I once ate week old Spag Bol during a tough week but haven't beaten that personal record for a few years.
OzBargain, what's the oldest leftovers you have shamelessy eaten?
How Old Is Too Old for Leftovers?
Careful With Money on 19/07/2022 - 19:48
Last edited 19/07/2022 - 19:48
Last edited 19/07/2022 - 19:48
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probably because there was no real taro or milk or tea in that drink
Leftover/stale bread is actually good for your guts. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20220419/282338273…
I ate five-day-old curry for breakfast about four hours ago. Will keep you posted.
1 day for fish, chicken, bbq leftovers, pizza and salads.
2 days for pasta and rice.
3-4 days for veggie meals and soups.pretty sure veggies tastes yuck after few days and reheat
Yeah, nah… chicken lasts way longer than 1 day. I keep roast chickens for up to 5 days in the fridge.
culture and diet, food preparation and food storage are important factors. cant lob everything and anything in the same categories
cant give south east Asian person mouldy cheese whom have never eaten it before not to get sick, where a European person would happily graze on the stuff with no problems.
cant give a farmer in the Australian outback stinky tofu from taiwan and expect them to be OK either.
the issue in Australia is that the stinky tofu doesn't stink
you got to have those that are deep fried where you can smell it streets away
MMMmmm stinky tofu. i miss it
good times
This is so true.. I remember the moment that I had to explain my dad that some of the 'fresh' produce (fruits etc) in supermarkets aren't literally 'fresh' and could be frozen for months before coming in to shelves labelled as 'fresh'. Coming from a country where you only call 'fresh' for a fruit if you just picked it from the tree there & then, this 'fresh produce' concept was so alien for him and hard to swallow..
I love leftovers and have a stomach of steel so can eat pretty much anything, probably due to my parents below average cooking haha
I eat anything up to say a week, probably more depending how on the food/storage/etc, or until my wife threatens to throw it out and then I eat it immediately.Hahah i thought it was just me, once the partner threatens to throw it out, one final sniff test before show time.
3-4 days in fridge, if I know I've cooked more than that the rest will go in the freezer.
How much mould is too much mould?
Free penicillin!
have you tried roquefort cheese.
i ordered it once in a salad not knowing what it was. i'll tell you if i had left it on the table any longer the cheese could have walked off the table. the stuff is alive and fluffy,.
Guess I'd just say it depends - have nothing against eating well-kept food a week or more after it's been cooked - provided it passes vision/smell tests. My partner goes a bit safer and a week would be an absolute max for her.
Not leftovers, but we have a Coconut Yoghurt container recently rediscovered in the fridge, whose Best Before date is "15 July". The only thing is I know it's fortunate that there is no year in that BB date. Figure it must have been 15 July 2021 - it's gone hard but still tastes fine. 😉
Reminds me of this episode from a doctor who does videos on same of the cases he sees.
@stedmaster
Exactly the youtube video that came to mind when I saw the title as well!
So you guys just ruined pasta salad for me at picnics/bbqs now :(
Lol! well any food can carry the bacteria that happened to be in his 5 day old pasta, it's common. :O
He didnt die solely from the bacteria though, but the combination of bacteria and the digestive tummy medication he thought would help, the bacteria and particularly the medication contributed to his kidneys shuting down.
Home cooked stuff sometimes up to 8 days, properly reheated on the stove and after passing the smell and visual test. Never had food poisoning. We almost never waste any food and mostly repurpose leftovers the following days by adding some new ingredient(s).
Not a $$ thing, just in principle. Also enjoy inventing new shit that we know noone else in the world would be having the same dish lol"once ate week old spag bol" - only once? A week is nothing! Let the microwave do its thing!!
Left over roast chicken bought from Coles/Woolies is the hard one……. maybe 3-4 days but i have to heat it up really high to be safe!
I read that entirely wrong and was like What? You can ask for leftovers at any age I reckon!
If it's not mouldy but borderline in terms of how i'd feel about it eating it (2-5 days old), it goes to the chickens.
Chickens convert the food back into a nice fresh egg. Easy.
