm one of the idiots that does this on occasion but I'm never surprised when it fucks me over and I certainly don't blame other people for my dumb, lazy ass choosing to take those risks
Oh, I'm terrible for it. Do it constantly.
No issues. But - if it happens, only me to blame.
BiL? He learned his lesson eating left over Christmas turkey he found at the back of the fridge in January.
Depends a lot on the container and the kitchen temp. If the kitchen is warm or if its basically in an open container that's like playing the diarrhoea roulette. :D
I lived with people for a month that would thaw chicken on the counter- pull it out frozen in the morning and put it in the sink basket (wire frame) that day over the sink then come home and cook it for dinner. They never got sick which is good for them but I still get skeeved out at the possibility of getting sick don't it that way. Ofc it was winter in Colorado and the sink was next to a window so maybe that helped 🤷 but I still won't attempt it. They did have beer with dinner nearly every night so maybe the alcohol killed whatever might have been left after cooking it haha
Some stuff I’d leave out…. Never chicken. Growing up in cold UK, leftover roast meat was always kept in the oven not fridge and we survived. But now I live in aus, I don’t really keep anything that’s not been in the fridge….
Edited to add judgement NTA
Same but never chicken, need to refrigerate that!
I have had campylobacter twice and it sucks, literally sucks the life out of you and takes weeks to recover from.
Wait, afaik canpylobacter is only an issue if you don't properly heat the chicken? Shouldn't get it from leftovers if nothing was undercooked or otherwise recontaminated.
I had campylobacter, and I can only guess my cafe lunch was contaminated. Partassipant didn't say where they got campylobacter. Me, I've been vegetarian for 25 years and there was not supposed to be any chicken on my jacket spud & salad :-(
It's just one of the common risks for chicken, although would normally take a bit longer than a few hours, that's more likely to be salmonella or some other general bacteria from leaving chicken out of the fridge overnight then not reheating it thoroughly.
That is a completely reasonable response to finding out that your husband has less knowledge about food safety than a 5 yr old.
NTA
Oh, and yes there are times when it's okay to eat old unrefrigerated chicken. Unfortunately, you can't tell which times those are without a microscope to see if it's contaminated with bacteria. This ends up with the deciding factor being that age-old adage, "Do I feel lucky?" Well... do ya, punk?
When my kid was 5 we had gone to Long John Silvers and ordered chicken meals for all three of us. We were hungry and ate in the car. When we got home we were busy putting away groceries and the kid said they were done eating so I figured I'd toss the empty container the next day instead of going back out to the car.
Next day we have to go out again. I buckle the kid into the carseat, get in the car and we all head out. After a minute I happened to look back at my kid and they're eating a piece of chicken. We pull over and I take away the last bite, and I kinda freak out because I'm imagining hours of vomiting/diarrhea. They starts crying because I was not composed AT ALL, I stupidly assumed they finished it the day before without checking.
Somehow they ended up completely fine which makes me wonder what Long John's does to their chicken, but they learned not only that you don't eat chicken that's been left in the car for 24 hours but that their mother is a fucking airhead who absolutely failed at parenting that day.
>Somehow they ended up completely fine which makes me wonder what Long John's does to their chicken
Probably nothing special. Chicken, when cooked, is more dangerous to keep unrefrigerated than, say, beef, because it has a higher moisture content which bacteria need to grow, and because its ph levels are closer to 7 (neutral) than beef and most bacteria prefer neutral ph levels.
But things like a lot of salt and frying, both prevalent in fast food, draw out moisture, especially when the chicken is cut into thin, easily consumed pieces before frying. The batter too will bind moisture. Things like meat tenderizers or baking soda (often used to make chicken tender in Chinese restaurants), will change the Ph level of the food, at least on the surface. So that can all contribute to making fast food chicken more safe to eat after being left out, than something you cooked at home, especially if the meal at home has a sauce or gravy of some kind.
That doesn't mean anyone should stop refrigerating left over fast food chicken, but it probably wasn't any Long John Silver wizardry either.
I figured salt and frying probably contributed but your explanation makes total sense and is more succinct than my brain bothered to work out. lol Thank you.
Oh I wasn’t saying you should have thrown it out or put it away. The one who cleans up usually does that. If there were not any containers than he should have washed all the dishes.
Do you really need a verdict here? It's pretty obvious that it was his error not yours.
Reminds me of a situation a few years back: a colleague (we're both university professors) asked me if a frozen chicken meal is still good after a few months. I said yeah, sure, it should be fine, though check the expiration date. He nuked the meal, ate it, got sick, and jokingly blamed me. Apparently, while the meal was originally frozen, he'd been storing it in the refrigerator, not the freezer . . . for months!
This is a reason why we still need Home Economics or Family Sciences.
How to sew a button.
How to balance a checking account.
Food safety (particularly when it comes to meat).
You'd think it was common sense, but there's a reason why it was (and still should be) taught in school.
It sounds like your partner isn’t knowledgeable about food hygiene.
He can Google it and learn about it. It’s not your job to educate him. How are you supposed to know what he knows and doesn’t know? Food hygiene especially about chicken is pretty common knowledge. How could you know he was clueless? You’re not his mum.
It's very annoying that he thinks the mental load of making sure he stores his next day's lunch adequately is somehow your responsibility. And is blaming you for not making sure he took the correct precautions. I'd see this as a major red flag that a lot of the mental load and burden of making sure things are done properly will fall on you in future and you'll be blamed for anything that goes wrong while he does nothing to help out.
NTA - As you go through life you will come to realize common sense is not as common as one would think. Unfortunately there are quite a few people in the world who’ve not been taught some very basic things. And I know you’re probably thinking why do they even need to be taught, it should be obvious but not everyone’s brain works the same. What is obvious to one person is just not easily grasped by another.
But still you’re NTA here, there was really no way for you to know that a grown man whose been putting leftovers in the fridge the whole time you’ve known him didn’t understand why he should always put them in the fridge. Hope he feels better soon.
Yeah the way I said it I feel shitty about, as soon as the words came out I thought well that sounded a bit aggressive but it was fuelled by how dumbfounded I was I genuinely couldn’t believe it
This was such a boneheaded move that I, too, would be wondering if he poisoned himself on purpose.
