Food expiration dates are confusing — and not just because they don’t necessarily indicate when you should throw food out. “Sell by” and  “best by” refer to peak quality, not safety. And to add to the confusion, the terms aren’t federally regulated or required (except in the case of baby formula and certain baby foods). Most foods are fine after the dates on their packaging pass, though they may be slightly subpar. 

There are a handful of foods, however, where timing actually does matter. In these cases, it’s less about flavor and more about whether that meal is going to haunt you tomorrow. The common thread is bacteria: Moist, low-acid, ready-to-eat foods make especially good hosts, and the pathogens that can make you sick (like listeria and salmonella) don’t always announce themselves with a smell. Here are the foods you should toss once the expiration date has passed (or sooner if you’ve opened them).

Deli Meat and Cold Cuts 

Lunch meats are prime territory for listeria, a bacterium capable of growing at temperatures as low as 31 degrees Fahrenheit — meaning “well, it stayed cold” isn’t the protection it seems to be. And, as the FDA notes, the longer a ready-to-eat refrigerated food sits, the more opportunity listeria has to grow. 

While it’s rare for healthy people to get extremely ill from listeria infection, it can be fatal for newborns and those who are immunocompromised, and it can cause miscarriages in pregnant people. So you shouldn’t let freshly sliced deli meat linger too long in your fridge: It has only three to five safe days before you should toss it out. The prepackaged versions you get in the refrigerated aisle last a little longer if they’re unopened — usually about two weeks — but once the seal is broken, you’re back to the same short window.

Soft Cheeses 

Solid blocks of hard cheeses (cheddar, Parmesan, and pecorino, for example) are very forgiving. They last for up to four weeks in your fridge, and even if they get a little moldy, they’re not a lost cause — just cut an inch around the moldy spot and carry on. (If your hard cheese is grated or shredded and exhibits signs of mold, though, you should throw it out.)  

When it comes to soft, high-moisture cheeses like ricotta, cream cheese, goat cheese, or brie, it’s best to follow package guidelines. And definitely toss them at any sign of mold: In soft cheese, it spreads throughout and can’t be cut out. Soft cheeses are also more prone to listeria. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics suggests using cream cheese within two weeks of opening, and ricotta within one. Bottom line: Toss at the first sign of spoilage or by the date on the package — whichever comes first.

Raw Fish and Shellfish 

Seafood is one of the most perishable things in your kitchen. Eating improperly stored fish can cause various types of food poisoning, resulting in an upset stomach, diarrhea, or worse. For this reason, the USDA recommends cooking or freezing raw fish within 48 hours of purchase. Certain types of shellfish give you a little more leeway: Clams, mussels, and oysters need to be eaten within three days if you buy them live or in five to 10 days if they’ve been commercially shucked and jarred. Scallops should be consumed within one to three days. Any sour, fishy, or ammonia-like smell is your cue to throw seafood out immediately. And while we don’t want to scare you, here’s one additional thing to consider: There are some types of food poisoning you can get from fish that no amount of cooking can prevent. If you feel sick after eating seafood, seek medical advice.

Ground Meat 

Think about this: A steak carries bacteria mostly on its surface, which is why searing the outside does a lot of work in making it both safe and tasty. However, it’s smart to consider whether your meat has been mechanically tenderized. The process, which involves poking the meat with sharp needles to break up the muscle, can transfer bacteria into the center of the steak. Similarly, grinding meat mixes that bacteria all the way through, so ground beef, turkey, and pork spoil faster and carry more risk. The USDA says to use or freeze ground meat within two days of purchase. 

Bagged Salads and Leafy Greens 

Leafy greens can carry bacteria that may become a problem once the leaves break down and get soggy, allowing the bacteria to proliferate. So, once greens go slimy or brown, they’re done (and wilted salad, being what it is, means you probably wouldn’t want to use them anyway). This applies even to prewashed mixes. According to FoodSafety.gov, bagged produce, if unopened, “will last [three to five] days after date on bag; after opening it will last [two] days.”

Sprouts 

Bean sprouts can elevate a sandwich with crunch and freshness in a way few other veggies can, but beware: These tiny shoots are grown in exactly the warm, humid conditions bacteria love. Salmonella, listeria, and E. coli can all be found on raw sprouts. The FDA notes that if even a few harmful bacteria are present on the seed, they can multiply to high levels during sprouting.  The safe window is short — roughly five to 10 days after purchase — and if you’re pregnant or immunocompromised, the FDA advises skipping raw sprouts altogether.