About a week also - was some cooked chicken stir fry.
But I had a very bad food poisoning experience which made me much more careful about this kind of thing. Someone gave me a container of fried rice from their friend's mother. I had it for dinner one night and couldn't stop vomiting for almost a week, couldn't keep anything down, not even more than a sip of water. I lost 7kg in 3 days.
did you get an iv?
A month over expired bacon, still taste pretty good.
Really, fat goes rancid after that long. Maybe if frozen.
Yep it was frozen bought it from coles for $6 per kg streaky bacon.
Bacon's good for months if frozen. It can get a poor texture but is fine otherwise.
A couple of weeks in the freezer many times. In the fridge, maybe 4-5 days.
1 day - Preferable
2-3 days - Fine
4 days - Borderline
5+ days - Nope
Longest from expiry, probably peanut butter 2 years past its used by date. Since it was full of salt it and kept airtight it was fine. Just had to stir it a bit in the jar as the oils had separated.
How Old Is Too Old for Leftovers? Read that completely wrong, I thought the question was "How old is too old to eat leftovers"
Your nose will tell you
24hrs max excludes frozen time.
1.5-2 weeks. Haven't had any issues. They're just meat dishes, no dairy.
Nope. I don't mess about with food. I only eat fresh food.
Max I'll keep anything (like soup) is 2 or 3 days although I may freeze some meals.
I am pretty careful with leftovers. I think the longest would have to be 5 days but it needs to be stored well. The only time I am sure I got food poisoning was from a school fete, ordering a soy cappuccino in like 45 degrees heat. Within hours my stomach rumbled and I leave the rest to your imagination. I am more watchful how the food is stored in heat now because of it.
Speaking of which, chicken from aldi. Has anyone else noticed how it never lasts to the stated use by date? I shop weekly and definitely have to pop meat in the freezer straight away, unless using the same day.
Food poisoning is definitely an issue in the Australian heat. I am German and my family - and everyone I know in Germany - cooks lunch/ dinner, then just leaves it out in the pot on the stove until the next day and sometimes a few days. My dad's new wife offered me cabonara - cream, bacon - that had been sitting on the stove for 4 days. I just zapped it extra long in the microwave and it was fine, but weird from an Australian perspective. And no, it's a myth that Germans are used to the cold, houses are so well insulated they are pretty warm year round…. Food poisoning is not something well discussed in Germany and I wonder if it is because we don't usually have such extreme summer heats.
Yes, I agree about the Aldi chicken. It smells bad the day you buy it even though the use-by date is 10 days away. I do not but chicken there anymore. I have purchased beef, pork, and even smoked salmon all good.
As long as the sauce is not exposed to the air and there's a lid it's alright for a certain time.
If things are stored well, they can survive for a long time in the fridge. I have eaten leftovers 2-3 weeks later, but they are kept in air tight containers. It ofcourse depends on the product and also the more types of items in the same container, the quicker they can go off. Thats the fridge, if we are talking freezer, i have had meat from the freezer 10 years old. no dramas.
Also depends how cold your normal fridge temperature is at. Mine's at 2°c which is sometimes abit too cold for some products. But in general most foods will last.
You see, I hate cooking, so when I do cook, you'll be damn sure that I will be making that last for the proceeding 4-5 days (lunch/dinner alternating).
2 days but happy to stretch it out to 3, 4 would be the absolute limit.
If I cook something on Sunday, I try to eat it by Thursday. Friday is pushing it. I don't leave the food out too long, goes straight into the fridge though.
Not even joking when I say this. I've eaten chicken mince I've left in the fridge for two weeks and survived. I also left beef mince in my car on a 40 degree day (it was frozen at 8am and semi defrosted at 12:30) I ate that and still survived.
why risk it though haha ?
I made way too much meal prep in one go and I refused to be defeated…also it smelled okay so I figured i would test my stomaches might. In my mind I'm currently 2-0 Baha.
Why not freeze haha, and bruh you are lucky haha
@TerryJustTerry: baha well logically yes freezing it would of been a good idea but i hate defrosting meals, but further to that, food poisoning doesn't exist if you don't believe in it brotha!
