Can I cook with this? Pomegranate juice edition

September 9, 2015 6:33 PM

Bought a bottle of (refrigerated) pomegranate juice at the grocery store this morning. Forgot about it in the bag on the counter for about 7 hours before I remembered and put it in the fridge. House is air-conditioned. Bottle was cool to the touch but not cold. Can I use it in a recipe that calls for boiling the juice? Or did I kill it?
posted by Mchelly to Food & Drink (9 answers total)

of course you can use this 100% safe normal juice. it will not kill you or anyone else unless you beat them to death with the bottle.
posted by poffin boffin at 6:34 PM on September 9, 2015 [42 favorites]

If the bottle was unopened, you'll be fine. If it was opened, unless you have a particularly weak immune system and stomach, you should be perfectly fine.
posted by buttonedup at 6:41 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wouldn't think twice about drinking this. It is not at all dangerous.
posted by nanojath at 6:59 PM on September 9, 2015

I almost always say "throw it away!" in response to these questions, but I would drink this (or use it cooking) without hesitation.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:47 PM on September 9, 2015

Is it unopened? Then yes. If opened, probably still yes, but there is a difference.
posted by delight at 8:42 PM on September 9, 2015

Unless one of the ingredients is raw meat, this is perfectly fine.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:03 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I used to keep a carton of grapefruit juice my bed when I was 18 (just moved out of home, minimal common sense). It was great, I could take a drink each morning when I woke up straight from the carton without traipsing downstairs.

Then one day my friend poured some out into a glass, and we noticed the chunks of mould floating in it. That carton had been by my bed for six months or so. We are all still alive eighteen years later. No symptoms whatsoever. I do now refrigerate my juice, but that pomegranate juice of yours is absolutely fine.
posted by tinkletown at 1:14 AM on September 10, 2015 [5 favorites]

Unopened? Seal unbroken? Yeah, you're fine.

Over here in heathen communist socialist atheist western europe, juice and milk are also sold at room temperature. Whilst rumors abound that we are all primitives without basic sanitation who go around speaking languages that are not English, we have not yet succumbed to mass die-offs from juice drinking.
posted by MarionnetteFilleDeChaussette at 7:37 AM on September 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

Anecdata: my dad once bought refrigerated pomegranate juice for me and, not knowing that it was supposed to be refrigerated, left it out at room temperature for over a week before putting it in the fridge for my visit (to bring it to proper drinking temperature, which is apparently why he thought it was refrigerated at the store). I drank a third of a bottle before I found out and suffered no ill effects.

I was pregnant at the time though, so you better believe I stopped drinking it after I found out. He was not happy that I threw it out, and claimed that it was fine because it wasn't "puffed." The older generations have interesting ideas about food safety sometimes ...
posted by insoluble uncertainty at 12:52 PM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]