I was in the middle of making dinner when this happened. I’m grateful I poured it into a measuring cup first. Thankfully I don’t live too far from another source.
I remember milk staying good almost a week past its expiration date when I was a kid. Boy have the times changed.
I’ve had milk two weeks past that still smelled good. I poured it out anyway. The secret to milk is that it has to stay cold. If it warms even a bit the shelf life is cut way short.
Edit: Even if you buy the milk and it ice cold doesn’t mean somewhere in the distribution process it hasn’t been allowed warm up. I have bought milk that went bad within a day.
Stop wasting food.
Don’t drink 2 week old milk in the name of not wasting food. It’s not worth the hospital visit. Just adjust your purchasing if you always have milk you’re tossing out.
No.
I just had one where I didn’t use it at all for a few weeks, and it was a few days past the expiration date. This may help, but it wasn’t opened yet. My wife was like, “Throw it out!” And I was like no ill take the risk. Decided to have cereal the next morning and was pleasantly surprised it was perfectly fine and was able to use it all within the next 3 days.
Then again, I have had times where i just got it, and 2 days later, it was super gross. Here’s looking at you stop and shop store brand milk… got burned twice like that, and I have never purchased it again. I hate that store so much.
Milk is so easy to tell if it’s spoiled, no reason to throw it out without a sniff test.
Not necessarily true. As soon as your crack the seal on pasteurized milk, the Bacillus cereus spores start to germinate even if cold. There is a strain that thrives at fridge temps and within a few days the milk is now full of cereulide toxins. Badtimes at the hospital.
UHT milk would kill the spores though at the factory so it’s safer to keep longer.
Isn’t UHT ultra high temperature? isn’t that the same as pasteurization?
Pasteurization is only about 75°C for about half a minute. This kills any living bacteria in food. That’s why milk packing has warning on how to store it and how to use it. But if the pack is labeled UHT you have more leeway. UHT is high pressure and temp to get up to 130 to 150°C but for only about 3 to 5 seconds. This kills bacteria spores which can survive boiling at 100°C. Yes really. Like the above bacteria mentioned, only UHT can kill the spores. It evolved so that once the temp and moisture is right the spores breakout like Alien from the egg and start multiplying bacteria immediately, within hours.
Note that heat cannot deactive the bacteria shit aka toxins. So even though the bacteria colony can be dead when u recook spoilt food, the toxins will still kill you.
Neat, thanks for the explainer ! I had incorrectly assumed pasteurization was done at the boiling point of water… Cheers