Bits
Things you don't hear every day:
"You know, I'm really getting sick of you...and your ham."
Which brings up the following hypothetical:
Say you went to a Christmas brunch, perhaps after church. Say you take home multiple plates of leftovers. Say you have a plate of salad and a plate of ham. Baked, glazed, sliced Christmas-style ham. Just how long do these kinds of things stay good in the fridge?
This is a source of constant aggravation for the Wife, because I tend to be of the persuasion that the fridge is a magical timeless place where the milk I pull out of the fridge two weeks later has existed in there completely unchanged and perfectly fit for consumption.
The Wife on the other hand leans more towards the line of thought that the fridge instantly sours anything placed in it's confines. She's never eaten anything out of the fridge not commercially packaged with it's factory seal intact, yet for some reason insists on collecting half-empty cans of root beer in there. As far as she's concerned, I may as well just polish of that jar of pickles after opening it, since they'll all be bad tomorrow.
My objections citing the well-documented finds of pickles and glazed ham that was still good in the Egyptian pyramids never seem to hold much weight.
If you're going to comment, please keep in mind I'm looking more for quantifiable, scientific assessments than fearful 'two-day old meatloaf gives me the willies' kind of comments. If you're not talking chemistry, evolution and microorganisms (or perhaps the conservation of precious food resources), I don't want to hear it. (Because under no circumstances can I allow the Wife to win this one.)
9 comments:
My father is famous for having eaten things so old we'd forgotten they were even in the fridge to begin with. Frankly, I think he has an iron stomach.
Well, he is a man of God. Faith is a powerful thing.
After 2 days in there its old.. sorry Chris
Here's how I see it:
Let X = the number of days it takes for a given food type to go bad. Let T = the amount of time the food has been in the fridge. Thus, when newly opened, T = 0. After a day, T = 1, and so on. Now, if X is an integer, as T progresses from 0 to X it must first pass .5X. And then, as time continues to pass, before T can reach X, it must reach another half way point, between .5X and X, or .75X. Then, it must continue on half way, because it must travel half way between .75X and X before reaching X, and so will reach only that half way point, growing ever closer and closer to X, but never reaching X. Therefore, food does not go bad.
Or, as an alternative comment:
"Anyone want the last olive?"
"Hal, those aren't olives, those are peaches!"
(Malcom in the Middle)
First of all, the ham was technically a leftover on Christmas, because the catering company that the church hired would not deliver on Christmas Day, the food was delivered on Christmas eve and sat in the fridge at the 1-18 dining facility for a day before it was reheated for us on Sunday. Therefore, the ham was a leftover leftover which was on it's 7th day by the time you ate it. Now I understand ham is cured and everything, but, ick. Second, if something in the fridge passes through it's window of opportunity uneaten, yes, I will throw it out as I'd rather mourn a 2 month old block of cheese in the trash than pay dearly for eating it for the rest of the day. Let it go my love.
Also, as something passes down the hierarchy of appropriate individuals to comsume food items in the fridge, say, me, razz, you, knut...I'd like to make a rule that anytime you feed a cat questionable leftovers, you're responsible for anything regurgitated. Now I officially have witnesses.
...if something in the fridge passes through it's window of opportunity uneaten, yes, I will throw it out as I'd rather mourn a 2 month old block of cheese in the trash than pay dearly for eating it for the rest of the day...
The problem, my dearest Love, is that you don't throw anything out. Ever. You save things under the delusion that you'll "eat it tomorrow." Instead, it stays in there, tempting me, and, in some cases, looking deceptively fresh until I make an ill-fated attempt at consumption.
Apparently Matt has confused the fridge life of food with the half-life of radioactive elements.
Granted, they're not completely dissimilar measures...
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As far as I'm concerned, if it tastes/smells normal and the eater doesn't die, the food hasn't gone bad. The miserable stomach ache and explosive diarrhea are just as likely to be from the freshly-prepared steak as they are from the week-old mashed potatoes. Until the person arguing the latter is willing to investigate the chemical makeup of the results, he or she has no case. Food is innocent of any sickening of the eater until proven otherwise.
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