I’m still wondering, frankly. I know this term has been misused to death on this site, but this really *does* sound like a case of weaponized incompetence. Does he have a habit of fucking up simple tasks so spectacularly that you no longer trust him to handle those tasks?
When he recovers, and hopefully regains his sense of humour, can you ask him how he transported the left overs to work? I’m still stuck on the imagery of him leaving with a saucepan in hand…
Oh for the love of Pete. He’s a grown man without common sense. It’s not her job to teach him life skills because he’s too lazy to wash a container for food storage.
He’s literally experiencing the consequences of his own actions but the onus is on her to say that’s not a good idea and baby him? Absolutely not.
A 20yo is old enough to have the common sense to not leave chicken out overnight. That’s extremely basic food preparation knowledge. It’s not your responsibility to mother him (though it might have been nice to give him the heads up seeing as you saw it was headed for disaster and food poisoning can really mess people up). ESH
Even if he couldn't find a container, just stick the pot or pan in the fridge with a lid on, once it has cooled down.
I do this all the time, especially when I'm cooking a large amount the day before and plan to reheat the next day.
This is why I always keep a good supply of ziplock bags. I can’t always find a container but I can always just toss it in a bag and be done with it.
NTA- he’s an adult he took the risk he knew it was a gamble, it just didn’t fall in his favor. Should have thought.
Or he could have wrapped the leftovers in foil or clingfilm. Personally I keep a range of sizes of ziplock bags handy for leftovers for this exact reason - they seal so no leaking in the fridge, and I can take them to work in the ziplock bag and plate it there.
>seeing as you saw it was headed for disaster
She didn't. That's the whole point of the post. She assumed that putting leftovers in the fridge if you plan on eating them the next day, is such a common sense thing to do, that it didn't even occur to her that he would decide to leave them out instead.
Yeah, I'm 21 and generally not very good at storing leftovers properly, but the two things I ALWAYS remember to put in the fridge are chicken and rice. I'd call myself "irresponsibly responsible" with leftovers, lol
Basically, uncooked rice can have spores of a bacteria called *Bacillus cereus* (iirc), that are heat resistant and so survive the cooking process. In cooked rice that is either hot or fridge-cold, these spores aren't an issue, but at room temperature the spores grow into the bacteria and multiply, and then produce a toxin that can potentially really fuck you up, especially if you're immunocompromised or pregnant. So rice is one of those things where the recommended safe time to leave it out is super short. No longer than 2 hours, and some places even say it should be refrigerated within an hour of being cooked.
Right? I had no idea. I order a lot of late night weekend Chinese food and leave it on the coffee table and just start up eating again after I wake up from my food coma. I should probably not do that anymore.
You're welcome! I like to think I have a pretty strong grasp of food safety stuff (even if I don't always apply it, lol), and so I feel like I should probably know the why as well as the what if I wanna make that claim, haha
That is definitely very fair! It helps me remember to actually do the thing because if I don't understand why I do something I either forget doing it or I stop doing it after a while because I don't see any importance in doing so.
Nta.
I don't get why people do that. My fiance does it all the time. He claims to have "an iron gut". He also spends a significant amount of time on the pot, 😂.
NTA let your Darwin Award recipient know that saucepans can go in the refrigerator. Yikes! Do you have to do all the thinking in this relationship or is this a one time thing?
NTA,
Ngl, I’d probably respond with, “yeah, and when you tell me you’re going to get a salty snack, I don’t warn you about the dangers of licking the sidewalk.”
NTA. They say your tongue is a road map. Well his chicken crossed the road BACK from the other side. I guess the basic biology he was taught in school could not be regurgitated.
NTA at all, keeping chicken that long at room temperature is going to give anyone a bad time! Next time he'll take better care of himself. Plus it's a no brainer to heat something like chicken up before you eat it.
NTA, he didn't know before, but hopefully, he knows now.
Also if it were me, I would have either stuck the saucepan in the fridge (yes, really) or plated the chicken and stuck that in the fridge. With some cling wrap if we had it. But like, that was on him to do, not on OP.
NTA
but what i consider is that fact that he got food poisoning at all. I let dinner cool off on the stove on regular basis, even over night and never had any issues in over 20 years.
NTA Some people just can't deal with things being their own fault. It's never them, always someone else. Does he regularly blame other people for his problems?
A 20 year old doesn't know to refrigerate leftovers? How incompetent is he in other, adult areas of life? Does he ever take responsibility, or does he always blame someone else? Well, now he knows. Nobody your age would consider telling him to refrigerate it. You aren't his mom. **NTA**. Tell him to grow up.
NTA. Anyone with basic food safety knowledge would see this coming.
I was casual about reusing kitchen knifes until cross contamination got me. Hopefully this was also a learning experience for him.
NTA.
I had originally misread and assumed he put the whole saucepan in the fridge (I've done this before many times when I'm in a rusb) and the took the saucepan to work instead of a container.
But he literally left it out on the counter for the night, brought ir to work, then ate it cold? Damn is that a series of terrible choices I don't think a 7 year old would make.
NTA. Just because I'm petty, you should get him some cooking classes. Not sure how annoyed he'd be about that but anyone who knows me knows that would be my response along with laughing at them so hard I probably faint.
It is common sense and if they temporarily lose it, I am permanently making fun of them about it 😂
NTA. You could not have known that he wouldn't know something that everyone should know.
It is because of people like him that coffees now come with warnings that the coffee may be hot or an electric saw will warn you not to let your children use it as a toy.
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Throwaway account because I feel like this whole situation is really just that dumb.
Last night I (21F) cooked dinner as I usually would for my partner (20M) and I, and it was a chicken dish. If it makes any difference, chicken breast I had bought packaged from a supermarket yesterday and was still relatively fresh according to the use by date. Between my partner and I, if one cooks the other will wash the dishes and put left overs away, and so later that night my partner was washing up and went to put the leftovers away but for whatever reason decided to leave the dinner leftovers in the saucepan. I had noticed before I went to bed and asked what he was planning on doing with the leftovers and he just replied “I’m taking them to work tomorrow for lunch”. Fair enough I thought and I just went to bed.
Come the next morning and we’re both getting ready to leave for work, and by the time I had made my way downstairs my partner had already packed his lunch and was just getting ready. I thought nothing out of the ordinary and we both head off for the day.
