Is Your Food Still Safe to Eat?
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It's past the expiration date, but your food still smells fine. Does that mean it's okay to eat? Here are the food safety essentials that will help you avoid food-borne illnesses and digestive problems.
If your food looks fine, it must be good enough to eat, right? Not necessarily: Being unaware of how long you’ve been storing food in your pantry or the back of your refrigerator can make you one of the 48 million people estimated to get digestive problems from food-borne illness each year.
Mold and rot are sure signs that food is past its prime, but an item can be unsafe to eat even before you notice such obvious signs. If you’re guilty of occasionally ignoring food expiration dates, brush up on food safety guidelines and rethink what you’re willing to eat so you can avoid digestive problems.
Expired or Not?
Knowing exactly how long food products can keep without spoiling is not easy because the stamped food expiration date is only one part of food safety. The temperature at which you store and prepare food can affect your risk for food-borne illness, and so does the handling of food at the store before it even reaches your kitchen.
Here’s how to decide whether the food product you’re looking at — or sniffing or tasting — is safe to eat:
Know your foods. Get a basic understanding of what is in the food you eat. “Generally, foods higher in protein will deteriorate faster than foods high in sugar or sodium. That is why those products are used in food preservation techniques — they bind the moisture or water in the food,” says food safety expert Catherine Strohbehn, PhD, RD, adjunct associate professor at Iowa State University in Ames.
Follow food safety temperature guidelines. At room temperature, bacteria grow quickly, causing food to spoil faster. “Bacteria need food — protein or carbohydrates — to grow and reproduce, along with water,” says Strohbehn. That’s why you should keep your refrigerator set below 41° F and heat foods to temperatures above 140° F. These extremes of cold and heat prevent bacteria from multiplying. Frozen foods should be kept at 32° F or below.
Heed your nose. Most people can smell spoiling or rotting food, especially if there is an excess of bacteria or mold. Trust your sense of smell as your personal food safety expert. But don’t trust too much — even food that still smells okay can be spoiled.
Take a look. If you see obvious discoloration in rotting food, such as green meat or blue spots on bread, throw out that food. Changes in texture are also a sign of spoilage, such as clumpy milk. Other warning signs are packaging with obvious openings or bulges, and cans that are dented, leaking though unopened, bulging, or showing rust along any seam.
Keep all food areas clean. Regularly clean and sanitize surfaces where food is stored and prepared.It’s a Date: Know Food Storage Limits
Follow these storage tips for staple food items. Use a marker or sticky labels to date food as you store it:
Eggs. Keep them refrigerated in their original carton and use within three weeks. Throw out those that are broken or cracked.
Seafood. Refrigerate immediately if you plan to use it within two days, otherwise freeze it until you plan to use it.
Ground meat. Store one to two days in the refrigerator, three to four months in the freezer.
Steaks, chops, and roasts. Store three to five days in the refrigerator, four to six (chops), 6 to 12 (steaks) and 4 to 12 (roasts) months in the freezer.
Fresh poultry. Store one to two days in the refrigerator, nine months to one year in the freezer.
Cooked meat or poultry. Store three to four days in the refrigerator, two to six months in the freezer.
Fruits and vegetables. It’s hard to tell exactly how long a fresh fruit or vegetable will last, as this can depend a lot on how they were handled before you brought them home. Keep fruits and vegetables fresh longer by storing them in the refrigerator; many freeze well for future use. Always wash fruits and vegetables before eating or serving. Do not eat if they look or smell rotten.
Dairy. Always choose pasteurized dairy products to cut down on food-borne illness. Pay attention to expiration dates. Storing milk at temperatures below 40° F might allow you to consume it a few days past expiration, but you can rely on taste and smell to figure out if the milk has spoiled.
Leftovers. If you don’t want fresh food to go to waste, one option is to cook it for future use. Leftovers can stay in the fridge for three to four days or in the freezer for two or more months. Remember to reheat leftovers thoroughly.
Canned foods. Store in a cool, dry place. Never store canned goods under the sink, over the stove, in a damp basement or garage, or anywhere else that may have high and low temperature fluctuations. Canned foods with high acidic content, like tomatoes and other fruits, can be stored for up to 18 months. Low-acid foods, like vegetables and meats, can be kept for two to five years.Dealing With Digestive Problems and Food-Borne Illness
Although the above guidelines are important, you can follow all of this advice and still occasionally get sick because of bacteria that you can’t see or sense.
The symptoms of food-borne illness depend on the bacteria in the food and may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cramping, and fever. Symptoms can start almost as soon as you are done with your meal or as long as 72 hours later. You might not make the connection between a digestive problem and a food you ate three days ago, and many bouts of food-borne illness pass without a visit to the doctor. Most people write their misery off as a temporary “flu bug,” says Strohbehn.
As many as one in four people might be at increased risk of digestive problems, with some more likely to be affected by food-borne illness than others. “People in at-risk groups are those with lower immune systems — such as children and elderly people — those with a chronic disease, and pregnant women. Their bodies can't fight off the infection as easily as healthy folks,” explains Strohbehn. In these situations, you must pay special attention to food safety to reduce the risk of illness.
Cleanliness and awareness are the keys to good food safety. You will be able to reduce your risk for digestive problems from food-borne illness if you pay attention to how long your food products have been in your house and how they look, smell, and taste when you want to eat them.
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Dear Leatherbear -
Thanks for the safety tips - where did you pick this up? I have read similar things several times and it is always helpful to know the storage times for fridge and freezer. My cousin has a wax pencil or sharpie marker in her pantry at all times - she writes the date of purchase on each can or box. She did this years before products had dates on them. I always intended to and never did.
But the one thing that always makes me laugh: Do we really need to tell people NOT to eat something if it looks or smells rotten?
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this was an AOL news story. I put dates on things stored in the freezer but that is the only thing I date.
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Now my grandma always stored canned goods in the garage, so I wonder how dangerous that one is?