If it smells OK, it's fine.
9 days is the max I have gone48 hours is my magic number. Except pizza, maybe 72 hours there
Isn't spag bol a week old perfect vintage tho?
cooked food in fridge ill only eat for up to 3 days. i dont tend to trust stuff much as i dont have an iron gut like my wife, so ill toss stuff im not sure about.
My fermented sauce keeps for 6 months
For well cooked food about 3-5 days. Very seldom goes out to 6 days but happens when the wife gets cravings for other stuff and we get work meals.
Almost never had issues associated with the storage and the age of the food.
Technically, isn't meal prep leftover food? I know a few folks who cook on Sundays, partition them and eat them throughout the week. So that's around 5/6 days old for the last meal consistently.
Personally, i think the longest I had was maybe a week. Although we're generally careful by using serving utensils for bigger meals we think we can't finish. So we end up keeping excess portions in the fridge that hasn't actually been "touched".
Fried Rice Syndrome (it can & does kill you) Read it OP, it has spag bog in it for you
Leftovers can be amazing. They are an easy meal you don't have to think about and can just heat up and eat. However, it turns out they can also be very dangerous, and even deadly. That was the sad case for a 20-year-old student who passed away after eating five-day-old pasta.
His case was written about in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology a few years ago, but thanks to some YouTube videos and Reddit posts, it's making waves again. According to case reports, to save time, the student would make his meals for the week on Sunday. One week, he boiled some pasta and put it in Tupperware containers so that he could just add some sauce to it and reheat it days later.
After five days of the pasta sitting on the counter at room temperature, he reheated some and ate it. He noted a strange taste but wrote it off to the new tomato sauce he was using. He went out to play sports however after 30 minutes, he had to come home due to abdominal pain, nausea and a headache. Diarrhea and vomiting followed so he drank water and tried to sleep it off. The next day, when he didn't get out of bed for his classes, his parents checked on him and unfortunately, he had died.
After examining his body, investigators concluded he passed away at 4 a.m., ten hours after eating the spaghetti. His autopsy showed he died of liver necrosis after his liver had shut down. Samples of the pasta and tomato sauce he ate were sent to the National Reference Laboratory for Food-borne Outbreaks, where they discovered significant amounts of a bacterial called Bacillus cereus. In most cases, the bacteria just causes diarrhea and vomiting, but there are extreme cases where it affects the liver and causes it to fail.
The bacteria is best known for causing a type of food poisoning called "Fried Rice Syndrome," since rice is sometimes cooked and left to cool at room temperature for a few hours. During that time, the bacteria contaminates it and grows. It is especially dangerous because the bacteria produces a toxin in rice and other starchy foods that is heat resistant and may not die when the food it is on is cooked.
B. cereus is scarily common too. Previously, an entire family got sick from it after eating eight-day-old pasta salad at a picnic. To prevent getting sick from it, just be sure any starchy food you eat hasn't been kept at room temperature for an extended period of time. When in doubt, cook it at a high temperature to try to kill off any bacteria, or just don't eat it.Ah yes, i've heard this story many times now however the key thing to note is that the leftovers were left outside at room temperature, big no no. Luckily my kitchen is small and it'd be hard to miss the spag bol sitting on the bench for 5 days straight haha. Although I would still give it a sniff test before dumping it (incase i come across the scent again).
If the dog rejects it, so do I; or if it is green & furry
If you're talking about this case, you forgot to mention that he took a whole bottle of stomach medicine that contained aspirin. If he hadn't done that he'd might well have survived.
I have not read it yet, too busy :p
There's a lot of natural selection involved in this story … and that's before I read your comment
I just copy & paste from an article
I kept it & I will read later or use it as reference
I have space as I have a DAS with over 50TB
Totally depends on what it is. For example if it has lots of salt and garlic and chilli, like lots of my food, all that acts as a preservative, in a fridge could last weeks if I pushed it… that's vegetarian usually though. If meat, could be OK unless it's seafood….
