Questions tagged [spoilage]
Use this tag for questions about food or drinks that have gone bad, or will soon be.
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Best way to remove fruit flies from your kitchen
I have a confession to make.
I was lazy, I didn't think it would cause any harm, but it did.
And now they are back. The fruit flies have taken over my kitchen, and I need help fighting them.
Story: ...
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Do different fat contents (skim, 2%, whole, etc) affect rate or intensity of milk spoilage?
Does milk with different fat contents (skim, 2%, whole, etc.) spoil at different rates?
And when spoilage does occur, are milks with higher fat content more sour than those with less?
Are there ...
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How can you recognize cold milk that has gone bad or is about to?
The methods that I know to test cold milk is to either boil it and look for the break, taste it (yuk!), or hope it smells bad enough to know it's bad.
Is there an easy and scientific way to know ...
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Why did this gallon of milk stay fresh for so long?
A few months ago I had a gallon of milk in the back of the fridge that stayed fresh for over a month - maybe even two; I lost track.
Our house is only me and my wife. We don't drink milk often. I ...
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Does having spoiling food in your fridge cause other food to spoil faster?
We all have forgotten remnants that get pushed to the back of the fridge and eventually become science experiments. Does the presence of such items (assuming they're left in a non-air tight container) ...
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How long do raw chestnuts keep?
I bought some chestnuts in the fall for Christmas but haven't used them all yet. How long do they keep? How would I tell if they 'went bad'? They look just like they did when I bought them (no ...
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Does an avocado seed help guacamole stay green?
My friend was telling me about a habit in the Spanish culture (I'm not sure if it's done elsewhere as well) of leaving the avocado seed inside when making guacamole. The claim is that if you leave the ...
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How long can chocolate be held at temper?
I just got a chocolate melter and have held some tempered pure chocolate (Lindt Excellence 90%) for a day at 33C.
I intend to make up 3 or 4 truffles, a few times a week.
What’s occurred to me is ...
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Canned Coconut milk is curdled when opened
I bought Coconut milk (88% coconut and rest water) in a sealed can, when I opened it the solid where already separated from the liquid. The solid part was at the top quite thick like frozen coconut ...
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Is it bad to refrigerate cut up onions?
Can we store cut up onions in the fridge or do onions go bad in the fridge? Do they become poisonous? Can onions be safely stored in the refrigerator after peeling? Also how can you tell if an onion ...
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Why did my potatoes and bananas spoil to mush within a week?
I bought a bag of potatoes and a hand of bananas on Sunday (from Costco)
and just let them sit in the kitchen until Friday, when I noticed water
oozing out of a few of the bananas.
Then, the next day, ...
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My ginger is moist and floppy... has it spoiled?
I have a piece of raw ginger root which I bought a couple of weeks ago and stored in the produce drawer of my fridge. I always store my ginger root this way, and it remains usable for weeks. Today I ...
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Is it unwise to store oils etc above gas stove/oven?
Due to space constraints I keep my oils and some various cooking sauces above the gas stove/oven. These can get VERY hot up there. Am I ruining my oils? The red wine seems like a bad idea in ...
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Does sauerkraut go bad?
I have had a tupperware of sauerkraut I bought from the grocery store in my refrigerator for almost two months. When/Will it ever go bad?
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bread that does not get moldy
How can a bread have an expiration date of one year into the future?? The bread in questions is Deutsche Küche rye bread (from Aldi). Yes, it is a dense bread, but it is not dry like a cracker, so ...
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What happened to my frozen yeast?
I had a leftover block of commercially bought frozen yeast. I kept it it the freezer, well below 0 celsius. I'll admit I didn't check on it for years.
I opened the container today. It was stinking ...
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Any food safety risk eating cold refrigerated pizza?
I love eating cold pizza leftovers straight from the fridge. Someone recently told me that you should always reheat leftover pizza to kill off any bad bugs that could be growing in there. Is there any ...
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Discolored ring in squash
Our yellow squash has some brownish discoloration inside in a ring down that extends length-wise. Is this normal variation and safe to eat, or is this an indicator that the squash has gone bad?
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When is an avocado considered bad?
I'm generally an avocado purist, so I throw out any brown spots, but I notice that many restaurants serve avocado even with the brown stuff...
When is an avocado considered bad, and when should the ...
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Is it possible to make yogurt and cheese from spoiled milk?
I get raw milk and to somehow pasteurize it, I boil it. The milk strongly curdled showing that it is spoiled and rotten (definitely, not suitable for drinking). Is it totally bad milk and I should ...
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"Acetone" smell on bread
I sometimes buy a brand of multi-grain salt-free bread *. After 2-3 days, it gets a very distinct smell of acetone, like paint stripper or nail polish remover. If I toast the bread, the smell goes ...
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can maple syrup be refrigerated after it was out for a few days?
I opened Adirondack pure maple syrup a few days ago. It didn't say to refrigerate, so I didn't. When I googled it, it said that it should be refrigerated. Can I still do that? If I may not use it ...
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Is it normal this white substance in my canned green peas?
I just opened a can of petit pois and I found them covered in this white, gooey substance, as opposed (or maybe better "in addition") to the usual clear liquid.
I don't think I have seen it before. I ...
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Can distilled water in gallon plastic bottles expire?
I am puzzled about this. Depending on what article I read I get different results. There are no experts per say. It's just a bunch of people voicing their opinion concerning distilled water expiration ...
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Is tea that has been out on air for long dangerous to drink?