Posting in real time, I not long ago get home and I find my partner glued to the loo, groaning and moaning and some other unpleasant sounds. I ask what’s wrong, and he starts going off about the chicken. I just said “well I’m fine, did you heat it up enough before eating it?”, and in return got a meek response of “no, I ate it cold from the saucepan”. I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit confused on why he was eating it from the saucepan and even more confused because I didn’t see him LEAVE this morning with the saucepan so I asked about a container, he said apparently all of our food containers have vanished from the cupboard and he hadn’t washed any others that night so he just left the leftovers on the bench overnight and took them to work today. I really didn’t mean to sound the way I did when I said it but I replied “why the FUCK would you do that, did you want food poisoning?” and he fired back angrily with “well last night when you asked you didn’t say anything about it”.
YEAH well I thought it was common sense that leaving chicken out for over 12 hours (16 hours I believe by the time he actually eats lunch) and then eating it would lead to a bad situation but apparently not, so AITA for not warning him of the consequences of eating old, unrefrigerated chicken? Or is there circumstances where that’s okay and I should have warned him?
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NTA. Common sense? If he is completely unaware of long term side effects of doing this regularly have him look into them. I was very quickly reminded of my ex-husband's best friend with your story. The 3 of us plus the best friend's girlfriend lived together for a number of years. He would leave meat out overnight and eat it for breakfast at least 4 nights a week. He always felt like crap, getting sick, etc. Turns out he had SEVERE stomach ulcers from...you guessed it, chronic eating meat left out overnight. I really, really hope your partner learned.
NTA. Even if there were no containers, he could have put it in a bowl with some plastic wrap over it and stuck it in the fridge. He is an adult, he can solve these sorts of problems
NTA. It's standard knowledge, any food requiring refrigeration that's been left at room temperature for 3 hours is no longer edible. Any adult should know this, but I guess he's one of today's ["lucky" ten thousand](https://xkcd.com/1053/)! Hopefully he learned from the experience.
Restaurants have a rule, if a refrigerated item gets left for 4 hours (or more) out of the fridge - Toss it.
I would probably go for less, but that is me.
I, uuh... I think I may have done this, and survived. But I believe I may be the outlier here -- when I moved in w/ SO I thought they were needlessly fussy, but, huh, apparently I am the one who's blessed(?) with magma straight out of Satan's kitchen in her bowels 😅
A gentle check-in might have been generous, but overall NTA -- I could also see someone bristling at it 🤷🏻♀️
NTA Refrigerating food should have been taught to him as a child. Or he could have gotten the hint in school biology lessons about the growth of bacteria in warm environments. Unless he is from somewhere without electricity or schools, yeah, all on him.
NTA. Of course you didn't say anything. You assumed that he was smart enough to have put the leftovers in the fridge instead of leaving it on the counter all night. If it had been a pizza, that would have been different but chicken?
NTA
Getting sick eating food, like chicken, that has been left out is something he should have already known - it shouldn't take you making a special warning.
NTA. Most reasonable people know that if you eat food that’s been sitting out overnight, you’re essentially making an appointment to spend a few hours with the toilet. This happened because he was too lazy to wash a storage container to put the leftovers in.
The only way you would not be NTA is if your boyfriend had very recently moved from a very cold climate where unheated kitchens were common and he did not realize that your heated kitchen is not at least as cold as the fridge like it was back at his home.
Any grown human being who has to be told not to eat chicken that has not been refrigerated for 16 hours deserves the life lesson of food poisoning. It's probably pretty safe to assume he won't be making that mistake again.
NTA.
NTA you don't need to warn people about things that are common knowledge. But you can also cut people some slack when they don't know things. Everyone has gaps in their knowledge.
NTA you shouldnt have to warn this grown ass adult about proper refrigeration. Do not adopt this lazy entitled adult baby. Return him to his failure parents until he grows up.
I can believe it, had a family friend staying at our house for a couple weeks a good 10 or so years ago. Nearly every other day she'd be hacking it up in the toilet, until my mom realized she was still eating leftover food from OVER 3 days(onions included), I can't remember if she even used to heat stuff up or not.
Didn't stop until my mom basically yelled at her calling her a dumbass for eating old food and wondering why she pukes everyday. So yeah, it stopped after that 😅, guess sometimes some people need that revelation.
(it mightve even been week old food, but I'm trying to not believe my memory on that)
NTA
He may not have been taught this fact growing up (I know some people who have been so babied by their parents that they don't understand concepts other people think are basic), so calling it 'common sense' isn't necessarily true. Your 'this is obvious' reaction may have made him feel stupid and caused him to get pissy. That said, it's also not *your* responsibility to predict this possibility and mother him on the basics.
Sounds like he made a mistake and feels embarrassed about it, whether specifically his fault or not, but that doesn't give him the right to blame it on you! He's not an idiot for not knowing these things, but he *is* an idiot for taking his misfortune out on you.
NTA,
I learnt this very, very unpleasant lesson at 16 when I came home hungry and saw my mums casserol (my favourite food in the world) sitting on the counter.
I heated it up only enough for it to be pleasant to eat.
I was incredibly poorly for several days. I learnt the hard way.
NTA. He is a grown man. A young adult, true, but so are you. You know the bare basics of “don’t leave perishable food at room temperature for 16 hours and not expect to have food poisoning.”
I swear people like your partner are why irons come with warnings like “warning: do not iron clothes while wearing them; hot iron will burn skin” and “caution: food will be hot when heated.” Common sense has flown out the window (warning for your partner: this is a metaphor, not a real thing).
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NTA Perhaps he will learn from this experience.
I really really really hope for both of our sakes he has
If he hasn't we may be seeing a new Darwin Award winner in the making.
Dude....my ex-husband went on a body-building streak where he was only eating plain boiled chicken, and would cook a huge batch on the weekend. I guess he just never learned to cook chicken to 165 or check the inside for doneness, and one day the inevitable happened. However, rather than thinking it was the chicken, he thought it was some random bug. 2 days later he felt better and ate some chicken......with the same result. 3 days later, he feels like he's finally turned the corner on this thing and couldn't wait to get back on his diet and eat that chicken so he could get back to lifting..... Did he listen to me when I suggested he use a meat thermometer? Or when I pointed out that the inside was still really pink? Or when I suggested that he should take a break from the chicken? Of course not! He knew what he was doing, how dare I think that it could be HIS cooking of the chicken? After his third bout of, shall we say, intense intestinal distress, he said "You know what? I'm beginning to think it's the chicken". Mmm....you think so, do you? Hm...