Mayonnaise and Creamy Dressings 

Mayo, aioli, and many creamy dressings are egg- and dairy-based and high in moisture, which makes them hospitable to bacteria once the seal is broken and a knife is going in and out of the jar. The USDA gives open commercial mayonnaise about two months in the fridge; creamy dressings have three to four weeks in the fridge. Even if the date hasn’t yet approached, if it smells off or looks weird, throw it out. 

Prepared Deli Salads 

Potato, egg, tuna, and pasta salads combine a few risk factors at once: They’re moist, often mayo-based, and scooped with a spoon, which can introduce bacteria. That exposure adds up fast, especially if the container is taken out of a cold fridge and drifts into the danger zone that allows bacteria to thrive (between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees Fahrenheit). Deli salads like coleslaw, potato salad, and tuna salad are among the ready-to-eat foods that can carry listeria, which will thrive even if you put the dish back in the fridge. The USDA gives store-bought and homemade deli salads about three to five days — and unlike a wilted salad, a contaminated one won’t necessarily look or smell wrong, so play it safe and toss it when that timer is up (or sooner if it’s been allowed to linger at room temperature).

Cold-Pressed Juice 

The reason raw green juices cost what they do is also why they don’t last: They skip the pasteurization that kills bacteria, which leaves them prone to contamination and with a short life of three to five days once opened. Untreated juices are required to carry a warning label, and the FDA advises that children, older adults, pregnant people, and anyone immunocompromised should avoid them.

The Takeaway 

The catch with all of these is that the sniff test gets you only so far. A funky smell is a good reason to toss something, but it’s important to also remember that the absence of funk isn’t a good reason to eat it — listeria and salmonella can be present with no smell at all. 

For most of your pantry (especially dry goods), the dates on the packaging are a loose suggestion and your nose is a fine backup. For this short list, however, the date and the open-container clock are both worth taking at their word — and when you’re genuinely unsure, the few dollars you’d lose chucking the item are rarely worth the discomfort you’d suffer if it is indeed spoiled.

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It happens to all of us: You’re chopping veggies for a salad or shoveling popcorn into your mouth while watching a movie, and a morsel of food ends up on the floor. Thoughts pass fleetingly through your mind: If you pick it up quickly, is it still OK to eat? Is the five-second rule a real thing? The answers to these questions may be more complicated than they seem.

Background on Bacteria

No matter how well you wash your hands or scrub your sink, you spread bacteria among any surfaces you touch. A 2012 study found that human skin was the main source of bacterial transfer across kitchen surfaces, and that infrequently cleaned areas like exhaust fans, refrigerator door seals, and floors had the highest diversity of bacteria. 

At the same time, anything that touches a surface in your kitchen — including food — picks up bacteria. A Dorito doesn’t have to fall on the floor to acquire a few microbes; it could simply come into contact with the kitchen counter, which actually harbors more coliform bacteria per square inch than the floor, according to a 1998 study. Cutting boards, dish towels, and sponges can also bear bacteria and spread them among the surfaces they touch.

The important thing to remember is that most bacteria found in kitchens and food-prep areas are not harmful to your health. However, pathogens such as salmonella and E. coli, which are often brought into kitchens via contaminated meat or produce, can linger on improperly cleaned surfaces. If you drop a piece of food and it falls directly on disease-causing bacteria on the floor, you could, theoretically, get sick from eating that food — but chances of that happening are low, Paul Dawson, a food scientist at Clemson University, told Prevention.

Five-Second Rule Fiction?

The apocryphal five-second rule suggests that food that’s dropped on the floor is safe to eat if it’s retrieved within five seconds, ostensibly because it doesn’t have time to acquire pathogens. Dawson led a frequently cited 2007 study that assessed whether the rule was scientifically sound by dropping sliced bread and bologna on tile, wood, and carpeted floors contaminated with salmonella and measuring the bacterial loads the foods picked up after various amounts of time. 

Though the carpet-to-bologna pathway transferred less than 1% of bacteria, “over 99% of bacterial cells were transferred from the tile to the bologna” after five seconds. Overall, 48% to 70% of bacteria moved from wood or tile floors to the bread and bologna within seconds, disproving the basic idea that brevity of time prevents bacterial migration from floor to food.

