posted
The other night I accidentally left our leftovers (chicken and rice) on the counter overnight. I sadly dumped it all in the trash can, as it had been out for 14 hours by the time I realized what I'd done, but I was curious enough to do a search on the internet to find out how long you could safely leave food out.
The official advice is 2 hours, which seems way too conservative to me. If I go to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house the food stays out longer than that while people continue to pick at it over the course or 3...4...5 hours. We've never gotten sick. I often leave leftovers on the counter after dinner to give them a chance to cool and put it away before bed. It stays out for up to 4 hours if I don't remember until last thing and it's fine.
Of course 14 hours is right out but I was curious, what do other people do? How long are you willing to leave food on the counter and still eat it?
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I think the general rule in this house is this:
If it's a well-prepared meal, do your best to ensure that it's refrigerated no more than a couple hours after it's been put out.
If you're gonna eat something that's already questionable, then by all means, take your time. I particularly find that while I can't eat an entire large pizza in one sitting, I can over the course of the next 6 hours Posts: 349 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
I tend to let things cool for an hour or so, and then fridge them.
If it's chicken, I am very cautious of the time - no more than half an hour, tops, and usually much less.
Other meats I am less wary about, but I will still have them in the fridge within an hour.
If the leftovers are vegetables (and cooked with no dairy) then I am much more lax - a few hours doesn't bother me in the slightest.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
But also, I throw out milk on the use by date, regardless of the smell (well, I always think it smells bad. Other people don't agree). I'm a stickler for food safety issues.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
It varies a lot. I wouldn't say I eat chicken that's sat overnight often, but we sometimes leave a pot of chicken soup with a lid on the stovetop. I mean, if you think about putting a pot of hot soup in your fridge with all your other food, you're creating a much more hazardous situation.
Also:
"To Blave' which as we all know means to bluff."
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by imogen: But also, I throw out milk on the use by date, regardless of the smell (well, I always think it smells bad. Other people don't agree). I'm a stickler for food safety issues.
I don't know what it is in Oz, but in the US that is not a use-by date. It is a sell-by date, and milk is generally good for 4-7 days after that, if kept properly refrigerated.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by imogen: But also, I throw out milk on the use by date, regardless of the smell (well, I always think it smells bad. Other people don't agree). I'm a stickler for food safety issues.
I don't know what it is in Oz, but in the US that is not a use-by date. It is a sell-by date, and milk is generally good for 4-7 days after that, if kept properly refrigerated.
Not around here! I USED to be able to use milk after the sell by date (1 day tops...I have never gotten 4 days, let alone a week!) but around here the milk doesn't even last to the sell-by date. Most of the time it smells foul 3-4 days before we ever get there. It's really annoying. I think they're cheating on the dates somehow, but I don't have any power to do anything about it. We do better with the organic brands, but those are incredibly expensive so we only buy them for our son.
P.S. I can get the milk to last to 1 day before the sell by date if I keep my fridge so cold that the food starts getting icy. Sigh....I didn't want to get into it about milk but that's been a very frustrating topic around this house for a while now.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Christine, the last time I started having trouble with milk not keeping, my fridge's compressor went blooey two weeks later. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with your fridge, but it does sound like the internal airflow might not be optimal.
Do you keep it extremely full? What shelf do you store your milk on?
And have you tried getting your milk from a different supermarket (if that's an option)? IME, it makes quite a difference which store I get my milk from.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by imogen: But also, I throw out milk on the use by date, regardless of the smell (well, I always think it smells bad. Other people don't agree). I'm a stickler for food safety issues.
I don't know what it is in Oz, but in the US that is not a use-by date. It is a sell-by date, and milk is generally good for 4-7 days after that, if kept properly refrigerated.
Here it's a definite use by date, not sell by (just checked the carton ).
In my defense, I have had off milk curdle in my tea (*ick*) and I can smell it when it turns.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: I mean, if you think about putting a pot of hot soup in your fridge with all your other food, you're creating a much more hazardous situation.
Why? *curious* I put hot food in my fridge all the time. Am I doing something wrong?
As for milk smelling bad even before its use by date... this is why I have switched to organic milk. Sure, it costs more, but the smell is much better, and it also lasts longer than regular milk. I throw out much less milk these days.
Posts: 1805 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
*shudder* I have also had curdled milk -- in coffee (about a tiny sip), and can smell it when it turns. (My ex used to ask me to smell the milk to see if it was good.)
And we generally finish gallons of milk before their date, occasionally a day or so after. Large quantities of milk are consumed by both me and my kids on a pretty much daily basis.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Our family goes through milk so fast that it never occurs to me to check the sell-by date. If there's milk in our fridge, it's less than a week old. An open gallon - less than three days.
