During holiday meals, such as Christmas or New Year’s Eve on December 31, there are often food leftovers that must be stored carefully to avoid food poisoning.
- In the refrigerator, food should be consumed within four days.
- In the freezer you can leave them for up to six months.
- When consuming food, it must be reheated to 74 degrees Celsius to limit the risk of food poisoning.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve… During these holiday meals, abundance is on the tables. Very often, there is more food than is needed and guests are left with many leftovers. No question of throwing them away, these good dishes can be preserved. To do it properly, and avoid the proliferation of bacteria and food poisoning, Beth Czerwony, dietician, gives several tips in an article in the Cleveland Clinic.
Prepare food storage in advance
Even in this festive atmosphere, managing leftovers is not done haphazardly. You have to think about it in advance. The ideal is to prepare the different packaging in advance to store the leftovers. They must be airtight boxes or containers that can be covered with plastic film. Be careful, if there is sauce or liquid, you need to leave a little space in the container so that it does not break.
Then decide – also in advance – where your leftovers will be stored: refrigerator or freezer. In the first, food must be consumed within four days. In the second, you can go up to six months. Beth Czerwony recommends putting meat in the freezer and side dishes in the refrigerator.
Once everything is decided, you have to store, but when? Here too, some rules must be respected! The first is not to leave food in the open air for more than two hours before refrigerating it. However, you shouldn’t do it too quickly either.
“Be sure not to put food in the refrigerator while it is still warm, says Beth Czerwony. There is a dangerous temperature for food, which is 40 degrees Fahrenheit [un peu plus de 4,4 degrés celsius]and this is where foods are most susceptible to bacteria. So let them cool a bit and then you can put them in the fridge. This way, there is less risk of bacterial proliferation.”
The ideal temperature to avoid food poisoning
Finally, once safely stored in the refrigerator or freezer, how to consume them? It’s best, according to Beth Czerwony, to reheat leftovers to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, or 74 degrees Celsius, to limit the risk of food poisoning. “Young children, the elderly and anyone with an autoimmune disease will always be at greater risk, underlines the dietician. This is because their immune function will not be as robust as that of a healthy person.”
