Article in the NY Times -- the money paragraph is this:
One prominent study published in The Journal of Food Protection found, for example, that in the presence of commercial mayonnaise, the growth of salmonella and staphylococcus bacteria in contaminated chicken and ham salad either slowed or stopped altogether. As the amount of mayonnaise increased, the rate of growth decreased. When temperatures rose to those of a hot summer day, the growth increased, but not as much as in samples that did not contain mayonnaise.
Commercial mayo is acidic, that's why. Mary said one of her aunts never refrigerated the Hellmans (they were east coasters -- the west coast equivalent is Best Foods). Mary reports that no one in the family keeled over from food poisoning. I've always been skeptical of the exaggerated fear surrounding potato salad or deviled eggs on a buffet or at a picnic. Somebody is always leaping up and icing the stuff down or slamming it back into a cooler wrapped in layers of foil. "Eeek. Salmonella!"
Now, courtesy of Modern Science and the New York Times, there is scholarly justification for my slatternly ways benign neglect.
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