Amid laughter and mild panic, the discovery of the forgotten chicken tucked away in the sunlit car boot painted a vivid picture of human oversight and the warmth of shared experiences. It was a small chaos wrapped in love, reminding them that sometimes, life’s little mishaps are the stories worth telling.
So, my wife decided she was going to try a new recipe for dinner tonight. It’s a one pot chicken thing with orzo. She ordered the groceries online this morning and then went to collect them around 11am.
She got back home around midday and unloaded everything from the car.
Flash forward to 5:30pm and wife returns from an afternoon walk with her friends. After 5 minutes of dinner preparing sounds I hear a loud ‘wtf, where has the chicken gone?’ from the kitchen.
I naturally assume that she forgot to order it but she assures me there is a chicken somewhere. Eventually she tracks it down… it has been in the boot of our car all afternoon.
Now, the chicken wasn’t a frozen chicken. The chicken was a whole, fresh, raw chicken, in a sealed bag. Although it wasn’t a particularly warm day we still had a high of 16 degrees C (60F) and our car was sitting out in the sunshine all afternoon.
I told my wife I was posting this and she wants me to stress that the chicken was still cool to the touch. Personally I wouldn’t say the chicken was warm but I also wouldn’t call it overly cold.
It’s safe to say it was somewhere between fridge temperature and room temperature.
After finding the chicken I tell my wife I don’t want to eat the chicken. She tells me we’re going to eat the chicken. I go back to the couch and start Googling how long you can leave a chicken in the car for.
I go back to the kitchen and tell my wife I don’t want to eat the chicken. She tells me we’re going to eat the chicken. I explain that I’ve Googled it and we shouldn’t eat the chicken.
She keeps preparing the chicken.
We have a back and forth like this for a while at which point I pitch the idea that she can have the chicken and I can just make something simple for my dinner. She’s not thrilled because she wanted to make this meal for me.
At this point I tell her I’m not gong to eat it and I feel like I’m being made to eat a chicken against my will. She then proceeds to walk out the door, get in the car and head off in search of another chicken from the store.
I feel like a bit of an asshole about it. I also feel like we may have wasted a perfectly good chicken.
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) found himself in a difficult situation where his concern for food safety clashed directly with his wife’s desire to salvage the planned meal, leading to significant tension. The central conflict stemmed from the OP’s refusal to eat raw chicken left in a warm car, which his wife insisted on preparing and serving, ultimately causing her to leave in frustration.
Was the OP justified in refusing to eat chicken that had been stored improperly for several hours, even if his wife insisted it was still safe, or was his refusal an overreaction that dismissed her effort to cook for him? The core debate lies in balancing personal safety standards against the relational desire to avoid conflict and acknowledge a partner’s effort.
Here’s how people reacted:
USDA (sounds like you aren’t in the US, but food science is the same everywhere) says [this](https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/danger-zone-40f-140f). USDA is VERY conservative. The temperatures make sense but the time is pretty short. YMMV.
That said, a raw chicken in the boot of your car for over five hours exceeds even my flexible thresholds except possibly in the depths of winter,
Remember that the temperature danger zone is not bounded by hard stops. Bacteria growth follows a more Gaussian distribution. The danger zone is guidance to avoid having to understand that. Much food poisoning is due to the toxins produced by bacteria, so thorough cooking is not a solution. You kill the bacteria but do not neutralize the toxins they have produced.
Last year I purchased a whole chicken to roast for Easter. It was frozen, so I set it in the sink to thaw a bit before putting it in the fridge since I needed to get it into the oven the next morning. I completely forgot about it and it sat (wrapped in the packaging and a bag) in the kitchen sink overnight. This was indoors, in a house that was about 15C overnight because I was at my dad’s and he can’t sleep if he’s overwarm. Since it had been frozen, it still felt “cool” to my palm in the morning, but I readily tossed it because it wasn’t worth the risk. We made a special trip back to buy another.
It’s not worth it.
Things that sucked less than my bout with food poisoning include: a thrombectomy, a rotational fall off/with a horse, partially dislocating my hip, having bronchitis with two cracked ribs, and raw-dogging my iud insertion because I was on blood thinners and couldn’t take advil.
NTA – food safety isn’t something to mess with
One person who has a very strict code when it comes to food poisoning.
And then people who somehow still survive to grow to adulthood despite eating many many iffy things.
And then they marriage each other.
And I’ll say what I say to him. I have had a food handler’s card. I listen to the audio recording of someone who had gotten horribly horribly sick from an old potato at a fast food place.
And the recovery process and just how near-death they became from an old potato.
That stays with you.
All food born infections and toxins are odourless, colourless, and tastless.
It takes four hours at room temperature for a contaminated food product to become potentially infectious or toxic.
One in ten chickens are infected with salmonella. Salmonella is the only food poison that is both infectious and toxic.
As for AITA? I guess it comes down to the amount of risk your wife is comfortable with.
I would also probably take a few bites of the cooked meal and waited a couple hours to see how I felt before eating more.
I have dumpster dove for food and eaten kangaroo meat that had a similar experience to that chicken.
It is no more dangerous than eating at most buffets.
NTA
I’m funny about chicken. If it even feels weird it’s going out to the bin. I’ve had salmonella before that shit almost killed me as a peak athletic late teen. I DO NOT PLAY WITH FOOD BOURNE ILLNESS.
Asshole in my book sorry..
YTA