In article ,
"Keith Marshall" wrote:

The first thisg she told me was that drinking the Pepsi from a can which
had leaked wouldn't kill me because the high acidity in the product
prevented the growth of bacteria. So, I guess Pepsi is one of those
"foods" like Honey and mayonaise which can stand being "opened" and then
stored at room temperature without spoiling.

Don't try drinking an old can of a diet drink sweetened with Nutrasweet!
Someone told me once that it goes bad and I didn't believe them until I
tried it. Yuck!!!! :-D

And I'm not so sure mayonaise is in that group. I've always heard it's a
bad one for food poisoning... but I don't know for sure.

Another legend/myth/whatever-you-want-to-call-it that needs to be laid
to rest...

Mayo is so acidic that nothing will grow on/in it but mold, and that
only rarely/under extreme circumstances (leave it out on the counter
uncovered for a few days type of extreme). What's to blame for the food
poisonings involving mayo are the other ingredients that are with it...
Tuna salad, ferinstance, or tater-salad - Both of them cut the acidity
enough to allow every food-poisoning bug known to man to happily set up
housekeeping and raise a few bazillion offspring in a scary-short amount
of time.

It does "go bad" - In the form of turning rancid. The oil in it will
air-oxidize into "yuck", same as butter will, but that's just "tastes
horrible" gone bad, not "dangerous/make you sick" gone bad. You can slow
this problem by storing the mayo jar as tightly sealed as possible, then
keeping it upside down. You can slow it more by refrigerating it, but no
matter what you do (short of using it up too quick for the oxidization
to happen) an unsealed jar of mayo plus time equals nasty tasting glop
that might make you barf due to how bad it tastes, but won't do you any
actual harm.

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