Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had an older coworker who used to do this, and had no qualms eating moldy food. He had some advanced biology degrees and worked in a lab. When asked why he ate moldy food, he would reply "Most of the time the mold (some mold type) and is mostly harmless to people. The trouble is knowing what is and isn't ok to eat. Besides, I'm not letting safe food go to waste." On the other hand, I knew a foreign student who disa…
Chicken is notorious for developing bad bacteria when it gets old. I know two people who got badly sick from eating chicken, and so they'll never ever eat it again. I like it though, but I'll never eat it past the expiry date. AFAIK if meat products start smelling, especially ammonium, then it's time to ditch it.
The smell is telling you that the meat is rotting and needs to be destroyed. But meat that is fresh and has no bad odour can be contaminated. You cannot use smell to tell if meat is contaminated or not.
We don't eat raw chicken, even if it's very fresh, because of the risk of food poisoning from things like campylobacter.
You need to be careful with cooked then chilled rice because of the risk of bacillus cereus. It won't smell bad. It can be an unpleasant food poisoning.