Later studies have shown that the moisture content of the food, the floor material, and duration affect bacterial transfer. In general terms, the stickier or wetter the food is, and the longer it spends on the floor, the more bacteria it’s going to acquire, though carpet tends to transfer fewer bacteria than harder surfaces. 

The Bottom Line 

Food that’s been dropped on the floor is unlikely to make you sick. But if you decide to eat it, give it a thorough rinse. Anything you can’t wash should be thrown out.

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Fresh fruits and vegetables seem so innocent when stacked in dewy rows at the grocery store. But produce and other common foods can be vectors for parasites if proper handling guidelines aren’t followed, and these bugs can make you sick if you’re not careful. Here’s what could be lurking in your lettuce — and what you can do to stay safe.

Giardia

In 1681, when the pioneering microbiologist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek peered through a microscope at a sample of his own feces, giardia stared back at him. This protozoan parasite’s life cycle includes a stage as an infectious cyst that can contaminate food, water, soil, and other substances. When ingested, the cysts colonize the host’s small intestine and change into their active form, allowing them to absorb nutrients and multiply. Eventually the parasites make their way to the host’s colon, turn back into infectious cysts, and exit the host’s body through defecation.

Giardia is the most common intestinal parasite in humans, and it can be found worldwide. Symptoms of infection include frequent diarrhea, gas, stomach cramps, and nausea, and untreated cases can lead to irritable bowel syndrome and other complications. 

To avoid this unpleasantness, wash your hands after touching potentially infected substances and before preparing food; wash fresh produce thoroughly with clean water; cook fruits and vegetables to kill any parasites; never drink untreated water from lakes, rivers, or streams; and clean and disinfect any potentially contaminated surfaces.

Cryptosporidium

Like giardia, cryptosporidium is transmitted through the “fecal-oral route”: Hosts (including humans) ingest the microscopic parasites via contaminated food or water, the parasites multiply in the host’s gastrointestinal tract, and then the parasites exit the host in feces. Symptoms of crypto infection range from diarrhea and stomach discomfort to low fever and loss of appetite. Immunocompromised people can experience more severe and long-lasting effects. 

People contract cryptosporidium by accidentally swallowing contaminated water while swimming (including at the pool — chlorine can’t kill it), eating contaminated produce or unpasteurized dairy products, or coming into contact with infectious feces (such as when changing an infant’s diaper). The best ways to prevent a nasty bout of crypto are washing produce before consuming it, avoiding unpasteurized foods and untreated water, and frequently washing your and your grandkids’ hands. 

Cyclospora

Humans are the only known hosts for cyclospora, which made headlines in July 2026 when an outbreak of the intestinal infection it causes hit several U.S. states. Preliminary results from the Food and Drug Administration’s investigation linked the cases to contaminated iceberg lettuce. 

Cyclospora is another microscopic parasite transmitted via the fecal-oral route, most often through produce or water contaminated with human poop. Infections can be asymptomatic, or they may cause gastrointestinal upset, diarrhea (“possibly explosive”), weight loss, bloating, and flu-like symptoms. Health agencies recommend thoroughly washing and peeling raw fruits and vegetables and then cooking them to 158 degrees Fahrenheit to kill potential cyclospora; washing alone, especially with a bit of dish soap, may reduce the number of parasites clinging to produce but may not eliminate them completely. Experts also suggest drinking only purified or bottled water when traveling outside the U.S. where sanitation practices are less rigorous and cyclospora is endemic.

Toxoplasma gondii

For a single-celled parasite, Toxoplasma gondii can lead to a lot of problems. T. gondii causes toxoplasmosis, an illness with a constellation of symptoms ranging from mild muscle aches in healthy people to damage to the eyes, brain, and other organs in immunocompromised people.  Pregnant people are particularly at risk because the parasite can cause miscarriage or congenital toxoplasmosis in babies, leading to further health issues down the line.

Cats are T. gondii’s primary hosts. The parasite colonizes feline intestines, and people usually contract toxoplasmosis by ingesting undercooked meat (including shellfish), as well as produce, soil, or water contaminated by cat feces. Dealing with your cat’s litter box is another common mode of transmission. To avoid getting sick, wash hands and all food prep surfaces and utensils before and after use. Wash and peel fruits and vegetables before eating them and don’t consume raw shellfish or raw dairy. Don’t forget to wear gloves when gardening and emptying your cat’s litter box.

