How to avoid wasting food: Is this still edible?

Mold. At the first sign of it I tend to throw food out… unless I convince myself that I feel bad for letting it mold (beause it was either expensive or delicious), in which case I put it back in the fridge and hope that magic food fairies will come and fix it so that I can eat it and get my money’s worth.

On fridge clean out day, I always cringe at the sight of the half-full garbage bag filled with spoiled and unwanted food. Am I wasting food items that don’t necessarily need to be wasted?

This article on Boing Boing caught my eye: When is it OK to eat moldy food?

The USDA (that’s the United States Department of Agriculture, not the United Square Dancers of America, of course) recently did a study on moldy foods and released the Safe Food Handling fact sheet.

Surprise, surprise — in the end they do recommend throwing out most moldy foods. But the advice within the chart for how to salvage other foods is great!

Generally I live by the “if it smells bad or feels slimey, I won’t eat it” rule but after reading the chart I’ll never eat a moldy dollop of sour cream again. (Bleh!)

Be sure to check it out for yourself, you scrape-it-off-the-top types.


By: Bambi Blue

Bambi Blue is a freelance writer, editor, and codemonkey living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She moonlights as a jazz musician, a social butterfly, and most apparently a weisenheimer. Loves to cook, hates to clean, and can easily be found on Twitter.