I wouldn't like to risk making others ill, but I have to tell you a story about Woody and eggs. He sailed in the Bahamas for a year. He took 12 dozen eggs with him. Unrefrigerated, all he did was coat them in vegetable oil and put them in some racks in the bilge. Once a week he turned the eggs. He had ONE egg go bad over the course of the 3 months that they lasted. And no one got sick from any eggs. For whatever that's worth.....

I've also had food poisoning and will cheerfully throw out anything before risking having it again. If I had been on that sailboat, I probably wouldn't have been eating the eggs. I think once you mix mayo with a protein, that's when you start having food poisoning/room temp problems. So the deviled eggs were probably OK, but it's not worth the risk, IMO.

I have never had a problem with eggs out unshelled overnite.
I would eat them.

Trin

Sorry - I forgot that you'd already read internet info to her. Y'know what? They may be fine. If it were me, I wouldn't serve them to others. But that's me. It sounds as though she has done this before as a normal thing and she's Ok with it. She may be right. Me, I wouldn't risk it.

I was thinking the same as Pattico. When we were young, we would dye the eggs a few days ahead of time. They would sit on the counter and then the Easter bunny would hide them before he/she went to bed. The next day mom would make deviled eggs or egg salad with them and no one ever got sick. Ever.

"I read on the internet that hard boiled eggs must be refigerated within 2 hours or they could have salmonella."

Salmonella is killed by HEAT. Boiled eggs will NOT have salmonella.

There is no danger.

Salmonella poisoning occurrs if eating raw or undercooked eggs and chicken. The salmonella bacteria exists on the shell and can get transfered to the egg product. Nowdays all eggs sold have been washed or are pasturized in a scald. The danger of salmonella poisoning today is soooooooooooooooooo minimal. By boiling the eggs for the party the miniscule danger is completely eliminated.

Get your info from a reliable source. Any .gov site is good. It will tell you right here that cooking kills salmonella.

http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/dfbmd/disease_listing/salmonellosis_gi.html#6

Here is a link that might be useful: Salmonellosis

I agree with the others that say go ahead and eat them.

Not only the fact that we have always left them out for Easter, but think of the fact that they have been boiled for 15 - 20 min. That should kill almost anything. My guess is that the eggs that have caused problems are those that were raw or under cooked.

AND BTW - if someone does get sick from the party - it could be from any number of the foods.
I think people get carried away with all these warnings, you would think that food was just recently invented.
That internet info could have come from anywhere too!

dilly-dalley,
I looked at at least 10 websites and they all said the same thing. Cooked hardboiled eggs must be refrigerated within 2 hours. I'm very careful serving food that has been cooked and then left out. I've been sick too many times myself.
I think she left already for the party. I left a message on her voicemail. I told her to bring the eggs and tell the guests that they were left out overnight and it's their choice whether to eat them or not.
Donna

Personally, I might take a chance. However, I would not serve them to others, especially elderly people. You have no way of knowing if their systems are compromised in any way.

I think it's the mayonnaise that would make them bad to eat if they were left out overnight.

Hardboiled eggs need to be refrigerated after 2 hours.

Here is a link that might be useful: eggs

I would eat them. I can't imagine them going bad inside a sealed shell. My MIL purposely kept uncooked eggs out on top of a fridge in a hot (not air conditioned) rental house all week. I didn't eat them, but no one got sick.

Please give us an update./

I am a licensed food manager for my state, and many sanitation food courses were part of my earning my degree. I just took my 4 hour refresher course that i have to renew every couple of years and there are ALWAYS egg safety issues in the course. Eggs are washed and sanitized before being sold for sale, but this is different than pasteurization. You can order in already pasteurized eggs in food service that are hard boiled and that is what my facility does, but there is no way i would ever eat eggs that have been boiled and sat out all night, let alone serve them to the public. The guidelines are no more than 2 hours at room temperature for safety. One of the other problems with this situation is that the eggs were likely handled with bare hands which could contain bacteria that may have grown on the eggs. I do realize people do that with easter eggs and often don't get sick, but to put other people at risk is irresponsible. Of course i am a freak,- at the holidays i have a food thermometer to take temps of everything.

The original question posed by the OP concerns Salmonella.

"I read on the internet that hard boiled eggs must be refigerated within 2 hours or they could have salmonella."

They would not have Salmonella unless they came into contact with it after being boiled.

But in that case, there is the possibility that they could come in contact with Salmonella while sitting in the refigerator too.

Or while being prepared into the deviled eggs.

They could pick up E.coli or Listeria, Campylobacter, Staph or any of many other things too from dirty hands.

Eggs are washed at the point of packaging. They should be free of Salmonella. If by some chance they have Salmonella on the shells the heat from boiling them into hard boiled eggs will kill it. If you leave them sitting in the pan they are OK because they are clean and sterile. If you handle them, just use clean hands and a clean bowl in the unlikely event that Salmonella got around the kitchen.

If I made hard boiled eggs and forgot them overnight, I would eat them. Just so the shell was not cracked. I think that is the real danger.
Eggs are a tight package or when you color them, they would be colored clear through.
Now that I read this, I might rethink serving them to others, but I would have a nice batch of egg salad for me.

