Obligatory- refrigerators don't keep your food THAT cold and bacteria can start growing on it generally in just 4 hours if it isn't opened. So unless you know the exact time it died, or you know the internal temperature when you open it, then better to play it safe than risk getting sick
Naw, people in this thread are the same "just trust science!" ones, except when it comes to things they have a bias about. Look, I get it: you've been using unsafe food practices since living on your own and you've never gotten sick. That doesn't mean you never will, or that anyone who eats your improperly-prepared food won't!
It's okay to learn and grow. My own mother, retired from the healthcare industry had to learn that a freezer is not a time capsule, you can't eat decades-old food with no consequences...
EDIT: The minutes-old downvote with no sources or facts proves my point tenfold. You have nothing, just your anecdotal feeelings.
so you're telling me that leftover pizza on the counter is no good the next morning?
it's still just as tasty, maybe even improved by mingling and cohering of flavors.
take my room temperature pizza from my cold dead hands!
People have survived millions of years without refrigerators. Most products don't get bad in a few hours just because they're kept at 8° instead of 6°. Granted, there's some stuff you want to be careful with, like raw poultry and minced meat, but neither the pasteurized milk nor the cured sausage will go bad in just a few hours, even at room temperature. Even if they would, you'd usually see, smell and taste it.
If it was as bad as you say, millions of pupils would die each summer from food poisoning because of the sandwich they carry unrefrigerated with them the whole morning until the lunch break. The temperature in an average teenagers backpack is much higher than that in a refrigerator that has been off for a few hours.
Lol an ultra-processed sandwich (that's the bread, cheese, and meat) in a lunchbox for a few hours, hopefully with an ice pack, is leagues different from eating iffy chicken from a box that may or may not have been warmer for half the night.
No one's saying you'll definitely die from it, but you're risking salmonella. I doubt anyone who's suffered through it doesn't regret saving those few bucks... "When in doubt, throw it out."