Why Do Food Safety Rules Seem to Not Exist for Pizza?

I had pizza for lunch the other day and let's just say I probably shouldn't have eaten it -- but I did.

I had pizza for dinner one-night last week and I brought the left-overs in for lunch the following day. The only problem was I forgot to bring them in and the pizza sat in my car -- completely unrefrigerated -- for several hours. Not thinking twice about it, I went out, got it, microwaved it for a couple of seconds, and devoured it.

Had that been any other kind of food, like a sandwich or something, there's no way I would have consumed it because it sat in the sun for five hours. But, since it was pizza, no problem at all!

(Random tangent: if your elementary school was like my elementary school and you had pizza every Friday for lunch - wasn't that, like, the greatest day of your life?! Elementary school pizza was the bomb.)

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What is it about pizza that we seem to suspend all food safety rules over? If you're at a friend's house and you order pizza and that pizza is still sitting there hours later, you'll eat it like it's right out of the oven.

I mean, it's covered in cheese and cheese needs to be refrigerated at some point. Same for the toppings like pepperoni or bacon or sausage. But even if a pizza covered in meat has been sitting out for half a day, you'll probably pick up a slice and go on with your life.

Enjoy!