Trichinella

Trichinella — a genus of roundworms — is conveyed in raw meat. People usually contract trichinellosis by eating raw or undercooked wild game, including deer, moose, seal, or bear, or pork purchased “on the hoof” (in other words, a whole animal bought directly from a farmer, then butchered for personal consumption), that contains trichinella larvae. After being consumed, the larvae grow into adult worms in the host’s small intestine. Females then release new larvae that migrate to the host’s striated muscle tissue. Symptoms at this stage include swelling and inflammation around the eyes, fever, joint aches, and muscle pain.

The easiest way to avoid trichinella is to cook wild game to a safe temperature using a meat thermometer. Cuts of pork less than 6 inches thick can be frozen at 5 degrees Fahrenheit for three weeks to kill T. spiralis, the species of roundworm found in domestic pigs (though freezing at any temperature doesn’t work on game, which usually carries T. nativa, a hardier species). Be sure to wash and disinfect any surfaces that come into contact with raw meat, including your hands.

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The federal government’s consumer-facing food safety pages — including FoodSafety.gov and websites for the FDA, the CDC, and the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service — contain pretty much all the information you need as a home cook to avoid food poisoning. Most of it comes down to basic concepts like the “four simple steps” shown on the homepage at FoodSafety.gov: clean, separate, cook, and chill. But occasionally, a specific piece of information you’re looking for isn’t easy to track down, or even to spot once you’ve found the correct page. 

For example, most of these pages talk about reheating leftovers to 165 degrees Fahrenheit. But what about leftovers you plan to eat cold? Are they safe to eat? That answer takes some digging. Let’s break it down. 

Why Leftovers Are Usually Reheated to 165 Degrees Fahrenheit

The typical advice for leftovers is to reheat them to 165 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s because they often include foods with a high level of risk, such as meats, dairy, eggs, seafood, and poultry. Add in starches and any liquid sauces, and you have a lot of prime real estate for bacteria to set up shop. 

Cooking food the first time usually kills any bacteria it might have contained, especially if you reached the USDA-recommended food-safe temperatures of 145 degrees Fahrenheit for meats, 160 degrees Fahrenheit for ground meats, and 165 degrees Fahrenheit for poultry. But bacteria can find their way back to your food after it’s cooked — from your hands, from dirty utensils, or from being present in droplet form in the air. 

Reheating leftovers to the recommended 165 degrees Fahrenheit is enough to kill illness-causing pathogens like salmonella that might have recolonized your food. But that doesn’t mean all leftovers are automatically safe if you heat them to that temperature. A few kinds of dangerous bacteria produce toxins that linger even if the bacteria themselves are killed, and those can still make you seriously ill. That’s why government sources recommend discarding any food that’s been left out at room temperature for more than two hours, or that’s been in your fridge for more than three or four days. 

Leftovers Are Usually Safe To Eat Cold (If You Handle Them Correctly)

But what about leftovers that you plan to eat cold? A quick search of the usual food safety sites doesn’t turn up any obvious guidance on the subject, but the information is there if you do a bit of digging. 

If you look in the USDA’s Kitchen Companion, for example, you won’t see anything about eating leftovers cold. But in the section on takeout/delivery food, you will find a discussion of keeping cold-prepared foods (essentially leftovers or made-aheads) cold for later consumption. 

A stand-alone USDA handout on the same subject goes further. After describing the correct procedure for first refrigerating or freezing leftovers (hot or cold), and then thawing them if necessary, it explicitly states that “the food may be eaten cold or reheated.” Similarly, a handout specifically about food safety for turkey dinners says that the turkey can be eaten “either cold or reheated” for three to four days. 

So the short answer is yes — usually, leftovers are safe to eat cold, provided you follow food safety guidelines. Then the question is: Are you familiar with those guidelines, and if so, have you actually followed them? 

