Frozen food safety- misconceptions

zippychick

Mmmmmm apple and parsnip! Yummy! Ha ha ha, i do have good pegs.

Peartree

I have no qualms whatsoever about refreezing some previously frozen items if they aren't items that would easily 'taint'. Clearly, I would not refreeze raw and previously frozen meat or fish. However, if I accidently let my, say, a bag of frozen vegetables, defrost, I'd have no qualms whatsoever about refreezing them and, indeed, have. I'm still here to tell the tale!

I think a lot of it is common sense. We seem to have lost our abilty to judge the quality of our food. It is blindingly obvious when most foods are 'on the turn'.

beautiful_ravens

What a great thread. Its confirmed my suspicions. Last year we had no new food so I got out this frozen pack of beef which was at least 2 years old, melted it, slow cooked it into a casserole and ate it.
We lived. (I didnt tell them it was ancient though)
The only thing that was odd about it was its texture, it became more grainy, less succulent, but the slow cooking pretty much sorted that.
I would also re-freeze things like bread, veg, non meat stuff.

What I want to know is when meat like stewing steak kept in the fridge is on its use by date and starts to go brown, whats happening to it? I have several packs in the freezer which Ive written on "frozen on use by date- going brown-?" ?!

thriftlady_2

beautiful_ravens wrote: »

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What I want to know is when meat like stewing steak kept in the fridge is on its use by date and starts to go brown, whats happening to it? I have several packs in the freezer which Ive written on "frozen on use by date- going brown-?" ?!

If meat is properly hung it should be brown. Most meat and game needs to be hung or aged a while before it is fit to eat. Any decent butcher will hang beef for 3 weeks. I think the change in colour is to do with oxidisation. It is completely harmless and normal;)

The supermarkets have somehow managed to persuade a whole generation that meat should be bright red. This allows them to get away without aging their meat properly.

Some supermarkets have a range of aged meat for which you will pay a premium. Go to a butcher instead. When Sainsbury's started selling beef hung for 21 days they had to withdraw their advert because they claimed they were the only retailer to do this. Butchers up and down the land complained that this was untrue because they have always hung beef for 21 days.

cw18

I've never worried about the colour of the meat - I've always, always, always used the 'sniff test' to decide whether it's safe to use or not.

But even in the Whoopsie sections I see people avoiding meat that's becoming 'discoloured' in favour of other packs - even when the discoloured ones have been reduced to lower prices than the others Can't begin to describe the looks of horror I've had off other shoppers when I take the cheaper ones :rolleyes2

It's taken me a loooooong time to convince DD (now 26) that dates on tins aren't rules, and that the 'use within 2 months' on frozen products can generally also be ignored.....

She once announced (as I got home from work one day about 5 years ago) that I needed to do a tip run..... Why? 'Cos she'd bagged up everything that was in my cupboards with a bbe date before that date (some were only a couple of days). She wasn't impressed at being told to return it all to the cupboards

The only times I am super careful is when feeding very young children, or people who have major health problems that effect immunity. I am careful with older folks, but probably to a lesser extent than the other groups.

scotrae

If only I'd read this thread first thing this morning, before going through my chest freezer. I hate waste too and I was ashamed to find a few frozen supermarket (very small) frozen lamb steaks and a bag of frozen fish with dates from last Spring. I threw these out, along with some farm shop sausagemeat from last December, which was looking seriously grey (it was pink when I froze it). A couple of frozen hm portions from 2008 too.

There is lots of frozen fruit, some of which might have been there for three years - but all this will get 'puddinged' with crumbles and pies.

I wasn't sure whether a whole turkey, a turkey breast, turkey wing and three turkey legs, some 2008, some 2006/7, would be OK but I know we'll be getting another fresh turkey from DH's 'bonus' from work this Christmas and we're our at family's on Christmas day and most of this was sent over from m-i-l when she cleared her freezer ... thus burying most of my stuff! I just need it out of the way, so I can start to monitor what's in there and rotate the food properly (plus stocking up on half price meat just after Christmas!).

Sunnyday

I pinched a frozen turkey from a colleague last month after failing to convince her that it would be ok. I thawed and cooked it and we have eaten many lovely meals made from it

She also brought me strawberries that were dated for that day :eek: i washed and froze those for later too

My Dad has stuff in the freezer from over 2 years ago and its all fine (come to think of it so do i) My neighbour did find some mince from 1997 :rotfl:that went in the bin and i didn`t argue with his decision

SD

geordie_joe

thriftlady wrote: »

Most meat and game needs to be hung or aged a while before it is fit to eat.

Meat is fit to eat as soon as the animal is killed. It might be better if hung for a while, but being fit to eat and being better are two different things.

thriftlady wrote: »

Any decent butcher will hang beef for 3 weeks. I think the change in colour is to do with oxidisation.;)

A butcher on TV the other day says it is to do with the blood draining away. That's why, when you buy meat from a supermarket there is always a pool of blood in the bottom of the packaging.

Butchers hang the meat until all the blood is drained, the supermarkets make you pay for it.

llh189

I have been paid today and have 5 people coming for Christmas lunch and staying for 5 days. I am away from home working for the first 2.5 weeks of December and working full time right up until christmas eve, so from a financial point of view and to be really organised, I wanted to start putting things away for Christmas.

I have some store cupboard stuff that has long use by dates but everything that is fresh and freezable says use within one month, this ranges from chicken thighs, fresh soups, sausages, bacon too fresh pureed veg. My only local supermarket is Sainsburys and this is something I have never really noticed or much worried about!

If it were the odd product I'd think it was product specific but it is literally everything I picked up, are the labels and Sainsburys being over anxious.

I am obviously not wanting to kill my guests or make them poorly but I am really keen to get organised - any thoughts!

Thank you!

VfM4meplse

I see no need to respect the use within one month of freezing warning, extending to 7 weeks should be no problem as I often cook and store for longer - but bear in mind my advice only applies to vegetarian food.