When food delivery takes too long

Is it ok to eat takeout that took an hour and a half to be delivered?

An hour and a half is a long time to wait for delivery. I have a few questions of my own.

Is this a regular occurrence for you? Does your street address contain a fraction?  Do you live in a 60-floor walk up? Do you live in the triangular region between Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Florida?  Did the deliveryman arrive via dog sled? Did you offer him a glass of water?

Your concern is that harmful bacteria grew on your food while it was stuck in transit. The general rule is that you should eat or refrigerate food within 2 hours of cooking it or buying it at the store. 

So, assuming your food was cooked to order, then it is safe to eat. You could even watch an episode of Friends before safely chowing down.

When I was a kid my mom would send me to school with a frozen chicken tamale and a can of Kern’s guava nectar for lunch. Her idea was that the icy tamale would slowly thaw out and be edible by lunchtime. As a bonus, it would keep the guava nectar cool— like an edible ice pack.  This is perhaps the laziest packed lunch ever as well as a moderately negligent food safety practice, since there was a material risk of harmful bacteria growth during those morning hours. But I never got sick from those temperature-abused vittles and I’m sure you’ll be fine with your old-ass delivery food, too.

Your food is here

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