Suppose you made a cup of tea (the real tea, not bagged, and not a fruit drink) with no additions, but you forgot about it while doing other things (house stuff, homework, your job) and it has now ...
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Meat and Poultry Changing Color in Marinade?
I am working on a marinade for my chicken breast and filet mignon for a fondue we are planning on having tonight. I took the meat out of the fridge and noticed they both seemed to change color. The ...
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Storing spoiled meat with fresh meat in a freezer
I just bought a new chest freezer to store some lamb and beef. I placed the fresh lamb meat in a couple of metal containers (not covered) and put these in the freezer. I did the same with the beef but ...
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Ground beef smells slightly sweet?
I opened up a package of ground beef today that I had bought the day before from a reputable grocery store. I left it out about an hour to warm up a little. It was grass-fed, which I don't normally ...
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Tainted tupperware
I took an orange to work inside a polypropylene food storage box, and then (ahem...) forget about it for a couple of months. Upon rediscovering it, I threw out the mouldy remnants of the orange and ...
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What has happened to this oil?
I recently purchased some sun-dried tomatoes in oil. However a few days in the fridge and they look like this despite being unopened.
I regularly buy these tomatoes and store them in the same way. ...
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Saving spoiling mushrooms?
Are there any recipes specially for mushrooms that are on their way out, like making banana bread from over-ripe bananas?
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When do bananas go bad? [duplicate]
When do bananas become unsafe for eating? Is it when they turn brown? Or black? Not for recipes, but for straight eating. Also, does the peel color even matter if the inside of the banana is still ...
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Does store-bought Kombucha spoil? If so, how can I tell?
I recently bought Ginger Kombucha for the first time in a reputable health food store. I'd never heard of it, but my doctor feels the probiotics will help my chronic digestive problem. Because of the ...
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Why did my whole milk go bad faster than skim milk?
Why did my whole milk curdle and get yucky and smell before my skim milk when left out? I thought it was supposed to be the opposite.
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Crystals on bottle of sweet alcohol
We've been given an old bottle of alcohol, an amaretto.
At the top of the bottle, where the lid and bottle rim meet, a few crystals have formed. I'm guessing it's the sugars but am not sure.
Some ...
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Can Grapeseed oil be considered edible after it has passed the expiry date?
We have an un-opened bottle of grapeseed oil that got buried away and never used.
It has 'best by 3/31/2012' on the label.
Should I just throw it out or is it possibly still good? It's from Italy ...
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How do we keep our roasted cashews from smelling bad eventually?
We are from a small manufacturing unit and do roasting and packing of cashews. After roasting we pack them in polypropylene pouches with nitrogen flushing. But after 2-3 months cashews are smelling ...
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Safety of adding dried hot pepper to opened jar of pickles
I have a particular brand of jarred pickles I buy from a local supplier. They're some kind of beer pickle, and the brine has a vinegar and IPA type of taste, and it's loaded with garlic and dill. Very ...
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What is the white substance floating in my fresh mozzarella brine?
I purchased fresh mozzarella bocconcini from Whole Foods six days ago. The mozzarella is sold in a brine solution. I opened the package when I bought it and have kept it refrigerated since, using the ...
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licking spoon and putting back in the food
Recently had some guest at my house - while I was in another room one of the guest was sampling the food repeatedly and put the spoon from mouth back in the food. Is this a health concern? Does the ...
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Can exposure to carbon dioxide spoil a lactic fermentation project?
I’m using lactic fermentation to make a batch of sauerkraut, fermented berries, etc.
Rather than going the glass jar route I’ve placed everything in a vacuum sealed bag. This is a technique which Noma ...
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What should roasted pistachio oil smell like?
I've had a bottle of roasted pistachio oil sitting in my refrigerator for about two years now, that someone gifted me. Every day I open the refrigerator and it stares at me. Today I decided that ...
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Will skim milk powder go bad when mixed with peanut butter?
I love to make those peanut butter energy balls to take with me on camping trips, or even a day fishing or after a long run. If I add skim milk powder to them is there anything that will make the skim ...
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Is the sink or float test for eggs accurate?
I recently read that the sink-or-float test to see if eggs are still good is not a very reliable judge; eggs float because as they age the eggs lose moisture and air replaces it. That’s what I read. ...
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Used old chicken broth in a stew, but washed it out. Will it be safe to eat?
I was making a beefstew, but didn't have any beef broth, so I used some chicken broth I had in the fridge. It smelled bad and thought it must be old. I rinsed the meat and potatoes.... 3 times. Do ...
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Half and half cream already curdled in a fresh carton
What could be going on here? On several occasions recently, I have purchased small (half pint) cartons of half-and-half (10%) cream. The "out" date on the carton is at least four weeks into the future....
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slimy red onion
I purchased a red onion yesterday, sliced it open and noticed that it felt slimy on the red skin of one of the exposed inner layers. I've never noticed that before. Is that normal, or has the onion ...
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Relation between concentration of sugar in syrup VS its spoil rate
My mother recently created a Centella asiatica vegetable juice.
She states that we should add some sugar (e.g. 2 tea-spoons for 1.5 liter of vegetable water) to reduce the spoil rate of the juice....
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How do I tell if my fermented sauce has gone bad?
Related to another question of mine:
I found this recipe for a lacto fermented hot sauce. Basically you take blended up chiles, 2.5% salt, water (not sure if necessary), and oak cubes (I kind of just ...
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How long is Miso Paste good for in the fridge after opening? [duplicate]
I'm not sure how to judge the fridge life of this stuff, does this salty stuff last awhile?
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