Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Wait...let me also add that if I know there is a significant amount of something like a gorgeous roast with gravy and veggies that only a slice or two has been eaten, I portion it down and pop them into the freezer for those days when I just dont feel like it or lunch is going to be a bust....

I give things a few days usually. I was a week+ person back in college, but my boyfriend's ocd-clean tendencies have rubbed off on me a bit, so I make a good effort to get leftovers eaten the next day. Every once and a while something ends up going bad, but it happens much less often now. For instance, Friday night's dinner went to leftovers, and my boyfriend ate one portion the next day, but I didn't get to the other half, so I'm eating it today for lunch. However, I have a few frozen lunches (ugh, I know) in the work freezer for when I don't have leftovers or just don't bring anything in, and if my leftovers are too rank, out it goes.

I'll keep fruits and veggies till I can't use them. Over-ripe (or about to be) bananas? Smoothies or banana bread. Citrus? Juice it for marinades or vinegarettes. Greens starting to go? Use what's good, toss anything remotely slimy. I don't typically keep lunch meat, but my test for that is if it smells, tastes, or looks off, toss it.

Eggs are good for a week or two generally to me. I say toss it when you crack an egg that is bad, but I can't recall ever getting to that point, even during my college years.

Having had food poisoning 3 times (no names, no names), if hot prepared leftovers don't get eaten the next day, they go in the trash. (or aren't eaten but remain in there until the next garbage pickup day like Cassaendra mentioned) cause chances are I won't eat it again.

I usually try to take leftovers to work for lunch the next day, if I don't do that, they're tossed.

My husband was raised with an Italian mother who cooked fresh every meal, because my father in law frowned upon leftovers and insisted on new meals each night (don't get me started) so my husband rarely touches leftovers.

Now with lunch meats and pasta/potato salads and things like that, I usually will toss after 3-4 days, depending on the meat (roast beef hits the hoop quicker than ham). Cheese I keep until it is obvious that it's time.

In your case, a 3 day old beef roast or chicken wouldn't pass GO to get to these lips, it would be in the garbage.

@Southern_Bella: Wow, my father was the same way too. Each meal had to be something new. Absolutely no (obvious) leftovers. We would go maybe a month or 6 weeks w/o a repeat meal.

Now, if we had leftover Popeye's fried chicken, my mother and I, after my father left the table (he would leave his plates/utensils/glass - my mother and I would take all the dirty dishes to the sink and wash everything), we would pick apart the chicken and then freeze them in 3-4 oz packs so I could use them for my ramen, along with other veggies, or make some kind of concoction using them in his lunch on weekends like chicken long rice (soy sauce, long rice, chicken bits, some grated ginger).

Cooked food, usually about a week. We have a commercial fridge and it's very cold. Between the day it's cooked and the day it's tossed (if there's anything left), I've already transmogrified it once or twice.

I keep cooked food for up to a week and make sure my fridge is really cold. Some foods taste better after sitting for a day, like curries. Raw meat and fish, however, spend no more than a day in my fridge. Raw veggies I keep until it is obvious they cannot be used. I am a little shy to admit my eggs stay in my fridge for quite some time.

I have a roommate that is so averse to wasting food that I basically had to tackle him to get him not to eat slimy salami. And he was really sad about throwing it away, too!

I just found http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/.

It was one of the sites that "lost" to Serious Eats in PC Mags. top 10 undiscovered websites

http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/08/pc-magazine-names-serious-eats-top-undiscovered-website.html

I keep stuff around for longer than most here, apparenlty, but i've never gotten sick.

Raw meat (not fish) can stay in the fridge for about 3 days, or 1 day after the "buy by" date on the sticker. (hey, its just as good if not better sitting in my fridge than it is in those open cases at the grocery).

Leftovers can usually stay for up to a week, depending on what it is. If i wind up tossing leftovers, its because they've gone "off" (stale, soggy, etc), rather than going *bad* per se.