As far as stuff left out, we'll go as long as 4 hours or so before we start to view the food with suspicious eyes. The general rule of thumb at our house is to make sure the dinner leftovers are put in the fridge before we go to bed.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: Christine, the last time I started having trouble with milk not keeping, my fridge's compressor went blooey two weeks later. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with your fridge, but it does sound like the internal airflow might not be optimal.
Do you keep it extremely full? What shelf do you store your milk on?
And have you tried getting your milk from a different supermarket (if that's an option)? IME, it makes quite a difference which store I get my milk from.
Well, the fridge is new -- we bought it when we bought the house. I guess that doesn't necessarily mean anything, but the milk is the only thing we've had problems with. We store it in the door in the milk slot built right in and the amount of food varies widely depending upon the time of the month. (We do a big shopping trip early in the month and supplement throughout.) I have had varying luck with different grocers and different brands of milk, although I have never in my life seen milk last more than a day or two after the sell by date. Organic milk is the best, but it's twice as expensive and it turns out to be cheaper to throw the milk away!
Recently, a new grocery store opened in the area and we usually get their store-brand milk. It's usually good until the day before the sell-by date and it's consistent, which is nice. We've tried other brands of milk that will variably expire a week early or 2 days late!
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Putting hot food into the fridge can temporarily raise the average temperature inside. As the fridge's contents "suck" heat from the hot food, they'll rise in temperature, and then eventually be brought back down by the refrigeration. Increasing the temperature of the food that's already in there could conceivably allow bacteria to grow for that length of time.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Wow, I've never had a problem with milk going off before the use by date (which would have to be later than the sell by date, I'm guessing).
How long from purchase is the sell by date for you guys in the US? Here, for the use by date, it is at best 11/2 - 2 weeks.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I think once my son turns 2 the milk problem will go away. We can switch him from whole milk to what we drink then, and with the whole family on the same milk I think we'll go through it more quickly and not have to worry much about sour milk. Actually, he usually drinks his milk all by himself before the sell-by date! (I used to drink that much milk when I was a kid but many years of dieting later I've cut back.)
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Wow! I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. I'm going to rearrange my fridge for our big shopping trip this weekend and see if I can get some better results from my milk.
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posted
When I first read it (and it wasn't from that site, I'm sure) it was in regard to eggs and somebody complaining about why fridge manufacturers put those molded egg trays in doors when the safest place for eggs is in their carton and on a regular shelf. IIRC the person that began the conversation had this molded permanently in the door, not as a removable tray, which meant that the space was essentially wasted.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by imogen: How long from purchase is the sell by date for you guys in the US? Here, for the use by date, it is at best 11/2 - 2 weeks.
It varies from state to state (and sometimes from city to city).
Christine, as Goody already pointed out, the door is the worst place to store milk. Hopefully, finding another spot will help your milk's shelf-life.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I've found that brand is the biggest determinant in how long my milk lasts. Not because some brands last further past the expiration date than others, but because some just have extremely awesome expiration dates.
I can't remember the brand anymore, but there was a Safeway near my old apartment that had milk that lasted two months. I couldn't believe it.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I usually lave my food in the sink--doing it on the counter is way too messy. As for how long? Depends on the food, I suppose. I rarely do it for more than 45 seconds or so, though.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
A lot of food guidelines are precautionary - ways to maximize the chances you won't get food poisoning. I am one of those who doesn't tend to push my luck.
OTOH, a friend of mine here at work left some cooked turkey hot dogs in the microwave overnight. He reheated them and ate them that same day. No food poisoning, but not recommended for amateurs. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
That website was odd. A couple of examples:
quote: * Translucent containers allow light in that can cause milk to spoil more easily and more quickly * Translucent containers allow light in that can cause milk to spoil more easily and more quickly
quote:Make homemade ice cream with pasteurized eggs
I've never seen a pasteurized egg.
Personally, I suspect that most official recommendations of being overly cautious.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Lots of bakeries use pasteurized eggs. OTOH, I've eaten runny-yolk friend eggs all my life and never had a problem. Many food safety recommendations are indeed overly cautious. A healthy immune system can handle quite a bit of "unsafe" food without any serious problems. If not, most people would die of food poisoning in college
That website is a little over-cautious in some areas, but it brings up the good point that different foods have different safety levels. Some foods are safe at room temperature for long times, others are particularly susceptible to bacterial growth.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Putting hot food into the fridge can temporarily raise the average temperature inside. As the fridge's contents "suck" heat from the hot food, they'll rise in temperature, and then eventually be brought back down by the refrigeration. Increasing the temperature of the food that's already in there could conceivably allow bacteria to grow for that length of time.
