7 Ways to Check If Your Food Is Good for Eating After Being Untouched for Long

Sometimes when you open your refrigerator, you may find a food item that has not been touched for a long time. It may look good on the outside, but you’re still not sure if it’s safe to eat. Sure, taking a whiff of it for any funny smells or finding unusual textures are surefire signs of food gone bad, but there are more tricks to find out if the food item in question is actually safe to consume. Let 5-Minute Crafts suggest some tips for you to do the same.

1. Eggs

In order to test if an egg is fresh, try the egg-float test. All you have to do is drop an egg into a glass of water and look for the following:

✔️If the egg sinks to the bottom, it’s fresh and ideal for soft-boiling, poaching, and using to make souffles.

⚠️If it is submerged but you see its wide end up, then it means the egg is older but can be used for many things, particularly hard-boiling. Here, the eggs should be cooked entirely.

❌If the egg floats, it’s not good for consumption. Just throw it away.

2. Poultry

To check if raw poultry is good to consume, try the following methods:

1. By visual inspection:

❌If the meat has a green tinge beneath the wings, bruises, or blood clots on the surface, avoid consuming it.

✔️The meat must be white or light pink in color to indicate that it’s fresh.

2. By texture and touch:

✔️When it comes to texture, the fresh meat should be firm and the muscle fibers easily visible.

✔️When you touch fresh meat it shouldn’t have a slimy texture and your fingers should be dry.

3. By cutting:

❌If the meat isn’t fresh, the fat may appear yellow.

✔️When you cut it, fresh meat doesn’t appear translucent or watery.

3. Red meat

✔️The red meat must look bright red in color. However, vacuum-packed meat must have a slight brownish shade. It’s good to consume.

✔️When cutting red meat, the pieces shouldn’t fall off easily.

4. Honey

You can test if the honey is good by sprinkling some starch on it.

❌If the starch is absorbed, it’s honey gone bad.

✔️If it settles on the surface of the honey like a white cap, the honey is good to go.

5. Butter

⚠️Apart from the expiry dates, mold, discoloration, and bad smells or tastes, there’s another way to check if your butter is still okay to consume. If the surface of the stick is an intense yellow color instead of the color of fresh butter, but the layer beneath is paler, then it means that the butter is oxidized. All you have to do is remove the oxidized layer and the rest is safe to use.

6. Vinegar

The Vinegar Institute has confirmed that vinegar doesn’t go bad, as it has an indefinite shelf life. And because it’s acidic in nature, it’s self-preserving and doesn’t need to be refrigerated. However, if you don’t store it properly, it may show changes in its appearance and taste. These changes may not be harmful in nature, but it’s essential to be aware of them.

⚠️Changes in the color of the vinegar are signs to look out for.

⚠️If you find something floating or see sediments in the vinegar, it may have lost its quality. You can filter the cloudy vinegar to remove the sediments.

✔️It may also develop a slimy, jelly-like deposit which is called the “mother” of the vinegar. It may not look good, but it’s totally harmless. It doesn’t impact the taste of the vinegar surrounding it. It can easily be removed by using a coffee filter.

7. Fish

To check if the fish is fresh, check the following methods:

1. By visual inspection:

✔️The freshest fish has bright metallic skin instead of discolored or dull spots.

✔️The gills of the fish are bright red and moist instead of being faded and brown.

❌If there is any milky liquid around the gills, the fish is not fresh.

✔️The eyes of the fish are clear and slightly bulging.

❌Fish with dull, sunken eyes are not fresh.

2. By touch:

✔️When you touch the meat with your finger, it springs back and the fingerprint vanishes quickly.

✔️The scales of the fish are firmly connected, which means when you run your finger along them, they stay in place and connected to the body. This means it’s fresh.

Do you know other methods of checking for the freshness of food items? Share what you know with us in the comments!