Let me preface this by saying that I was tortured as a child by my mother's disabled nose. "Honey can you smell this for me?" I would run and hide. It caused me in my own home to adopt the motto "When in Doubt, throw it out!" Two week old lunch meat never gets the sniff-check by this nose: it goes straight to the garbage can. Frozen beef over four months: fed to the dog. A full gallon mere days after the Sell By date: down the drain. If pizza sat out overnight I believe it has lived its course and should be given a swift burial.
My husband on the other hand...
I don't know. Maybe this is a man thing. He grew up with four brothers who were probably starving half their lives--and any food was fair game. That overnight pizza to him is a welcome lunch, "All the bacteria gets killed if you heat it high enough." And until it stinks it's good to him. I know where it comes from: my mother in-law. Poor lady worked her butt off to prepare filling meals with the meager budget she had. And everything was needed. But she recently shared with me that her Doctor told her that pharm. companies put expiration dates on meds just so people have to go out and buy it again. She was elated. I cringed.
So here I am...posting the question what is YOUR standard for freshness? There's a reason for expirations and Refrigerate After Opening labels, right?
And one more scenario I'm in the middle of: I bought Riccotta cheese and my grocery unloaders put it in the pantry instead of the fridge. It sat out overnight and was unopened but room temp in the morning. I say throw it out: hubby says keep it. It's been in the fridge since. But is it bad? I haven't sniffed it yet but I know if it stinks it's bad. But what if it doesn't stink, is it okay? And if so does it depend on the usage--Lasagna vs. Fresh Fruit?
Advice would be appreciated on this matter.
Thanks in Advance.
Well, I'm happy to say that I would happily accept an invitation to MOST of my responders' luncheon. ;) J/k . I just tossed the ricotta into the trash with a smile.
I was cracking up at some of you guys--especially about the watermelon sitting on the counter--my kitchen is MINE even hubby can't make me leave out produce, but on occasion I step into my MIL's kitchen to be greeted by a swarm of fruit flies and, yep, a big watermelon that's been sliced sitting room temp on the counter. (Who can eat warm watermelon? Yuck!) And like a few other gals here, my hub is 1st gen Mex/Am. So while I hate to generalize, it strengthens my bias that Mex's don't always have the best kitchen habits.
On another note. I bought a new container of Riccotta and used it in a new way this afternoon...and I thought I'd share.
Grilled Nectarine with Honey Riccotta (a touch of summer in the gloom of winter --for most of you)
Slice a nectarine and grill it (or in my case, warm a little butter in a saucepan and carmelize them.) Meanwhile blend some riccotta with honey, vanilla, and orange zest. Top cooled nectarines with the love. Enjoy. Guiltfree, refreshing, and luscious.
Ate it today with a chicken salad sandwich. May as well include that recipe as it was perfect as well:
Canned chicken
Finely chopped red pepper strip, onion slice, and celery
Dollop of mayo, salt and pepper
Mix and enjoy
Hope you all have a great day. If you give these recipes a try, let me know how you liked them.
I usually ask myself, "Would I pay the price of what this cost not to vomit?" The answer is usually yes.
I say throw out the cheese - why take a chance, it's not worth it. As to the other, everything in my house is tossed on the expiration date - I don't do the "sniff test" either..... Since I feel this way, I try and keep an eye on expiration dates and use the food before that, but if I miss it, out it goes.
I've been told expired medication only loses the potency, so I have used that Vicodan in a pinch when I've needed it! I had a home econmics teacher in high school that told our class that dairy products (properly refrigerated of course) last 7 days past the expiration date and I've held to this for 25 years and have NEVER had a problem. Riccotta cheese left out overnight? Toss! Pizza overnight? I'd toss it. As for ready-made meal items, I've definitely eaten them the day after expiration and have never had a problem. Opened lunch meat gets tossed after about a week of it being opened and in the fridge. I've cut off slightly moldy parts of cheese and eaten the rest. That's how I roll :)
And regarding the expired drugs, this should clarify my point:
http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update1103a.shtml
Toss the Riccotta, it needs to be refrigerated. It doesn't matter what it's being used for.
