How Long Can You Refrigerate or Freeze Food?

good news and true i believe. i have eat corn that had been frozen for 10 years,good as the day it was frozen,true.

I was told that you can freeze cooked meatballs and pulled pork. Is that true?

I have heard that the majority of people are negative. This thread affirms that. Such an innocuous topic, yet arguments brew over it. Amazing.

My LG Deli drawer keeps cooked meat more than three weeks. So what parameter is this writer using.???

I dont understand why cooked meat , from which the bacteria have been destroyed by cooking should be frozen for a shorter duration than raw meat which is full of bacteria??????

Thanks for including the clarification, "Frozen foods can be stored indefinitely, but the flavor can change when food is stored past the time limits below." I always get suspicious of these How-long-to-store-food articles when they don't say WHY it's recommended not to keep frozen food past a year. If archaeologists can find the remains of people and wooly mammoths who died over 10,000 years ago almost perfectly preserved in the polar ice cap, then it seems a bit sketchy to say that frozen food is no good after a year. And I suspect that the advice not to thaw and re-freeze is of the same type. The usual quality of the writing here (and in similar contexts) gives the impression that most of the writers are breezy, hyper-caffeinated, self-important 20-somethings more concerned with buzzwords, trendy stylistic fluorishes, and their bylines than with providing useful and accurate information. Ms. Huang's attention to accuracy is appreciated, even if the piece is too brief.

Jessica...if you bought ground beef and it went bad in 1 1/2 days it could be that the store left it sit at room temperature to long before placing it in the refrigerator, Walmart is good at that. It also depends a lot on the temperature of your fridge and what shelf you sit it on.

Does this take into account how long the meat has set in the stores unthawed? If I buy "fresh"chicken" that has sat refrigerated in a meat counter for two days then do I have to cook immediately or can it be frozen? There is ALLOT missing from this article.

But what if you own a SUB_ZERO none of this is true then.

From professional and personal experience this article is bunk. Packaging and temperatures come into play but even for most American fridges the times are short and would lead to a waste of food and thus, money.

1 to 2 days, 3 to 5 days from what? day purchased? beyond the expiration date? how long has the food been at the store? in transit? this article raised more questions than it answered. useless . . .

what about fish?

On the soups and stews, I reheat to a prolonged boil for a while to help the flavors blend, especially with stews; after about 3 days, it's at it's best.

With meats, the best way to maranade is to freeze the meat and let it thaw in the maranade then freeze again, etc., cycling every day. after a few days, the meat is ready to roast, bake, or bar-b-que. For a bar-b-que, try a good aged beer with your choice of seasonings.

Yeah, I'm a carnavore; since I'm not a cow, my system requires a couple of dozen proteins that are supplied from animal flesh only. Hope you vegins keep with your veggies; if you decide to become omniverous, the price of meat will skyrocket and I'll have to cut my meat portions down.

Tell me that the flavor of a BLT is anything short of delicious, but if you really prefer tofu, go for it, but be careful, too much tofu can be toxic to your system and also coat the linings of your intestinal tract so no nutrients can get through except hollow carbs.

thank you - that helps-

What about bachelor food like left over pizza and taco bell burritos? What about condiments? I personally eaten bottled ketchup over a year old.

OMG--seriously,I have not read ALL the posts,but simply cannot believe I actually got a chance to read a post and its replies without first having to sift thru ALL the bible thumping,God this God that routine that I ALWAYS see on each and every friggen post---thank you people for not posting some rediculous passage from that book of fairy takles informing us all how we must store and eat our food,seriously,THANK YOU--its about time the rest of us that your god gave free will to can live our lives without first checking with you or that book you put so much faith in,a book written by man by the way,NOT the hand of God,seriously,thank you so much for allowing us to read a posting without first getting yours or your Gods permission!!!

Can't believe Linda's posting! As another vegetarian, this article is crap! It tells us nothing about foods that are not meat.

And for Lorenzo: It is easy not to eat meat. You need to start looking for meat free foods and recipes.
I constantly convert die hard meat eaters to enjoy my meat free recipes and ideas because of the freshness, variety and interesting ideas that I find and come up with. Please keep looking and trying.

This is BUNK and a play to get you to spend more money replacing food. I've had two freezers most of my adult life, I'm 55, and if packaged with proper freezer wrap or bag, any meat, including chicken, can last a year or more. Cooked food, no difference. It's all in making sure you use the right freezer bags or wrap and getting as much air out as possible before freezing. When you live in the country and buy meat on sale, you make good use of a freezer........it pays for itself and the electricity it uses over and over because you can buy in bulk and it's convenient when you want something, you don't have to run to the store. Butter, eggs, bread, even milk freeze very, very well. You just have to know how and follow the rules. If you feel like making up a over sized batch of just about anything from a main dish to desserts, you can freeze what you don't use right away and have it as long as a year or even more, later. I have Rubbermaid divided plates with lids that I put left overs in, even the potatoes, sweet potatoes etc.and freeze for when I don't feel like cooking..........they taste better and are better for you than the ones you buy.........this article is very misleading and not correct at all. The people writing it obviously don't know much about freezers from actual use.

THERE ALL CAPS... WHO THE F CARES, THIS ISN'T AN E-MAIL IT'S JUST COMMENTS ABOUT HOW LONG U CAN KEEP MEAT...

Canned Fruits and Veggies are one of the best ways to store food. They last several years. Canning Friuts up to 4 years and tomatoes up to two years. Canning locks in most of the nutrients for the duration of the storage.