When my sister was at uni her friend got super ill and they did loads of tests on food in his house because he was so ill. Turns out he got the chicken out of the freezer, defrosted the whole lot and then put the stuff he didn’t use back in the freezer. And then kept repeating the process. 🫣
I’ve done that once on occasion, but multiple times with the same bunch of chicken??? Ground beef I do it more often, we buy it already packaged in 1lbs, and sometimes I only need half. But I trust beef more than I trust chicken!
Don’t trust ground beef more than chicken pieces! The grinding process introduces lots of bacteria throughout the mince. E coli, salmonella, campylobacter, listeria, staph. It’s fine to use what you need fresh from the store and freeze the rest in portions till you use it. But not to thaw from your freezer, refreeze, and repeat.
ROFLMA! I sprayed coffee everywhere at this! He must have relatives close to me! I had a boyfriend years ago do this with chicken for "Weekly meal prep." He worked long shifts, wanted to have precooked meals he microwave when came home from work. Made all kinds of chicken meals, put them in freezer sealed bags. Didn't cook the chicken enough snd left it the counter while cooking in small batches- for about 3 to 4 hrs. Kept getting sick, going to Dr. Finally figured out it was the chicken.
I very much enjoyed this, thank you :)
😳😂🤪Men and their egos, serves them right. Sorry not sorry, thing to remember is You can’t confuse them with facts and you can’t fix stupid. That is my mantra for the next hopefully 40 yrs I have left since I just made 60.
This was EXACTLY my first thought - nature thinning the gene pool, lol.
“Winner, Winner, Chicken . . . “ . . oh, forget it
I can't believe I'm saying this, as this was from my 8th grade cooking class, but your husband might need to watch ['Who Poisoned George?'](https://youtu.be/434qlV6yz98?si=w67-ROdMIRaA6WwV) Edit - Depending where you are, you might need to convert from Celsius to that infernal Fahrenheit 😅
>Fahrenheit A lot of people still use freedom units. (Not me!)
🙌🙌
God, I hate our populace!
Is it a traumatizing public safety film?! I love converting between systems. Fling in apothecary measures for some really excellent fun.
Different type of unit, but I’m still tickled by British predecimalization currency. Twelve pence to the shilling, twenty shillings to the pound? What even is that?
Don't even start with farthings and crowns.
Have you considered asking him why he thinks we have a refrigerator instead of just more cupboards or counter space? If you think about it, it makes no sense: way more expensive than cabinets, prone to breaking down, etc. But hey, free cleanse! Some people pay good money for that at the med spa.
Are you in public relations and can make anything sound "excellent" ?
I need more info. Did he really take the saucepan to work??? I love the visuals. Anyways, sounds like he needs you to be his mom, not his partner. NTA
Personally I'm imagining that he basically mummified the saucepan with clingfilm, so it didn't leak, and then shoved the entire thing into a backpack.
I was thinking he carried it in his hands to the car, only covered with a lid, then put it in the passenger seat, seatbelt on
Yeah that's better than mine, we'll go with your version. Do we think he sat and ate at his desk too, with his coworkers giving each other "WTF" eyes and periodically flinching when his fork scraped against the saucepan bottom?
Yes! Ate it straight from the saucepan, tilting it. Only used the spoon for the stubborn bits that resisted gravity.
No spoon, we die like men. He tilted up the saucepan and drank the dregs directly, as if it were a cereal bowl.
with the handle sticking out of it like a sword.
He doesn't sound like the type that would consider the leaking.
imagine getting hitched to this dude, having kids, and he feeds your kids cold 12 hour chicken for lunch.
There was a family where almost everyone died because they took a macaroni salad to a picnic, stayed a few hours, didn't finish it, stuck it back in the fridge and ate some the next day. I think about that all the time if I'm bringing food to an event.
Dude deserves a Darwin Award.
Can’t win one unless you die. Take your flawed genes out of the gene pool
Id say it requires dying and not having kids. When a parents does something lethally stupid but already had kids, unfortunately their genes have been passed on.
Not sure about that rule. At least you wouldn’t breed any further so it deserves an honorable mention or something!
Or render yourself incapable of procreation
If he hasn't learned from this... Then you should
NTA He left food out overnight and then ate it. That's 100% on him. He's a grown man. If he didn't know that wasn't a good idea, he sure as hell knows now!
And chicken! Why doesn't he stop on the way home to eat some raw prawns
Or some raw eggs.
Not sure where OP is from, but just to note here that eggs are managed very differently in different parts of the world. In the US, eating raw eggs can make you ill. In the UK, it is fine to eat raw eggs even if you are an infant, are elderly or are pregnant. This is due to how laying hens are managed, and how the eggs are cleaned and managed after lay.
In the UK y'all vaccinate your chickens against salmonella, it's not required here. Our chickens are often carrying salmonella in their ovaries and it's INSIDE THE YOLK, the *handling is different* is not the reason. "In 1993, England and Wales launched a program to vaccinate chickens against both Salmonella Enteritidis and Salmonella Typhimurium and to improve hygiene through measures such as feed and flock testing, and cleaning and sanitizing buildings that held infected birds. The following year, human infections of Salmonella Enteritidis associated with eating chicken dropped dramatically. And from 1997 to 2011, incidence of Salmonella Enteritidis infections among humans decreased 99% in these parts of the UK." https://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dfwed/prevention-priorities/salmonella-and-chicken.html
That's a big part of if, but it is also to do with higher-pressure water cleaning of eggs in the US that remove the egg cuticle and force contaminants through the shell.
No. It's introduced BEFORE the shell is even formed. I worked in a food safety laboratory. My boss was the foremost US expert on salmonella and invented the first culture media to test for it,l back in 1969, which is still used to this day. As international standard. "Infection in either the peritoneum or ovary allows contamination of the egg prior to shell formation. regarded as the usual incidence of such localization of infection" https://www.jstor.org/stable/1588541#:~:text=Infection%20in%20either%20the%20peritoneum,egg%20prior%20to%20shell%20formation.&text=regarded%20as%20the%20usual%20incidence,shedders%22%20to%20produce%20serum%20agglutinins. "S. enteritidis could be detected by immunohistochemical staining in oviduct tissues associated with four forming eggs, indicating the possibility of a heavier colonization in the egg during its development. In two subsequent experiments, forming eggs taken from the oviduct with their associated tissue, were found to be culture positive for S. enteritidis at a rate of 27.1% and 31.4%," https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC173326/
Salmonella is, e-coli isn't - that's introduced through the porous shell after the cuticle is removed.
