My mom often makes a soup, keeps it in the fridge for over 10 days (it usually is left overnight on a turned off stove or crockpot before the fridge), then boils it and eats it. She insists it’s safe and has zero risk. I find it really gross because even if the bacteria are killed, they had to have made a lot of waste in the 10-15 days the soup sits and grows mold/foul right?!
But she insists its normal and I’m wrong. So can someone explain to me, someone with low biology knowledge, if it’s safe or not…and why she shouldn’t be doing this if she shouldn’t?
Every food safety guide implies you should throw soup out within 3-4 days to prevent getting ill.
Edit: I didn’t mean to be misleading with the words indefinitely either. I guess I should have used periodically boiling. She’ll do it every few days (then leave it out with no heat for at least 12 but sometimes up to 48 before a quick reboil and fridge).
In: Biology
That’s exactly what the refrigerator is there for. To prolong the shelf life of perishable foods by slowing down bacteria growth. Boiling food kills bacteria. If you put it in a sterile container and immediately seal it, it will stay safe to eat just like the millions of cans of chicken soup at the grocery store. The container your mom put it in probably isn’t sterile but if it’s clean, there’s probably not that much bacteria on it and there’s bacteria in the air that can land in the soup, so *eventually* it will go bad even in the fridge, but the cold will slow it down.
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