A Quick Primer on Food Safety for Leftovers

If you don’t have time to sort through publications and websites about food safety, here’s a quick cheat sheet of what you need to know for leftovers specifically: 

• Chill your leftovers ASAP. Don’t wait for them to come to room temperature first (your fridge can handle it). Leftovers should never sit at room temperature for more than two hours, or more than one hour if the temperature is above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. 
• Portion big-batch leftovers, like a pot of chili or a full-sized roast or turkey, into small, flat containers for refrigerating or freezing. Several small, shallow portions cool off a lot faster than one big container, which means less time spent in the danger zone (above 40 degrees Fahrenheit, but below 140 degrees) where bacteria can thrive.
• Eat your leftovers within three or four days if they’re refrigerated, or freeze them if you know you won’t eat them within that time frame. 
• If you freeze your leftovers, thaw them safely. The best method is overnight (or longer) in the fridge, but thawing in cold water is OK if you eat them that day. The microwave should be used only if you plan to eat them right away, because it heats unevenly and some parts of the food may reach an unsafe temperature. And never thaw leftovers by leaving them on the counter — that’s just asking for trouble.
• Leftovers that have been thawed in the fridge are also good for three to four days if they were frozen the same day you cooked them. Your maximum is a total of four fridge days, so if you froze them two days after cooking, and thawed them for a day in the fridge, you now have only one day left to eat them.  

At this point you may wonder: If leftovers are safe to eat cold, why the emphasis on reheating to 165 degrees Fahrenheit? It’s because once you start heating up those leftovers, you put them squarely into the food safety danger zone. So at that point you’re committed and need to keep going until the food reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit. 

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Anyone who’s ever had formal culinary training can tell you that there’s a lot to learn about how to keep food safe — when I started my career, my classmates and I had to pass our food safety training before we were even allowed to set foot in the kitchen.  There’s good reason for that: According to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, foodborne illness causes an estimated 48 million illnesses in the U.S. every year, and is responsible for about 3,000 deaths.   

The good news is that most of those illnesses are avoidable — it’s just a question of knowing (and following) food safety rules. As a former chef and food safety trainer, I see people breaking these 11 rules frequently. You’ll get away with them sometimes, but sooner or later, what you don’t know will hurt you and the ones you love. 

Rule: Maintain the Cold Chain 

Your local supermarket is at the end of a very long shipping chain, and everyone who’s handled a product that’s perishable enough to require refrigeration or freezing — such as frozen shrimp — has checked and monitored its temperature at every step along the way. In the industry, this is referred to as “the cold chain.” 

Once you’ve bought that product, maintaining the cold chain — and with it, food safety — is up to you. So, when shopping, pick out your freezer- and cooler-case items last (every minute counts) and make sure you have a cooler or an insulated bag to pack them into for the trip home. This is especially important if you don’t live close to your supermarket or if you’re making a stop along the way. (Keep it to 30 minutes or less if your most-perishables, such as seafood and poultry, aren’t well insulated.) You wouldn’t leave dogs or kids in a hot, closed-up car, and those high temperatures can spoil your food as well. It’s less of a concern on cold winter days, but the midday sun can still raise your car’s interior temperature to an unsafe level, so keep that insulated bag handy. 

Rule: Store Foods Safely in Your Refrigerator  

Your fridge is designed to keep foods at a temperature between 32 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit, below the food “danger zone” (which ranges from above 40 degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees Fahrenheit) where bacteria can multiply freely. That goes a long way toward maintaining food safety. (You can use a thermometer periodically to check whether your fridge is as cold as it should be.) 

But how you organize and store your foods in the fridge is important, too. Things that you’ll eat without cooking or reheating, like salad greens, should be stored separately from risky perishables like raw meat. Meats should always be kept on your fridge’s bottom shelf (ideally toward the back, where it’s coldest), where they can’t contaminate other foods by dripping on them. Placing the meat in a bag, in an airtight container, or on a plate to contain drips helps, too. 

Rule: Clean and Sanitize Your Work Area

This is one of the biggest rules for line cooks, and it absolutely applies to home cooks as well. First, let me be clear that these are two separate steps: Cleaning means washing or scrubbing away any visible soil or debris, which can harbor bacteria, from your counter. Then you can use a food-safe sanitizer to clean your counter, utensils, and cutting boards as needed. 

You don’t need to buy fancy restaurant-style sanitizers: A teaspoon of bleach in a cup of room-temperature water works nicely. Measure those ingredients into a spray bottle. Don’t eyeball it; it won’t sanitize if you use too little, and it won’t be food-safe if you use too much. Next, use the bottle to thoroughly mist your work surfaces, and let the solution sit for at least a minute before wiping it away with a paper towel. The solution is good for only about 24 hours, so it’s best to make small batches and use them immediately. 

