Can I Eat This - Vol MCIV
April 30, 2023 9:32 AM Subscribe
After a long long slot of COVID planning and longer slog of Executive Function issues, I find myself cleaning out a very full freezer. Everything has been in the freezer since 2020 at lesat. I'd like to know the consensus on the following meat items:
1. Packages of never opened ground beef.
2. Packages of various meat vacu-sealed for sous vide goodness.
3. Regular ziplocked meat.
My instinct is that it all has to go. But also, meat is expensive. Especially now.
1. Packages of never opened ground beef.
2. Packages of various meat vacu-sealed for sous vide goodness.
3. Regular ziplocked meat.
My instinct is that it all has to go. But also, meat is expensive. Especially now.
Best answer: Frozen food that has remained frozen literally never spoils or becomes unsafe. The texture may not be as good as it was a few years ago, but most of the change in texture occurred as soon as it was frozen.
Straight from the highly conservative USDA: "Food stored constantly at 0 °F will always be safe. Only the quality suffers with lengthy freezer storage."
In my experience freezer burned meats are still fine when slow cooked in soups or stews.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:44 AM on April 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
Straight from the highly conservative USDA: "Food stored constantly at 0 °F will always be safe. Only the quality suffers with lengthy freezer storage."
In my experience freezer burned meats are still fine when slow cooked in soups or stews.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:44 AM on April 30, 2023 [3 favorites]
Freezer "burning" is essentially the sublimation of water from the interior of the food outward. Anything that stops water from leaving the surface of the food is going to prevent freezer burn. Vacuum packed foods with no or very few air pockets can persist indefinitely with little change because there's nowhere for the water to go. Any packaging with substantial air pockets is going to wind up with ice crystals in those pockets after months/years. The food is still edible, it just becomes desiccated.
If the ground beef is in those sausage tubes, it's probably almost unchanged. If it's just meat trays with plastic wrap on top, it'll probably be dry around the edges. Vacu-sealed sous vide meat should also be nigh perfect. Ziplocked meat will probably be pretty dry.
All of it is safe to eat. Put the dry stuff in rich stews or soups. The rest prepare as before.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:50 AM on April 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
If the ground beef is in those sausage tubes, it's probably almost unchanged. If it's just meat trays with plastic wrap on top, it'll probably be dry around the edges. Vacu-sealed sous vide meat should also be nigh perfect. Ziplocked meat will probably be pretty dry.
All of it is safe to eat. Put the dry stuff in rich stews or soups. The rest prepare as before.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:50 AM on April 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
Ditto'ing the above. The more tightly sealed it was, the less freezer-burned it will be, but again it's a quality issue and not a safety issue. There's a good chance you won't notice any difference with most of it, especially if it's used as an ingredient and not a centerpiece.
posted by wintersweet at 9:50 AM on April 30, 2023
posted by wintersweet at 9:50 AM on April 30, 2023
Best answer: If your freezer is the frost free type associated with a refrigerator, I don’t think it necessarily is safe to eat those meats.
Simply because that kind of freezer has to heat up enough to melt the frost which has formed from condensation and then drain it away as a liquid, and this can cause food to move into the danger zone however briefly. But in my experience, over time such food can go bad.
I seem to recall a suggested six month safe storage limit for meats in that kind of freezer.
If you have a chest type freezer which is not frost free and you haven’t had power outages, I think you'll be fine.
posted by jamjam at 10:02 AM on April 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
Simply because that kind of freezer has to heat up enough to melt the frost which has formed from condensation and then drain it away as a liquid, and this can cause food to move into the danger zone however briefly. But in my experience, over time such food can go bad.
I seem to recall a suggested six month safe storage limit for meats in that kind of freezer.
If you have a chest type freezer which is not frost free and you haven’t had power outages, I think you'll be fine.
posted by jamjam at 10:02 AM on April 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
Agree, it will all be fine in terms of safety, but some might be better suited for stews/soups.
posted by coffeecat at 10:02 AM on April 30, 2023
posted by coffeecat at 10:02 AM on April 30, 2023
Best answer: In the past month, I've eaten vacuum-packed beef - - major cuts and ground beef -- from my big freezer. All beef was purchased frozen and stored in Oct. 2021. Everything was safe and delicious.
I also thawed, cooked, and ate some chicken thighs that had been in a ziplock bag for close to a year as just a quick saute with salt, pepper, and rosemary. It tasted -- less than great. It wasn't bad -- I did not get ill -- but it did taste of the freezer. I broiled the rest of the thighs in a yogurt spice marinade a couple of weeks later and they were delicious.
So your continuously frozen meat should be safe, BUT cook it with big flavours to enjoy it.
posted by maudlin at 10:16 AM on April 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I also thawed, cooked, and ate some chicken thighs that had been in a ziplock bag for close to a year as just a quick saute with salt, pepper, and rosemary. It tasted -- less than great. It wasn't bad -- I did not get ill -- but it did taste of the freezer. I broiled the rest of the thighs in a yogurt spice marinade a couple of weeks later and they were delicious.
So your continuously frozen meat should be safe, BUT cook it with big flavours to enjoy it.
posted by maudlin at 10:16 AM on April 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you everyone!
I'm finally cleaning up my depression nest, and an outside perspective is always loved.
posted by politikitty at 10:26 AM on April 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
I'm finally cleaning up my depression nest, and an outside perspective is always loved.
posted by politikitty at 10:26 AM on April 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
Your main question has been addressed and depends on your meat and your freezer. So to address this part:
My instinct is that it all has to go. But also, meat is expensive. Especially now.
If you decide to toss it due to flavor, consider offering it to people with big dogs with big appetites.
posted by aniola at 11:40 AM on April 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
My instinct is that it all has to go. But also, meat is expensive. Especially now.
If you decide to toss it due to flavor, consider offering it to people with big dogs with big appetites.
posted by aniola at 11:40 AM on April 30, 2023 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
The only question is will it be delicious, or OK tasting, or perhaps freezer burnted to the point it is going to be pretty yucky.
Even somewhat freezer burned stuff you might be able to use OK in certain recipes like soup.
You can probably tell if things are severely freezer burned just by looking at them. It will look discolored. I would be inclined to discard severely freezer burned items just because they will look really yucky. But even that would be safe to eat, just (perhaps) not very delicious.
Here is an article from WebMD saying basically what I just said but a little more authoritatively.
posted by flug at 9:39 AM on April 30, 2023 [15 favorites]