Exactly. I do what Alton Brown recommends and cool soup fast, either by pouring into narrow containers (glass wide-mouth milk bottles) and nesting into a bag of ice (piled in sink or portable cooler), or by putting into Ziploc bags (if not too hot) and cooling between layers of ice.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I've eaten over-easy fried eggs my whole life without a problem too.
My eggs have always been in the door of the fridge as well. Though these days my fridge has a Delorean style door over the eggs to old in cold air when the door is opened.
I've also eaten left over chicken that I left out too long (I was hungry. It was still good) but not for 14 hours. Not even for Pizza.
Our Immune system is pickin' for a fight. And if you don't give it one now and then, it'll look for something else to fight.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Well, I eat raw cookie dough -- raw eggs and all. Never been sick. I do tend to think that these guidelines are a bit over the top but I guess that's why I was curious about what works/doesn't work in the real world, when you're on a budget and can't just throw something out because someone ten feet away sneezed.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
We just admittted a girl with kidney failure (needs to be on dialysis, may need kidney transplant) from Hemolytic-Uremic Syndrome. She caught the wrong strain of E. coli from drinking a neighbor's cow's unpasteurized milk. Very clean farm, stellar practices, but it only takes one bacterium of the wrong sort to seed and multiply. You can't see just one bacterium with the naked eye -- heck, you can't even see a glob containing several thousand -- and you can't sterilize cow udders. You can sanitize them, but you cannot sterilize living tissue. That's what pasteurization is for.
Most people who drink unpasteurized milk in the US do so without terrible consequences, but it's a crapshoot. [even if the odds may be good, and even if there may be benefits, the consequences don't make it worth it to me]
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
One egg is unlikely to be contaminated (although possible). When you work with large industrial batches of food, you are often using comingled eggs -- dozens, even up to thousands -- in a slurry, and that only takes one bad egg to contaminate all of it.
I worry less about individual eggs, although it's still a crapshoot there, too. Depends on how lucky you feel and how long you expect the run to last. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: They put it in hot (warm?) water for long enough to kill most of the bacteria on the shell without cooking the egg.
Interesting, if you look at (what I think is) their patent, they actually seal the egg with wax after antibacterial fluid (? hopefully not just water with antibiotics) in drawn into the egg.
I think I'll just continue to cook my eggs well
Edit to add: link and reading further, it looks like they prefer to use alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride as a bactericide
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
There is a fair risk of that sort of problem from hamburgers too, which is why one branch of my husband's family won't eat them. The other half believes in Mad Cow disease.
I don't understand, well, I guess I sort of know why someone would avoid pasteurized milk. I think the homogenization is much more damaging to any healthful properties it might in theory have, though. Mainly I think of milk as a treat and not a source of nourishment. Homogenization forces the milk into an unnatural emulsion which I think is probably harder to digest.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Milk is very good for you and it has been pasteurized for a very long time -- since sometime in the 1800's, if I recall. All the studies of the health benefits of dairy involve pasteurized milk. I am pretty sure that the nutrition information on the label is post-pasteurization too, although I can't be sure.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I haven't read all of the responses, but we (Hawaii Department of Health) require prepared foods to be consumed or discarded after 4 hours at room temperature. I would absolutely recommend discarding prepared foods after 14 hours.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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quote: I particularly find that while I can't eat an entire large pizza in one sitting, I can over the course of the next 6 hours
I can leave pizza for days--even if it has pepperoni or Canadian bacon. Milk, on the other hand, has no such thing as a "sell date" in my psyche. I throw any left overs out the day before the printed date on the carton. Everything else is about 4 hours for me--unless it's chicken. I have a mild paranoia of bad chicken. I need to overcook it and it can only be out an hour.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
in my house? 3-4 days. Not joking, I'm only partially sick but Ild rather not waste perfectly good food.
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: I don't understand, well, I guess I sort of know why someone would avoid pasteurized milk. I think the homogenization is much more damaging to any healthful properties it might in theory have, though. Mainly I think of milk as a treat and not a source of nourishment. Homogenization forces the milk into an unnatural emulsion which I think is probably harder to digest.
Why would mixing up the milk fats make the milk harder to digest?
I consider milk a treat and a source of nutrients. It's both delicious and good for you Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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*patiently* No, the yolks are well-beaten to avoid that eventuality. Actually, it is possible to use a similar method that does not beat them -- but even then you pierce the yolk so it won't go splat all over the microwave.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:A healthy immune system can handle quite a bit of "unsafe" food without any serious problems. If not, most people would die of food poisoning in college.
Also, the whole human race would be extinct. Think of the food our species has been eating for thousand years. Rather a lot of it has been off.
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