I would have eaten them, but might have been on the fence about serving them. If the kitchen was cool - shouldn't be a problem.

I always ice my eggs immediatly after boiling them. I don't want that funky gray layer - so I bring to a boil, shut off and leave in the pan, covered, for 10 minutes. Then I rinse in cold water and put them in an ice bath immediatly.

organic_donna, that article also says to "Boil eggs at 160 degrees for 15 minutes......"
i never boil eggs for more than 3 minutes.
when i cook 6 or less, i don't even boil them
i bring them to a boil, cover and let them set for 10 minutes. (Sara Molton method)
i don't like egg yolks to turn 'green'
that article seems outdated IMO

Cant you slowly reheat and boil em a little again??? That should do the trick?

Donna, I was curious if your sister ended up serving them or mentioned to the party guests what had happened.

koda04,
That thread was just one example. All the threads said the same thing. Hardboiled eggs cannot safetly be eated if they are left unrefrigerated for more than 2 hours.
She brought them to the party. The only guests that had access to them were seated at her table. She told them what she did and it was their choice whether to eat them or not. Most chose not to eat them. If it was me, I would have thrown them away.
Donna

She could have eaten one to see if they made her sick. We often ate the Easter eggs that were not refrigerated for long periods of time...

The problem is if you are going to a pot luck other people are going to eat them. It doesn't really matter if "you" would eat them, or if your grandma could eat them all the time with no ill effect, etc...

You are risking making "other people" ill. I'm sorry to be blunt, but sometimes healthy people just don't get it. Not everyone can fight off everything. What may be easy for you to fight off or give you a little tummy ache could cause major problems for a diabetic, a person with MS, or a pregnant woman. Do you know what being dehydrated from throwing up can do to a diabetic for example? A food does not have to look funny or smell bad to be bad. If you are making food for other people, you owe an obligation to them to make sure it is as safe as can be. Yes, your sister (and 90% of the people there) could probably eat them and be find (and if she's healthy, I suggest "she" go ahead), but there is still that other 10%. It's just selfish and ignorant to serve them to a big group of others at a pot luck.

Tell her to pick up something or make a new batch.

carla35,
I agree with you 100%.
Donna

I definitely would NOT serve them to other people.

Call me paranoid, but I wouldn't eat them, either.

Sheryl

I'm one from the generation that ate Easter eggs for several days and lived to tell about it...but I'm also one of those unfortunate people who has made a long remembered trip to the ER with "real" food poisoning (apple pastry from a vending machine)! I can assure you it isn't pretty and never worth taking the chance! I still don't do pastry out of vending machines after 30 years!

The old adage...when in doubt, don't.

Also, in a practical sense, a new batch of eggs is certainly less expensive than a lawsuit or the damage to one's reputation, whether consumer is informed or not.

I agree!

Maybe I missed someone posting this, but there is another thing I wanted to mention. Eggs that you buy at the store usually have a protective coating on them to help keep them from picking up bacteria, etc... once that is cooked off, they can actually become more dangerous to eat than a raw egg. (Yes, Salmonella would be cooked off but it is VERY rare). What I'm trying to say is... would you eat a raw egg that has been sitting out over night? Do you know which one would be safer for you to eat? Are you sure? Just something to think about.

Again, we know grandma did it, but grandma probably did it often and with a lot of foods and her immune system got used to it -- our systems today (especially because of the perservatives and the over sterilization in most store bought foods) just aren't built up enough to fight off the bacteria that may grow from keeping food out for longer periods.

I wouldn't eat a raw egg, but that's beside the point. The issue of salmonella from being left out is a miniscule risk. Proper cooking destroys salmonella. The caveat, of course, is the term "proper". However, cooked eggs are nonetheless a perishible food and can spoil. So for the question of cooking them again, it's kind of like saying what if we reheat the rotten chicken? Now I'm not going to get in the center of how many seconds/minutes/hours/days/weeks/months it takes to spoil.

I know people that leave cooked eggs out and eat them. And keeping raw eggs is much different than keeping cooked eggs. Frankly I'd feel much safer with non-refrigerated raw eggs (if I knew the handling) than non-refrigerated cooked eggs since I would cook the raw eggs anyway. The "Two Fat Ladies" would shudder if someone refrigerated raw eggs!

For me, I would not eat them but admittedly I'm a bit paranoid about eggs and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's my background in retail stores and restaurants and seeing the conditions in which food is kept! I'd rather eat leftover pizza that had been sitting out than eggs. And I don't like eating refrigerated eggs that were weeks old either.

I just think it was really tacky that she was too lazy to do it right so she just went, aw, what the heck! It's one of the reasons I don't like pot-lucks! If I make use of the "five second rule" in MY kitchen for MY consumption, that's one thing. Subjecting others to it is different.

Salmonella is killed by HEAT. Boiled eggs will NOT have salmonella.

There is no danger.