I got food poisoning once, that was enough to make me adopt the "when in doubt throw it out policy". I have a standing policy that any cooked food only stays in the fridge for 4 days. I'm pretty anal about it. I put a piece of tape on top of the container that I store the food in and mark the date that I cooked it. I remember, but I can't expect our babysitter to know, and I would feel terrible if I missed a container on garbage day and she fed it to the kids and they got sick.
If it were me, I wouldn't use the ricotta cheese. But, as noted above, I'm pretty nutty about this!
I am like you. My husband is your husband's twin. Same story. I don't even sniff, out it goes.
I go overboard I realize. Let's take watermelon. After cutting it, per my book, it goes in the fridge. My husband does not agree. He will let it sit out on the counter for days. He wants to feed it to kids afterwards, I throw it out. Lunch meats and cheeses that have not been eaten that week, they're gone on Sunday. I get fresh ones.
I don't use milk or yoghurt or anything dairy past its expiration date. Actually if it's still in the fridge ON the day of expiration date, it gets thrown. I try not to buy in bulk because most likely most of it will get thrown away. Same thing with carrots, or anything prepackaged.
Ricotta should go in the garbage.
unfrig stuff that's supposed to be friged: garbage.
pizza the next am? depends on how hungover i am. LOL
canned or dry? i'll go like 6 months later. if i even check LOL
I don't have a problem eating pizza that sat out overnight. We only keep milk for 1 day after the date, usually that doesn't even happen because we go through so much milk here. Your frozen beef will last well over 4 months, my MIL&FIL butcher their cows, and give us half. We could never go through all that beef in 4 months...nearly 1 year later and both of our families are still working on the same stash of meat.
My growing-up story sounds similar to your husband's. We were poor and food did not get thrown out. I don't remember my mom's guidelines, other than milk was good for two days after the date on the jug...so if we were approaching that date, everybody had a glass of milk with their supper.
As a result, I'm more lenient than you with dates. I'll put leftovers in the fridge and eat on them for a week. I don't ever purposely leave pizza out on the counter overnight, but I wouldn't be afraid to eat it if I did. Even I would probably have thrown away that ricotta, though.
Also, I think as a result of my background, I don't waste food on my plate. As in, hubby makes fun of me because I clean my chicken bones so well, or I eat the gristle in a steak.
Another story I can share: I previously worked as a wilderness instructor, where we would take teens on 30-day camping/canoeing trips. We would get resupplied every ten days or so. We didn't take any ice or perishable foods, except cheese and summer sausage, which (with crackers) was one of the lunches. The cheese would keep for several days. Now granted I never saw the package the cheese came from (they would just give us a big hunk of cheese in a ziploc or something), so it most likely was cheese food, but still. If we pulled it out and it had a little green growing on it, we just cut the green stuff off and fed it to the fish. Same with bagels and tortillas.
My husband, OTOH, is my polar opposite. He also grew up poor, but as an adult, worked as a grocery store manager. So EVERYTHING in our house is properly rotated, and he keeps a good eye on dates. He'll say, "this cheese will be out of date soon, we need to eat it." We're pretty good at not having to throw much away. We keep bread frozen. We rarely drink milk, so we just buy canned milk. Hubby will give me a hard time if leftovers are in the fridge longer than a day or two. He says eat them or freeze them. All produce except tomatoes and onions go in the fridge to avoid fruit flies.
I don't mind his micro-managing the kitchen though. He has a weaker stomach than I do. One night we got sandwiches at Quizno's. We think the horseradish sauce that sits out on the counter was bad, because he got violently ill, with it coming out both ends. I had one small bout of diarrhea. (TMI I know). He also gets sick more often than I do; he gets a fever about once a year. I can't remember the last time I had more than the sniffles.
I'm with you. I wouldn't risk it, its refrigerated for a reason. Butter or country crock on the other hand...it would be okay. Look at stilltasty.com, I love that site.
I am like you. My husband is like yours. haha. But, he grew up in Mexico, so stuff would get cooked for dinner (chicken in green chile) and then sit on the stove all night, next morning and get heated up for lunch...no refridgeration! I would never....
If anything is past it's due date, it gets thrown out, every single time. I just can't eat it!! Even if it tastes perfectly fine I would "think" that it doesn't. lol
The cheese that sat out, sorry...in the trash!
Last week I went to my niece and nephew's house. They had pizza the night before and offered me some. It had not been refridgerated. I didn't want to seem rude so I ate some. I got HORRIBLY belly sick that night and was up all night long.