Note: Many household cleansers can sanitize your surfaces but typically aren’t food-safe. Feel free to use them — just wipe down surfaces afterward with a clean paper towel and fresh water to remove any residue. 

Rule: Clean Foods as Needed (But Only Then)

I see home cooks going in both directions on this one. Sometimes, people rinse things that shouldn’t be rinsed, like poultry — that just spatters salmonella and other bacteria all around your sink and work area. Fresh produce, on the other hand, is something that often should be rinsed (especially if you’ll eat it without cooking), but might not be. 

Salad greens may pick up nasty pathogens like E. coli in the field, for example, and the warm, moist environment that makes alfalfa sprouts, bean sprouts, and similar products grow is also perfect for bacteria. Those types of things should be rinsed well in a bowl (not a sink, because those collect bacteria even without rinsing raw chicken) with 1 cup of cool water and ½ cup of distilled white vinegar before you put them on your sandwich or in your stir-fry. Melons should be scrubbed with a brush under running water, because their rinds (especially textured ones like cantaloupes) can trap dirt and bacteria. 

It’s almost always best not to rinse produce items until you’re ready to use them, though. Most fruits and vegetables, especially delicate ones such as berries and leafy greens, will deteriorate faster once they’re rinsed, and may be more vulnerable to bacteria and molds. 

Rule: Use Separate Cutting Boards and Utensils for High-Risk Foods

One of the big risks in any kitchen is cross-contamination — accidentally transferring harmful bacteria from a high-risk food to other foods. In commercial kitchens we often use separate sets of color-coded cutting boards and knives for meats, fish, poultry, and produce to reduce the risk. You don’t necessarily have to do that, but the cutting boards aren’t expensive if you want to. (I buy sets like this one, and replace them as they get worn.) That will help keep nasty pathogens from, say, raw chicken out of your salad greens or melon wedges. 

Ideally, you’d have enough cutting boards, knives, and serving wares to use separate sets for each kind of food. If not, throw them in the dishwasher or use the method I described above to wash and sanitize everything that’s come into contact with raw meat, fish, or poultry — including utensils like a spatula — before using it for anything else. (And make sure to use a brush, not a sponge or a cloth; both can harbor disturbing levels of bacteria if not sanitized properly between uses.)

Rule: Change Gloves, or Wash Hands, After Every Task

This is closely related to the rule I’ve just mentioned, because “everything that’s come into contact with raw meat” includes your hands, which may be the likeliest way you’ll spread bacteria between foods. Any high-risk food you touch (meat, seafood, dairy products, raw eggs, etc.) could potentially contain bacteria that can make you ill. But you’ll also touch your hands to your face, hair, eyes, nose, ears, and other body parts, often without noticing. Those can contain unwelcome bacteria as well. 

So, the best thing you can do is wash your hands after every task before moving to the next one. The same holds true if you’re wearing disposable kitchen gloves to handle foods, either to avoid the ick factor or just to cut down on hand washing, which can be hard on the skin. I use nitrile gloves like these, but gloves are only clean until you use them and should also be changed whenever you switch tasks. 

Rule: Thaw Frozen Foods Safely

I cringe whenever I walk into someone’s home and see frozen food thawing on the counter. When you do that, the food’s outer layers may spend hours in the danger zone between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, giving bacteria ample time to flourish before the food is thawed all the way through. 

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service recognizes three safe thawing methods: 

1. Defrosting your food in the refrigerator: Defrosting in the fridge is your safest option, because your food can thaw without ever entering the danger zone. (Remember to protect against drips, though, and make sure to remove frozen fish from vacuum-sealed packaging before thawing.) Most foods will probably thaw overnight, but big roasts or your holiday turkey will require more time. You can thaw in advance, because food stays safe in the fridge for up to five days, depending on what it is. 
2. Thawing in cold water: This is a faster way to thaw food, and still safe as long as you change the water every half-hour to keep it cool. Food should be well sealed to prevent water from getting in, and will take about 30 minutes per pound to thaw. Once it’s thawed, it should be cooked immediately. 
3. Thawing in the microwave: This is the last-choice option for when you’re really in a hurry. Microwaves heat unevenly, so some parts of your food will get into the danger zone before the rest is thawed. As long as you cook it immediately after thawing, though, you’ll still be safe. 

