By Clint Thompson
Thanksgiving Day feasts across the Southeast this week means people are consuming plenty of delicious foods like turkey, ham, fruits and vegetables. While food safety is essential Thanksgiving Day, it is also important for those leftovers and how long people can wait before consuming them.
Keith Schneider, a food safety professor in the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) food science and human nutrition department, discussed the timeframe that people need to consider when eating leftovers.
“It depends on what the food is. Typically, though, leftovers in the refrigerator, 3 to 5 days, typically. Even though you’ve killed most of the pathogenic microorganisms, spoilage organisms can survive. Even though the food may not make you sick, the food can still spoil even at refrigerated temperatures,” Schneider said. “If you’re going to freeze it just in Saran wrap or foil or something, you can get a couple of weeks out of it. If you vacuum seal it, you can get six months to a year.
“Three to five days in a refrigerator or three to five months in a freezer, that’s very conservative.”