Food Safety: A Guide to Expiration Dates on Pantry and Refrigerator Foods
The FITNESS Food Safety Chart
Most expiration dates printed on packages are intended primarily for store employees, so they know when to remove a product from the shelf. They don't necessarily indicate how long the food will keep once you've opened it. To find out whether it's safe to slather your sandwich with the last smidge of mayo that's been in your fridge for over a month, consult our guide.
| After Opening... | It’s Good For... |
| pasta sauce | 4 days |
| pickles | 1 to 2 weeks |
| yogurt | 1 to 2 weeks |
| sour cream | 1 to 3 weeks |
| olives | 2 weeks |
| eggs (in shell) | 3 to 5 weeks |
| salsa | 1 month |
| shredded cheese | 1 month |
| butter | 1 to 3 months |
| mayonnaise | 2 months |
| salad dressing | 3 months |
| cooking oil | 4 months |
| jams, jellies | 6 months |
| ketchup | 6 months |
| margarine | 6 months |
| mustard | 1 year |
| maple syrup | 1 year |
Originally published in FITNESS magazine, May 2006.
5 comments:
thanks for this post. i was surprised by the time table for olives. they're packed in brine! shouldn't they be good for like an eternity? i have an iron stomach when it comes to that stuff. i'll print the entry off and put it on my fridge. thanks again!
how the hell does friggin' yogurt last longer than my beloved pickles?!
I have no idea. I keep pickles around until they are gone. I would just use this list as a general guideline. One tip one of my nutrition teachers taught me was to store jars of spaghetti sauce upside down so that mold spores couldn't grow very well because of the lack of air.
pickles and olives only last two weeks? Wow, guess its time to throw out my pickles then.
And who would of thought mustard can keep longer than ketchup, I always thought they were the same when it came to going bad. Then again, I thought that those condiments never went bad.
I was really really surprised about the yoghurt and mayo. I tend to leave pasta sauces too long anyway, I forget that just because things are vegan, it doesn't mean thy'll never go off!
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