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A 2024 list from The Takeout names 9 common leftovers that call for extra caution: eggs, rice, pasta, couscous, farro, pastries, potatoes, cheese and sushi. Writer Holly Riddle ties most of them to heat-resistant bacteria. The USDA supplies the baseline that applies to all 9: refrigerated leftovers should be eaten within 3 to 4 days or frozen. Here is how the foods group together and what the rule means in practice.
Rice, Pasta, Couscous and Farro Lead the Starchy Group
In The Takeout’s piece, Riddle calls rice “one of the starchy foods that can very easily harbor heat-resistant bacteria.” She adds that pasta, couscous and farro can harbor the same bacteria.
Daisy Wan, a registered dietitian at Overlake Medical Center, made a similar point in a February 2024 post. She wrote that boiled or fried rice and pasta salad are perishable and should go into the fridge within two hours, or within one hour when the air is above 90°F. She also linked the bacterium Bacillus cereus to what is nicknamed “fried rice syndrome.”
A University of Florida IFAS Extension publication on that bacterium explains why heat does not settle the matter. It says heat-resistant spores of the organism are more likely to survive cooking, and that “reheating foods until they are steaming is not enough to inactivate the emetic toxin.”
The same publication describes a 2003 outbreak in Belgium in which pasta salad stored at 57°F, well above the recommended 41°F, contained the toxin. It advises cooling cooked food quickly and not leaving it at room temperature for more than 2 hours, which is why a make-ahead dish like a bacon ranch pasta salad belongs in the fridge soon after it is made.
Eggs Are Flagged for Two Different Reasons
Eggs show up twice in The Takeout’s article. Riddle lists them among foods more likely to make people sick, attributing that to a “nitrogen oxidation process that can occur when reheating the eggs.” That explanation is the outlet’s own, and no expert is quoted on it.
She also names eggs among the worst offenders for reheating poorly, noting that they do not reheat well just as they do not freeze well.
The USDA’s shell egg guidance adds firm numbers. Cooked egg dishes should be refrigerated at once and used within 3 to 4 days, and leftover dishes such as quiche or souffle should be reheated to 165°F before serving. Hard-cooked eggs, which are the starting point for recipes like deviled eggs with relish, should be refrigerated within 2 hours of cooking and used within a week.
Potatoes, Cheese, Pastries and Sushi Round Out the List
The Takeout groups potatoes, cheese, pastries and sushi with rice and pasta as foods that can harbor the same bacteria. The piece gives no separate explanation for any of the four, so general USDA handling rules are the best guide for them.
The USDA’s guidance on take-out and delivered food offers a useful yardstick for bought items such as sushi and pastries. It says cold perishable take-out should be refrigerated as soon as possible, always within 2 hours of purchase or delivery, and that just keeping food warm between 40°F and 140°F is not safe.
The same two-hour clock is a reasonable default for homemade versions, such as a cheese danish or a tray of roasted potatoes. That is a general application of the USDA rule, not a food-specific finding from The Takeout.
The USDA Rules That Apply to All 9 Foods
The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service states that leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days or frozen for 3 to 4 months. It says they must be refrigerated within 2 hours of cooking, or of coming out of an appliance that keeps them warm.
Meredith Carothers, a technical information specialist at USDA FSIS, gave the same window in comments published by Eat This: consume leftovers within three to four days or freeze them. She added that the refrigerator should stay at 40°F or below, because foodborne illness bacteria begin to multiply above that temperature.
Both The Takeout and the USDA take-out guidance point to shallow containers for hot food. Shallow containers allow greater airflow and faster cooling, which shortens the time a large batch of rice or pasta spends in the temperature range where bacteria grow.
Reheating Is a Backstop, Not a Rescue
USDA says leftovers should reach 165°F as measured with a food thermometer. The Takeout cites the same figure.
The Florida publication’s warning about toxins explains the limit of that step. Reheating can address bacteria still present in food that was handled properly, but steaming-hot food that sat out too long may still carry a toxin the heat does not remove. For the 9 foods on The Takeout’s list, the safest habits are the ones that happen before reheating: refrigerate within two hours, keep the fridge at 40°F or below, and eat or freeze within 3 to 4 days.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: USDAgov – Public domain/Wikimedia Commons