Rule: Use a Thermometer To Verify Temperatures

Thermometers are one of the most important tools for food safety, so I always recommend owning a few. I keep at least one in each of my fridge and freezer at all times, for example, so I know they’re keeping the right temperature (newer fridges will do this for you, and beep or send an alert to your phone if there’s a problem). I also have a point-and-shoot infrared thermometer like this one, which lets me spot-check temperatures in my  oven, on my grill temperatures, and so on. 

The USDA publishes recommended safe cooking temperatures for a variety of foods, and it breaks down pretty simply:

• Most meats, fish, and shellfish: 145 degrees Fahrenheit
• Eggs or ground meats: 160 degrees Fahrenheit
• Poultry (whole or ground): 165 degrees Fahrenheit
• Leftovers and casseroles: 165 degrees Fahrenheit

You may disagree with some of those, because it would mean no medium-rare steaks or soft-cooked eggs. That’s fine, as long as you’re comfortable with your decision and not cooking for someone who’s immunocompromised. But the only way to know for sure what temperature your food reaches, for safety or perfect-doneness reasons, is to check it with a thermometer. The Cadillac of meat thermometers is ThermoWorks’ Thermapen ONE, but if you don’t have that kind of budget, their ThermoPop 2 and OXO’s Good Grips thermometer both offer great value at lower price points. 

Rule: Keep Hot Foods Hot, and Cold Foods Cold

Do you love to entertain? Is your happy place a house filled with friends and family, laughter and conversation, with good food set out all around the room? If so, your responsibility for food safety doesn’t end when the food is served. 

As a chef, I handled a lot of catering, and keeping hot food hot and cold food cold is absolutely mandatory for catered events. Commercially, we used tools that home cooks typically don’t have (portable steam tables, chafing dishes, etc.), but you can work with what you do. Hot dips and casseroles can be served in suitable-sized slow cookers, for example, and cold dishes can sit in bowls of ice. I have a dozen thin, flat gel packs like these, that can be covered with a place mat and used underneath serving trays to keep them cool. 

The simplest option is to set out small batches of hot and cold main dishes, appetizers, and canapes, then replenish them as needed with new batches warmed (or kept warm) in your oven, or cold batches pulled from your fridge. 

Rule: Cool and Refrigerate Cooked Foods Promptly

That brings us to storing leftovers. 

I’ve talked a lot about temperatures, because formal food safety training is all about time and temperature. The longer foods stay in the danger zone, the more opportunity bacteria have to reproduce. Every nasty bug has what’s called an infective or infectious dose — the number of pathogens needed to actually make you sick. It’s often in the millions, but for some strains of E. coli, it can be as little as 10 individual cells. The longer your food is in the danger zone, the more likely it becomes that bacteria will reach that infective dose and make you sick. 

That’s why chilling any leftover foods within two hours is so important. That limit is cut to an hour if the ambient temperature is over 90 degrees Fahrenheit — hence why you shouldn’t leave your food in a closed vehicle in summer, where it can get even hotter. 

Big batches of food pose a special problem, because their sheer size means longer cooling time. The simplest solution is to portion your pot of chili (or other food) into flat containers, which can speed cooling. I like to clean and sanitize gel freezer packs in my dishwasher (the rigid kind, not the ones that are flexible bags when thawed), then freeze them in a bag to keep them clean. When I do large batches, I’ll stir those into the pot to cool its contents quickly before dividing the food into containers (the gel packs then go back into the dishwasher again). It makes a difference. 

Rule: Label Leftovers and Use Them Promptly 

In commercial food service, chefs like me are sticklers for what’s called FIFO: First In, First Out. That means we label and date everything that goes into the freezer or walk-in cooler, and we’re diligent about using things in a timely fashion. 

Most leftovers (or made-aheads, if you’re doing it deliberately) have a refrigerator life of just three or four days, so there’s pressure to use them promptly. Labeling and dating everything individually can be a bit much at home, but some people use multicolored dots, or day of the week stickers, to label leftovers. If it has a Tuesday sticker and today’s Friday, you know you’re in “use it or lose it” territory. 

You may find it easier to make a plan for your leftovers in advance. Maybe they go as work lunches or serve as a stopgap for the day after tomorrow when everyone’s busy and there won’t be time to cook. If you’re uncertain whether you’ll use them in the next few days, go ahead and freeze them. That buys you three to four months — rather than days — to use them and prevent waste.   

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