Ahem, Pinched from
AHBOU via
Aquarionics, but it's a serious topic:
Here's a quick guide for all you single people out there, who
have a place of their own, or share with a flat mate.
Food Spoilage Test
FINALLY, a way to know what to throw-out and what to save!
THE GAG TEST
Anything that makes you gag is spoiled (except for leftovers from what
you cooked for yourself last night).
When something starts pecking its way out of the shell, the egg is
probably past its prime.
Milk is spoiled when it starts to look like
yoghurt.
Yoghurt is spoiled
when it starts to look like
Cottage cheese.
Cottage cheese is spoiled
when it starts to look like regular
cheese. Regular
cheese is nothing
but
spoiled milk anyway and can't get any more spoiled than it is
already.
Cheddar cheese is spoiled when you think it is
blue cheese
but you realise you've
never purchased that kind.
If it makes you violently ill after you eat it, the mayonnaise is
spoiled.
Frozen foods that have become an integral part of the
defrosting
problem in your freezer compartment will probably be spoiled - (or
wrecked anyway) by the time you pry them out with a
kitchen knife.
This is NOT a
marketing ploy to encourage you to throw away
perfectly good food so that you'll spend more on groceries.
Perhaps you'd benefit by having a
calendar in your kitchen.
If opening the
refrigerator door causes stray animals from a
three-block radius to
congregate outside your
house/
flat, the meat is
spoiled.
Sesame seeds and
Poppy seeds are the only officially acceptable
"
spots" that should be seen on the surface of any loaf of bread.
Fuzzy and hairy looking white or green growth areas are a good
indication that your bread has turned into a
pharmaceutical
laboratory experiment.
Flour is spoiled when it
wiggles.
It never spoils.
It is generally a good rule of thumb that cereal should be discarded
when it is two years or longer beyond the
expiration date.
Bibb lettuce is spoiled when you can't get it off the bottom of the
vegetable crisper without
Comet. Romaine lettuce is spoiled when it
turns liquid.
Any canned goods that have become the size or shape of a
softball
should be disposed of. Carefully.
A carrot that you can tie a
clove hitch in is not fresh.
Raisins should not be harder than your
teeth.
Fresh potatoes do not have roots, branches, or dense, leafy
undergrowth.
If you can take it out of its
container and
bounce it on the floor,
it has gone bad.
Putting empty containers back into the refrigerator is an old trick,
but it only works if you live with someone or have a maid.
You know it is well beyond prime when you're tempted to discard
the
Tupperware along with the food. Generally speaking, Tupperware
containers should not burp when you open them.
Most food cannot be kept longer than the average life span of a
hamster. Keep a hamster in or nearby your refrigerator to gauge this.