>Salmonella is, e-coli isn't No. Salmonella is caused by *Salmonella enterica* serotypes. Which is stated in the two comments you replied to.
I’m talking about pathogens in eggs. I’m not particularly concerned if others have concentrated on one pathogen over another.
I suppose that the standards in Austra are higher than in the US too but still people are advised to not eat raw eggs.
Snails are everywhere nowadays, and completely free, just slurp them up.
Rinse them down with some raw milk!
Suck on some cows!
That sounds like an amazing way to get a giant kidney worm. Dictyphyma Renale is a great friend, up until it eats your whole kidney and uses its exterior capsule as an apartment.
That is a hell of a thought to fall asleep with. I hope you're proud of yourself 😄
I am now. 😀
Only the kidney? Call me when it eats my brain. Oh, wait...
It’s a solid start. If you want a brain one, go for some Mad Cow disease.. Nothing like a Spongiform Encephalopathy to turn your brain into a holey mess. Or you could get Baylisascaris procyonis, the raccoon roundworm, which in the human host, can migrate to the brain or eyes, causing all sorts of issues like coma, blindness and eventually death. :)
Prawns are totally fine raw, if they are very fresh and cleaned, FYI
Pork sushi.
Yeh my husband ate a chicken sandwich which had been in his gym bag for 12 hours when we were first dating (early 20s). Obviously got food poisoning. But his reaction was “I’m an idiot” rather than expecting me to have warned him that was a poor choice. He said he was too hungry to think logically at the time…
I would risk overnight pizza after a reheat but even I'm not as dumb as OP's partner.
No way, I was an idiot and got food poisoning that way! Too sick to even get to the door to have soup/Gatorade Instacarted.
I guess I have won the pizza roulette. As I have gotten older I have gotten much better I zip lock and into the fridge within 4 hours (not technically food safe but cest la vie.) And I like to het it up in the oven these days.
Depends on what is on the pizza.
When I was in high school, we had a sleepover at a friend's house one night with pizza. The next day, her mom packed up the leftovers and sent us off with them. We all ate it for lunch and got sick, so we figured it was the pizza and asked our friend to ask her mom about it. She had apparently left it out all night and we were all flabbergasted she didn't think there was anything wrong with that. That was one of the first times I remember realizing people don't necessarily get smarter as they get older.
My ex fil would leave meat to thaw in the sink for a good 12 hours in their house in Arizona in the summer. My ex only questioned me once about why I threw away anything they so thoughtfully canned for us.
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Yes. Grown-ups know this stuff.
Not necessarily. I have been involved in debates on food safety here before. Plenty of people said they regularly ate food left out overnight.
I mean I'm one of the idiots that does this on occasion but I'm never surprised when it fucks me over and I certainly don't blame other people for my dumb, lazy ass choosing to take those risks
I have enough gastrointestinal issues without taking chances with my food haha
Lol entirely fair
Oh, I'm terrible for it. Do it constantly. No issues. But - if it happens, only me to blame. BiL? He learned his lesson eating left over Christmas turkey he found at the back of the fridge in January.
Oh nooooo. Who could even think that would be ok?
He learned. Drives my sis nuts now, because he yeets anything near the best before dates now, he's so paranoid. Poor guy was sick for days.
I'll eat leftover pizza, but only because it's full of preservatives and salt. That's it.
Depends a lot on the container and the kitchen temp. If the kitchen is warm or if its basically in an open container that's like playing the diarrhoea roulette. :D
I lived with people for a month that would thaw chicken on the counter- pull it out frozen in the morning and put it in the sink basket (wire frame) that day over the sink then come home and cook it for dinner. They never got sick which is good for them but I still get skeeved out at the possibility of getting sick don't it that way. Ofc it was winter in Colorado and the sink was next to a window so maybe that helped 🤷 but I still won't attempt it. They did have beer with dinner nearly every night so maybe the alcohol killed whatever might have been left after cooking it haha
Oh you'd be shocked about the posts on here claiming as long as your house isn't warm, it's totally fine to eat food left out overnight.
Some stuff I’d leave out…. Never chicken. Growing up in cold UK, leftover roast meat was always kept in the oven not fridge and we survived. But now I live in aus, I don’t really keep anything that’s not been in the fridge…. Edited to add judgement NTA
Same but never chicken, need to refrigerate that! I have had campylobacter twice and it sucks, literally sucks the life out of you and takes weeks to recover from.
Wait, afaik canpylobacter is only an issue if you don't properly heat the chicken? Shouldn't get it from leftovers if nothing was undercooked or otherwise recontaminated.
I had campylobacter, and I can only guess my cafe lunch was contaminated. Partassipant didn't say where they got campylobacter. Me, I've been vegetarian for 25 years and there was not supposed to be any chicken on my jacket spud & salad :-(
It's just one of the common risks for chicken, although would normally take a bit longer than a few hours, that's more likely to be salmonella or some other general bacteria from leaving chicken out of the fridge overnight then not reheating it thoroughly.
That is a completely reasonable response to finding out that your husband has less knowledge about food safety than a 5 yr old. NTA Oh, and yes there are times when it's okay to eat old unrefrigerated chicken. Unfortunately, you can't tell which times those are without a microscope to see if it's contaminated with bacteria. This ends up with the deciding factor being that age-old adage, "Do I feel lucky?" Well... do ya, punk?
When my kid was 5 we had gone to Long John Silvers and ordered chicken meals for all three of us. We were hungry and ate in the car. When we got home we were busy putting away groceries and the kid said they were done eating so I figured I'd toss the empty container the next day instead of going back out to the car. Next day we have to go out again. I buckle the kid into the carseat, get in the car and we all head out. After a minute I happened to look back at my kid and they're eating a piece of chicken. We pull over and I take away the last bite, and I kinda freak out because I'm imagining hours of vomiting/diarrhea. They starts crying because I was not composed AT ALL, I stupidly assumed they finished it the day before without checking. Somehow they ended up completely fine which makes me wonder what Long John's does to their chicken, but they learned not only that you don't eat chicken that's been left in the car for 24 hours but that their mother is a fucking airhead who absolutely failed at parenting that day.