2 week old chicken wings. They were cooked and put straight into the fridge in separate boxes. The last box was eaten 2 weeks after they were made.
depends on the food and how it is stored. e.g. leftover chilli I usually feeze in meal sized portions so will eat the leftovers sometimes a few weeks later. something in the fridge though usually at most 3 or 4 days depending on type of food.
Just last night, Greek Yogurt 1 month after expiry.
It was sour before the best before/use by, still sour a month later.
Best before is more like a guideline anyway
I never react to dodgy food and am pretty relaxed about age storage etc. Cant even remember the last time I had a reaction to bad food, must be 20years +.
Anyway after reading this post last night I cooked up some chicken breast on the BBQ that had been defrosting for a few 3? days in the fridge. The middle was still a bit pink so I just trimmed the edges to add to a pasta sauce for that night.
Boom, a few hours later massive headache followed by nausea and unfulfilled desire to vomit. Thought I was coming down with covid as I couldn't believe the chicken had got me but no fever and fortunately after an uncomfortable night Im ok today. Pure coincidence I guess, I don't think my psyche could have manufactured those symptoms. The leftover chicken is in the bin.I find if I have to ask myself "when did we last have insert leftover food" then it's past where I'm comfortable to still eat it.
An OzBargainer ate a one week old spag bowl. This is what happened to his bargains
No joke I cooked some left over mince and beans and turned them into Nachos 8 days after I originally cooked them. They smelled fine so I took the chance.
It all depends honestly. The mince was 4 days past it's best before date when I cooked it. The packet was not swollen and the mince smelt fine so I used it. My fridge gets opened once a day though and it is normally very cold. If you can avoid it I would day three days max and cool the food quickly after cooking. Anything greater and you risk getting a case of the runs.
I worked at a pizza shop for many years and the golden rule was 1-2 days for seafood, 2 days for poultry and 4 days max for red meats. The old saying "the nose knows" is true in many cases but can't be trusted for some cooked foods. These days I go with 'if in doubt, chuck it out' and feed it to my chickens.
Try 2 months for the pasta. With this temp, you can keep it outside as well
2 months in the fridge?
You win.
Hahaha. OP will be asking for diarrhoea pills in the same forum 🤣
Ate by accident 😅😅
4 years post expired date vegimite. About half large jar left over and used the lot.
Did it taste okay?
Tasted like Vegemite and nothing looked different
Generally have a bit of an iron gut, except one time when younger me ate a kabana that was slimy and paid for it over the following week lol
These days I avoid slimy sausage, and generally do the smell test
My general rule of thumb is 3 days for leftovers. Longer for roast meats.
We had a friend who was getting stomach issues due to eating leftovers which were too old.
Depends on what it is. If it passes the sniff test its usually okay and I'll eat it
If it passes the sniff and taste test, I'd happily eat it. Haven't had any issues yet.
Side note, I found a pile of fly eggs on my leafovers smoko one time. More actively shoo-ing flies away around food now lol
Homemade spag bol?
For me….
No days if left out overnight.
3 days in the fridge. Microwaved before eating.
1 week in the freezer (it would probably last much longer than that). Microwaved before heating.Oh, but to answer your question. 1 day expired milk. Yes, no badge for me.
Once when I was about 14 and sleeping away from home at a dorm, I ate KFC that had been left out of the fridge overnight, the following day. That night I woke up feeling sick and threw up from the top of my bunk bed. Believe it or not I didn't realise at that age, that fast food had to be refrigerated (our dorms had no fridges anyway).
My mate won a chook at a chook raffle (what else does one win at a chook raffle), it was a frozen chook, which was good, as it was summer.
My mate gave me that chook, saying that he won it in a chook raffle yesterday. I roasted it up for lunch and it very juicy.
I heated it back up for tea, but it was walking; from all the maggots in it.
My mate did not tell me that after he won the chook. He threw it on the front passengers floor & left it there overnight & just took it out not long before I got to his place. The bastard never bothered to mention any of this did heGross, is he still your mate?
No, I found out he was beating his mother; I stopped that
I once drank a week old taro milk tea…