Explain to me then why my father was so sick after eating bad eggs, my mother thought for sure he was going to die. He would have thought he was dying, but he was so busy throwing up everything from his throat to his toes for 2 days, he didn't have time to think about dying, just getting to the bathroom quick enough to not throw up on the floor. Trust me, you CAN get sick from cooked eggs.

cynic,
You don't know my sister and it's rude to call her lazy. She took the time to purchase, cook and prepare the deviled eggs and was very disappointed when I told her she should throw them out. She is a very kind person and her actions don't equate to laziness.
I think this post has been debated enough. Thank you for all of your responses.
Donna

I boiled eggs and colored them for easter,, I left them out onn the counter for 4 days.. when we went to eat them they smelled bad and were slimy.. so I threw them out

When eggs were boiled at easter they were left out 2-3-4 days we ate all the eggs , 6 people in our family no one ever got sick. On the other side of things anyone who has ever had egg poisoning will be more cautious. Ive had egg poisoning but it was from eating well expired eggs as sick as Ive ever been , I will never do that again. I learned how to test expired eggs since then. Put the eggs in a saucepan full of cold water, if they turn on their side they are good to eat any way you want. If they stand straight up on end its best to hard boil before eating. If they float they are bad pitch them out and do not eat in any form.

Whatever became of Organic_Donna? Anyone know?

I grew up the same others did. We dyed the eggs several days before Easter. The prettiest were rubbed with a little salad oil to shine them and left out. The others went into the fridge. After Easter we ate the ones left out. No one got sick and as Debby said salmonella is killed during the initial cooking. Unless the eggs are cracked and handled a lot there is no way for dangerous bacteria to grow. Sitting in the in the shell untouched isn't going to do anything to them. They might spoil more quickly if it is hot but you would know by the smell.

I just realized this is an old thread. I should be dead by now. I eat a hard boiled egg every day of the year. I put 18 eggs in cold water, bring to a boil and then shut the gas off. After 20 minutes I take tongs and put the eggs in a bowl and they sit on my counter all night. I do this around 11 at night. I'm not putting all those hot eggs in my refrigerator. I have never had salmonella in the life.

The paranoia over hard boiled eggs, in a sealed shell, is crazy! I have been leaving Easter eggs out all night for my whole life (72 years) and have never been sick from eating one. The hen lays them and often they are in the coup for a day before anyone even collects them. Then they often just sit out for a long time till someone buys them, or cooks them. The shell protects them! Just had one this morning that I left out. If they are boiled and the shell isn't cracked, how is the egg going to get salmonella? You crack it, wash it off, throw away the shell and eat the thing!

Glad I read this now, not last week when I boiled 8 eggs and accidentally left one in the pot, ate it the next day....it was fine but I would have been frantic if I read this thread right after I ate that left over egg.

Old thread. This is why I rarely cook for anyone else. It's not worth it.

Funniest thing I've read in a long time! Love organic Donna and her sister:)

Throw them out, I would not want anyone to eat them and get food poisoning, better to say haven't got anything then I have food poisoning to give to everyone.

I am an expat living in spain. The eggs here and in Europe in general are never refrigerated in the store. You buy them just like any other dry good off the shelf. In the US I rarely refrigerated my eggs, (better for baking.) As for throwing hard boiled eggs out after 2 hours, its a little extreme especially if the eggs were fresh before cooking. Think old time easter egg hunts of the past, eggs left out, dyed, then sitting in the sun, then consumed with glee.

The reason that can happen in Europe is that the eggs there are not subject to the same kind of washing process they are here, which washes off a protective natural film outside the shell.

Some info, not to argue or persuade, just interesting:

Hard boiled eggs

Again, not to argue, but when people tell me they have been doing things for years and everything has been OK, I think of loaded guns in the living room, HIV, rhythm birth control, no vaccinations, and similar risks where everything is OK until it's not.

Oh My..now what do I do...I boiled eggs yesterday..shut the burner off and covered them and got busy so they soaked a bit over an hour. Than I put them in cold tap to soak again an hour, busy again....than I peeled and made my stuffed eggs put right in frig.

Since they did sit out more than 2 hours I'm in a quandry...good or bad??

Mamapinky, look at Carolyn's post that she made yesterday at 12:45 p.m.

I also bring to a boil then turn off, cover and leave for 25 mins. (Large eggs). Then I dump the hot water and run cold water thru them, then with cold water, add a few ice cubes to chill quickly, then drain and put in the fridge.

I have a very sensitive stomach and have had food poisoning a few times so I wouldn't eggs that have been out overnight, a few hours would be ok but not overnight.

fda recommendations on eggs.

• Never leave cooked eggs or egg dishes out of the refrigerator for more than 2 hours or for more than 1 hour when temperatures are above 90° F. Bacteria that can cause illness grow quickly at warm temperatures (between 40° F and 140° F).

playing it safe with eggs. Video

we always ate them after they sat out and then were hidden in the yard but those days are over. I think there are strong antibiotic resistant bacteria around that I would not like to take a chance with. Food poisoning is best to avoid whenever you can. I had a salad bar trip ruin my dream vacation once and how I wish I had ordered something hot from the kitchen instead! Stay safe friends. I miss some things from the past but this one I am happy to give up if it protects anyone from a chance of being sick.