I regularly buy yogurt from the store and leave it at room temperature for days 35celsius+ (it has an expiration date of 30 days) because I hate yogurt when it’s cold.
In: Biology
It’s outside of design parameters but not inherently bad if you’re not expecting the yogurt company to honor the expiration date when you didn’t refrigerate it.
Bad Bacteria needs temperature and air to grow. It’s air supply is limited by the packaging, so leaving it in warm temperatures means it can only grow so much.
However, the packaging isn’t perfect. Air can still leach through the plastic, and little imperfections may exist within the lid and in the seal between lid and cup. Anything that lets air in will allow bacteria to grow exponentially faster.
The packaging is designed to be in a refrigerator to accommodate for these imperfections. If the yogurt is cold, the bacteria may be able to breathe, but the lower temperature means it’s not really willing to reproduce.
If you’ve been leaving it out at room temperature and haven’t been burned yet, it’s been mostly luck. When yogurt goes bad it’s VERY readily apparent. You clearly know the risks, so the only real risk is you wasting money on food that spoiled, or wasting a day on the shitter because you ate it anyway.
no it doesn’t, but storing it in the fridge prevents it from spoiling faster. you might get only less than a day before mold starts forming if you leave it out especially if exposed to air.
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