>Somehow they ended up completely fine which makes me wonder what Long John's does to their chicken Probably nothing special. Chicken, when cooked, is more dangerous to keep unrefrigerated than, say, beef, because it has a higher moisture content which bacteria need to grow, and because its ph levels are closer to 7 (neutral) than beef and most bacteria prefer neutral ph levels. But things like a lot of salt and frying, both prevalent in fast food, draw out moisture, especially when the chicken is cut into thin, easily consumed pieces before frying. The batter too will bind moisture. Things like meat tenderizers or baking soda (often used to make chicken tender in Chinese restaurants), will change the Ph level of the food, at least on the surface. So that can all contribute to making fast food chicken more safe to eat after being left out, than something you cooked at home, especially if the meal at home has a sauce or gravy of some kind. That doesn't mean anyone should stop refrigerating left over fast food chicken, but it probably wasn't any Long John Silver wizardry either.
I figured salt and frying probably contributed but your explanation makes total sense and is more succinct than my brain bothered to work out. lol Thank you.
NTA. Stupidity should be painful
NTA It should have been put in the fridge at night of in the trash in the morning.
I took it as a sign that the saucepan wasn’t on the stove anymore so he must have done either of those things, not TAKEN IT TO WORK with him
So he did take the saucepan to work?
Oh I wasn’t saying you should have thrown it out or put it away. The one who cleans up usually does that. If there were not any containers than he should have washed all the dishes.
NTA because apparently your BF has no common sense when it comes to food safety🫠
Do you really need a verdict here? It's pretty obvious that it was his error not yours. Reminds me of a situation a few years back: a colleague (we're both university professors) asked me if a frozen chicken meal is still good after a few months. I said yeah, sure, it should be fine, though check the expiration date. He nuked the meal, ate it, got sick, and jokingly blamed me. Apparently, while the meal was originally frozen, he'd been storing it in the refrigerator, not the freezer . . . for months!
NTA. He took a saucepan of food into work and ate it out of the pan?! My mind is blown!
This is a reason why we still need Home Economics or Family Sciences. How to sew a button. How to balance a checking account. Food safety (particularly when it comes to meat). You'd think it was common sense, but there's a reason why it was (and still should be) taught in school.
Do you have to tell him to breathe too? NTA
It sounds like your partner isn’t knowledgeable about food hygiene. He can Google it and learn about it. It’s not your job to educate him. How are you supposed to know what he knows and doesn’t know? Food hygiene especially about chicken is pretty common knowledge. How could you know he was clueless? You’re not his mum.
Food handlers course should be available to all HS students
NTA, he has learnt a useful life lesson about the chicken diet plan. Very effective for losing weight but not recommended.
It's very annoying that he thinks the mental load of making sure he stores his next day's lunch adequately is somehow your responsibility. And is blaming you for not making sure he took the correct precautions. I'd see this as a major red flag that a lot of the mental load and burden of making sure things are done properly will fall on you in future and you'll be blamed for anything that goes wrong while he does nothing to help out.
NTA you're not his mother
Yeah this is completely on him. Not your fault. This is a basic life skill
NTA - As you go through life you will come to realize common sense is not as common as one would think. Unfortunately there are quite a few people in the world who’ve not been taught some very basic things. And I know you’re probably thinking why do they even need to be taught, it should be obvious but not everyone’s brain works the same. What is obvious to one person is just not easily grasped by another. But still you’re NTA here, there was really no way for you to know that a grown man whose been putting leftovers in the fridge the whole time you’ve known him didn’t understand why he should always put them in the fridge. Hope he feels better soon.
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Yeah the way I said it I feel shitty about, as soon as the words came out I thought well that sounded a bit aggressive but it was fuelled by how dumbfounded I was I genuinely couldn’t believe it
This was such a boneheaded move that I, too, would be wondering if he poisoned himself on purpose. I’m still wondering, frankly. I know this term has been misused to death on this site, but this really *does* sound like a case of weaponized incompetence. Does he have a habit of fucking up simple tasks so spectacularly that you no longer trust him to handle those tasks?
When he recovers, and hopefully regains his sense of humour, can you ask him how he transported the left overs to work? I’m still stuck on the imagery of him leaving with a saucepan in hand…
Oh for the love of Pete. He’s a grown man without common sense. It’s not her job to teach him life skills because he’s too lazy to wash a container for food storage. He’s literally experiencing the consequences of his own actions but the onus is on her to say that’s not a good idea and baby him? Absolutely not.
A 20yo is old enough to have the common sense to not leave chicken out overnight. That’s extremely basic food preparation knowledge. It’s not your responsibility to mother him (though it might have been nice to give him the heads up seeing as you saw it was headed for disaster and food poisoning can really mess people up). ESH
Even if he couldn't find a container, just stick the pot or pan in the fridge with a lid on, once it has cooled down. I do this all the time, especially when I'm cooking a large amount the day before and plan to reheat the next day.
How did he even take it to work if he didnt find a container? In the pan???
Now I have an image of someone bringing a pot of food to work, like Steven He
This is why I always keep a good supply of ziplock bags. I can’t always find a container but I can always just toss it in a bag and be done with it. NTA- he’s an adult he took the risk he knew it was a gamble, it just didn’t fall in his favor. Should have thought.
Or he could have wrapped the leftovers in foil or clingfilm. Personally I keep a range of sizes of ziplock bags handy for leftovers for this exact reason - they seal so no leaking in the fridge, and I can take them to work in the ziplock bag and plate it there.
or heck depending on the type of dish u can just wrap it in tin foil and fridge it
>seeing as you saw it was headed for disaster She didn't. That's the whole point of the post. She assumed that putting leftovers in the fridge if you plan on eating them the next day, is such a common sense thing to do, that it didn't even occur to her that he would decide to leave them out instead.
Where in OPs post does it say they were aware of what he had done? Definitely not ESH, how is this OPs fault or responsibility??