It's just not worth the risk to me.
L.
My Dad yelled at me one day last year for tossing an almost-empty tube of ointment that was 15 YEARS past its date on the crimp end. I figured he had a full one that was only 3 years past its date! LOL.
I will NOT use medicine past its stamped date especially if its meant to be ingested versus applied.
Dairy gets tossed within days of stamped date if it lasts that long unless its hard cheese; then it may go a few more days.
But for the most part I'm with you, when in doubt...
Wow, I wasn't going to reply except that the doctor lied to her, or he is just an idiot, either way, don't take meds at your MILs house!
Not to say that Tylenol that is 3 days past its date has gone bad but 3 months over can actually make drugs a harmless substance at best and poison at worse.
There isn't anything in Pizza that will spoil over night in most cases. Pepperoni and most meats are cured similar and the tomato's and cheese sure don't go. My husband can have all of it he wants, not me.
As for other stuff, Ricotta is a dairy product. It's not any good as far as I am concerned. If a quart or pint of milk sat out all night it would never ever be in question.
My husband will eat stuff and I'll be gagging that he even thinks it's still good. But he says if it's microwaved the bacteria is killed....
I never thought about aged beef, like steaks and stuff. They sit until they turn green then are cooked. It's what makes them really really tender. Maybe that's why I don't like beef too much.
I 100% agree with you. I am the same way. My husband sounds exactally like yours!
My standards of freshness are pretty close to yours. My SO's are even higher on some things and waaayyyyy low on other things. It's weird, lol. If I were you I would have tossed the Riccotta...it's dairy and needs to be in the fridge, and doesn't matter how you're using it.
I don't care how many people tell me that expiration dates are put there for grocery stores to sell by that date......as soon as dairy hits the expiration date it's trashed in my house.
The dates on food are generally "best by" not "you will get sick if not consumed by." The exceptions are foods stamped with "expiration dates." I'm like your hubby, I will push the envelope on dates of food. Especially if it's going to be cooked again, killing off anything potentially bad.
Check www dot stilltasty dot com (no spaces and replace dot with .). It tells you the "real" shelf life of different types of food.
i would of thrown it out it is a refegerated milk product that needs to be in the fridge and i always put in fridge if the container says it needs to be put in the fridge. i throw out a day or so after it expires
Unrefrigerated cheese- out
Milk- day after Sale By date all out- any diary really
I worked in a diary when I was younger all dairy smells rotten to me it has only been the last year or so I could even drink milk.
Lunch meat usually gets the sniff test,
I have two growing boys usually nothing is around long enough to go bad.
As someone who was hospitalized for food poisoning, trust me, it's not worth the risk. Toss it.
Funny story - I was at my bachelor FIL's house for dinner one night. I went to get some dressing for the salad and noticed it was 3 YEARS past the expiration date. I pointed it out to him and he said, "Oh, that dressing is fine. I've been using it for years!"
Ugh!! ;-D
There is a difference between something being left out overnight that should be refrigerated vs. something that's been in the fridge approaching or exceeding the expiration date. If it was left unrefrigerated overnight, THROW IT OUT! If approaching the expiration date, it's personal preference and common sense. I called poison control one day after eating a container of yogurt and then realized the "expiration date" was a month previous. The operator actually laughed at me and told me that for yogurt, it was fresher/better by that date but would not harm me (live and active cultures, potencty, etc). I never got sick and have done the sniff test ever since (w/o getting sick)!! It depends on the food and the way it was handled. But definitely when in doubt, throw it out!
I have the same issue with my husband, and he has even gotten sick a few times from old food he has eaten that I have told him not to.
Anyway, I was reading the posts and wanted to bring something up I found interesting. A lot of people say they use the expiration dates, but those are the lifetime dates on the food. If you open it, it probably won't last that long, it only will last a few days or a week, maybe two depending on what it is. Obviously some things do last longer, but you can't just go by that date. Milk is a prime example of this. It normally lasts about a week from when you open it. If you open it 2 weeks before the expiration date, don't drink it until that date, it'll probably be bad. I got bread recently, it had mold before the expiration date, and only about two days after it was opened. Probably had a hole in the bag. I try to do a smell test, or at least a visual, on everything, even newer things.