I think people in this country especially have gotten really touchy about food going bad. My boyfriend, for example, will throw out milk if its even CLOSE to the "buy by" date... as in the carton says buy by 10/11 and he'll start trying to throw it out on 10/7. Ridiculous.

We're all animals and have a good sense of what will make us sick. If it smells weird, is even a little slimy, or the color has changed, DON'T EAT IT. Otherwise, stop freaking out and make it into dinner.

Just found this article, which is very relevant to this discussion:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Germs/Story?id=5560174&page=3

Apparently, our sense of smell is pretty much useless in identifying bacteria that might actually hurt us. And those molds that we CAN see and taste? Apparently they'll affect the flavor of the food, but are usually harmless. Great.

As for raw meat, the article says 3 days in the fridge is ok, plus another 3-4 days for cooked leftovers should be fine.

I think this is one of those times when we're a little too far from the source as far as understanding handling and storage and processing of different foods. I mean, you buy a hunk of meat that's been wet or dry aged, and you think it's gonna go bad in a day or two? Or a cured/aged/dried product?

Lunchmeat? You really think that huge log of lunchmeat is getting sold every day? Maybe some of the popular stuff turns over that quickly, but not all of it. I can remember when we lived a few doors down from a little grocery store, and you could track the progress of the salami as it got shorter and shorter and shorter. At most, they'd slice off the first slice if it got a little dry, and not give that to a customer, but they'd keep selling it for a long time. Heck, it's probably months old before it gets to the store, because that's part of the curing process.

And eggs are good for a month, unless you bought them when they were already old or they were improperly stored.

I've bought cryovac-packaged corned beef that had a 3-month "sell by" date. It doesn't start going bad faster once you bring it home. After it's opened, it's a different ballgame, but even so, the meat is pickled, which is a preserving process. I've made home-made corned beef, and it sits in that brine for quite a while before it's ready to be cooked.

I don't make it a point to keep food sitting around forever, and there are certain things that I buy and cook the same day, but most things will become unappealing before they'll hit the "make you sick" stage. A little common sense is in order.

If you buy raw meat and the sell-by date is a week away, it's not going to suddenly decompose when you get it home, unless of course, you're not storing it correctly. And the sell-by date takes into consideration that you might not cook it immediately. And that also gives them a cushion of time where they know it's still going to be safe. It's not like it's good on the sell-by date, and poisonous on the next.

I don't have any hard and fast rules. If it looks okay, I move on to the smell test. If it smells okay, I eat it.

wait wait! Let me say again, it's my FATHER IN LAW I keep bad mouthing, not my own father! :P

I taste-test cheese, as it molds from the outside in. Sometimes you can cut away bad bits along the outside.

I keep veggies about a week. Meat about 4 days. Fish and shellfish get eaten right away.

Don't buy and cook too much, and you'll save money at the get-go. The tradeoff is more time spent shopping... ever live in Europe? It's not a bad way to go -- let the market worry about the freshness of things, rather than you buying too much to bring home and spoil. Shop more often, and buy less, that's what I like.

As my Mom always said, "think of the poor starving children in Africa!" It might sound trite, but we do often forget how very fortunate we are in the US, having the luxury of being able to toss food! With food prices going up, it only makes sense to freeze anything you can before it starts to go bad-- even extra broth, tomato paste, etc. We're looking to invest in a small deep freeze when we get a bigger kitchen space, so we can freeze more meals. But, like others have said, not buying too much in the first place is where you start (i.e., a family of two or three doesn't need to shop at Costco!).

I had a very hard time adjusting to cooking for just myself (then 2 again) from the years of a house full of teens. I would go absolutely nuts when I had to throw something away.

I've adapted pretty well. My man is very good about eating most leftovers. He tends to get up and roam in the middle of the night. I think the worst thing I still do is buy too many fresh veggies. I love them...him, not so much, and I usually end up with way too much going soft and soggy.