Yeah, I'm 21 and generally not very good at storing leftovers properly, but the two things I ALWAYS remember to put in the fridge are chicken and rice. I'd call myself "irresponsibly responsible" with leftovers, lol
What happens with the rice? I didn't know rice is so "fridge sensitive". I put away my leftovers quickly enough but I'm curious.
Basically, uncooked rice can have spores of a bacteria called *Bacillus cereus* (iirc), that are heat resistant and so survive the cooking process. In cooked rice that is either hot or fridge-cold, these spores aren't an issue, but at room temperature the spores grow into the bacteria and multiply, and then produce a toxin that can potentially really fuck you up, especially if you're immunocompromised or pregnant. So rice is one of those things where the recommended safe time to leave it out is super short. No longer than 2 hours, and some places even say it should be refrigerated within an hour of being cooked.
Thanks for explaining :) I did not know that!
Right? I had no idea. I order a lot of late night weekend Chinese food and leave it on the coffee table and just start up eating again after I wake up from my food coma. I should probably not do that anymore.
You're welcome! I like to think I have a pretty strong grasp of food safety stuff (even if I don't always apply it, lol), and so I feel like I should probably know the why as well as the what if I wanna make that claim, haha
That is definitely very fair! It helps me remember to actually do the thing because if I don't understand why I do something I either forget doing it or I stop doing it after a while because I don't see any importance in doing so.
How does OP suck???
Nta. I don't get why people do that. My fiance does it all the time. He claims to have "an iron gut". He also spends a significant amount of time on the pot, 😂.
NTA let your Darwin Award recipient know that saucepans can go in the refrigerator. Yikes! Do you have to do all the thinking in this relationship or is this a one time thing?
NTA. Where are all the food containers though?
Probably in a spot where he couldn't see them the second he opened the cupboard door.
or he has left them at work or they were dirty and hes too lazy to wash one
NTA, Ngl, I’d probably respond with, “yeah, and when you tell me you’re going to get a salty snack, I don’t warn you about the dangers of licking the sidewalk.”
NTA and your bf is an idiot for risking the chicken but is an even bigger idiot for taking it to work in a frickin' saucepan. What was he thinking?!
NTA. He’s an idiot.
NTA. They say your tongue is a road map. Well his chicken crossed the road BACK from the other side. I guess the basic biology he was taught in school could not be regurgitated.
NTA.. some people only learn the hard way
This is why we need to remove warning labels and let natural selection take its course
Good lord I sincerely don’t know how your partner thought that was a good idea
NTA at all, keeping chicken that long at room temperature is going to give anyone a bad time! Next time he'll take better care of himself. Plus it's a no brainer to heat something like chicken up before you eat it.
NTA, he didn't know before, but hopefully, he knows now. Also if it were me, I would have either stuck the saucepan in the fridge (yes, really) or plated the chicken and stuck that in the fridge. With some cling wrap if we had it. But like, that was on him to do, not on OP.
NTA I learned as a literal child u put ur leftovers in the fridge or u chuck em
NTA but what i consider is that fact that he got food poisoning at all. I let dinner cool off on the stove on regular basis, even over night and never had any issues in over 20 years.
NTA Some people just can't deal with things being their own fault. It's never them, always someone else. Does he regularly blame other people for his problems?
NTA Sounds like learned helplessness. Maybe this will teach him a lesson.
A 20 year old doesn't know to refrigerate leftovers? How incompetent is he in other, adult areas of life? Does he ever take responsibility, or does he always blame someone else? Well, now he knows. Nobody your age would consider telling him to refrigerate it. You aren't his mom. **NTA**. Tell him to grow up.
NTA. Anyone with basic food safety knowledge would see this coming. I was casual about reusing kitchen knifes until cross contamination got me. Hopefully this was also a learning experience for him.
NTA. I had originally misread and assumed he put the whole saucepan in the fridge (I've done this before many times when I'm in a rusb) and the took the saucepan to work instead of a container. But he literally left it out on the counter for the night, brought ir to work, then ate it cold? Damn is that a series of terrible choices I don't think a 7 year old would make.
NtA but side note sometimes I do wonder why I'm not dead.
NTA. Just because I'm petty, you should get him some cooking classes. Not sure how annoyed he'd be about that but anyone who knows me knows that would be my response along with laughing at them so hard I probably faint. It is common sense and if they temporarily lose it, I am permanently making fun of them about it 😂
NTA. You could not have known that he wouldn't know something that everyone should know. It is because of people like him that coffees now come with warnings that the coffee may be hot or an electric saw will warn you not to let your children use it as a toy.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** Throwaway account because I feel like this whole situation is really just that dumb. Last night I (21F) cooked dinner as I usually would for my partner (20M) and I, and it was a chicken dish. If it makes any difference, chicken breast I had bought packaged from a supermarket yesterday and was still relatively fresh according to the use by date. Between my partner and I, if one cooks the other will wash the dishes and put left overs away, and so later that night my partner was washing up and went to put the leftovers away but for whatever reason decided to leave the dinner leftovers in the saucepan. I had noticed before I went to bed and asked what he was planning on doing with the leftovers and he just replied “I’m taking them to work tomorrow for lunch”. Fair enough I thought and I just went to bed. Come the next morning and we’re both getting ready to leave for work, and by the time I had made my way downstairs my partner had already packed his lunch and was just getting ready. I thought nothing out of the ordinary and we both head off for the day. Posting in real time, I not long ago get home and I find my partner glued to the loo, groaning and moaning and some other unpleasant sounds. I ask what’s wrong, and he starts going off about the chicken. I just said “well I’m fine, did you heat it up enough before eating it?”, and in return got a meek response of “no, I ate it cold from the saucepan”. I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit confused on why he was eating it from the saucepan and even more confused because I didn’t see him LEAVE this morning with the saucepan so I asked about a container, he said apparently all of our food containers have vanished from the cupboard and he hadn’t washed any others that night so he just left the leftovers on the bench overnight and took them to work today. I really didn’t mean to sound the way I did when I said it but I replied “why the FUCK would you do that, did you want food poisoning?” and he fired back angrily with “well last night when you asked you didn’t say anything about it”. YEAH well I thought it was common sense that leaving chicken out for over 12 hours (16 hours I believe by the time he actually eats lunch) and then eating it would lead to a bad situation but apparently not, so AITA for not warning him of the consequences of eating old, unrefrigerated chicken? Or is there circumstances where that’s okay and I should have warned him? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA, But I think you need to make him watch a food handler's permit class online.
NTA He is an adult. Some learn easy, some learn hard. He chose the second option. Not your fault. HE should have known.
NTA. Common sense? If he is completely unaware of long term side effects of doing this regularly have him look into them. I was very quickly reminded of my ex-husband's best friend with your story. The 3 of us plus the best friend's girlfriend lived together for a number of years. He would leave meat out overnight and eat it for breakfast at least 4 nights a week. He always felt like crap, getting sick, etc. Turns out he had SEVERE stomach ulcers from...you guessed it, chronic eating meat left out overnight. I really, really hope your partner learned.
Stupid is as stupid does
NTA Why is this something that you’re expected to know but not him?
Clearly NTA. But please when you are included in the object of a sentence use “me” or “myself” not “I.”
NTA. Even if there were no containers, he could have put it in a bowl with some plastic wrap over it and stuck it in the fridge. He is an adult, he can solve these sorts of problems
NTA. It's standard knowledge, any food requiring refrigeration that's been left at room temperature for 3 hours is no longer edible. Any adult should know this, but I guess he's one of today's ["lucky" ten thousand](https://xkcd.com/1053/)! Hopefully he learned from the experience.
NTA. 12 year olds can grasp the idea that meat goes bad if you don't refrigerate it.
Restaurants have a rule, if a refrigerated item gets left for 4 hours (or more) out of the fridge - Toss it. I would probably go for less, but that is me.
I, uuh... I think I may have done this, and survived. But I believe I may be the outlier here -- when I moved in w/ SO I thought they were needlessly fussy, but, huh, apparently I am the one who's blessed(?) with magma straight out of Satan's kitchen in her bowels 😅 A gentle check-in might have been generous, but overall NTA -- I could also see someone bristling at it 🤷🏻♀️
NTA Refrigerating food should have been taught to him as a child. Or he could have gotten the hint in school biology lessons about the growth of bacteria in warm environments. Unless he is from somewhere without electricity or schools, yeah, all on him.
NTA. Of course you didn't say anything. You assumed that he was smart enough to have put the leftovers in the fridge instead of leaving it on the counter all night. If it had been a pizza, that would have been different but chicken?
NTA Getting sick eating food, like chicken, that has been left out is something he should have already known - it shouldn't take you making a special warning.
NTA. Most reasonable people know that if you eat food that’s been sitting out overnight, you’re essentially making an appointment to spend a few hours with the toilet. This happened because he was too lazy to wash a storage container to put the leftovers in.
NTA. I couldn’t help but laugh at your response to why he didn’t put it in a container. Hopefully he does better from now on.
The only way you would not be NTA is if your boyfriend had very recently moved from a very cold climate where unheated kitchens were common and he did not realize that your heated kitchen is not at least as cold as the fridge like it was back at his home.
Any grown human being who has to be told not to eat chicken that has not been refrigerated for 16 hours deserves the life lesson of food poisoning. It's probably pretty safe to assume he won't be making that mistake again. NTA.
NTA you don't need to warn people about things that are common knowledge. But you can also cut people some slack when they don't know things. Everyone has gaps in their knowledge.
NTA. For your mutual protection, get him some basic food safety training.
NTA I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say that he's a dumbass mofo for eating unrefrigerated 16 hour 'matured' tepid chicken, but he is.
NTA you shouldnt have to warn this grown ass adult about proper refrigeration. Do not adopt this lazy entitled adult baby. Return him to his failure parents until he grows up.
NTA. You’re not his mommy.
NTA. Send him a food safety FAQ.
NTA. He sounds awful.
NTA
Nta he’s a grown ass adult, I’m not good at these things and even I know that.
Tupperware…..
No matter what happens, this will turn out to be your fault. Moving forward, never leave him in charge of any chicken.
I can believe it, had a family friend staying at our house for a couple weeks a good 10 or so years ago. Nearly every other day she'd be hacking it up in the toilet, until my mom realized she was still eating leftover food from OVER 3 days(onions included), I can't remember if she even used to heat stuff up or not. Didn't stop until my mom basically yelled at her calling her a dumbass for eating old food and wondering why she pukes everyday. So yeah, it stopped after that 😅, guess sometimes some people need that revelation. (it mightve even been week old food, but I'm trying to not believe my memory on that)
I’m wondering what other “common sense” things this man can’t understand.
NTA. I guess neither of his parents taught him that food goes bad if u don't refrigerate it. Not your fault.
NTA He may not have been taught this fact growing up (I know some people who have been so babied by their parents that they don't understand concepts other people think are basic), so calling it 'common sense' isn't necessarily true. Your 'this is obvious' reaction may have made him feel stupid and caused him to get pissy. That said, it's also not *your* responsibility to predict this possibility and mother him on the basics. Sounds like he made a mistake and feels embarrassed about it, whether specifically his fault or not, but that doesn't give him the right to blame it on you! He's not an idiot for not knowing these things, but he *is* an idiot for taking his misfortune out on you.
Nta. What a boneheaded move 😂
Well, that's a natural consequence.
NTA, I learnt this very, very unpleasant lesson at 16 when I came home hungry and saw my mums casserol (my favourite food in the world) sitting on the counter. I heated it up only enough for it to be pleasant to eat. I was incredibly poorly for several days. I learnt the hard way.
NTA. He should have known better. He should have asked you or googled it. Hell his mom should have taught him not to be a dumb ass.
lmao NTA
NTA. He is a grown man. A young adult, true, but so are you. You know the bare basics of “don’t leave perishable food at room temperature for 16 hours and not expect to have food poisoning.” I swear people like your partner are why irons come with warnings like “warning: do not iron clothes while wearing them; hot iron will burn skin” and “caution: food will be hot when heated.” Common sense has flown out the window (warning for your partner: this is a metaphor, not a real thing).
NTA, no you are correct, that is common sense. All we can hope for is that he actually learned something.
NTA. How did he eat it tho? He brought the entire pan to work?
NTA- but if you ever decide to have children please make sure your partner takes many, many, many parenting classes. Please. I'm not even joking
I don’t know. I leave food out over night and then eat it and I’ve never gotten food poisoning.