How long does the food last in the freezer – a simple test determines

Sometimes you look into the freezer and find something you don’t really know when it was frozen or if it’s edible.
Marie-Louise Danielsson-Tham, the professor of food hygiene, has a trick that solves the problem.

Professor of food hygiene Marie-Louise Danielsson-Tham tells us that you never get sick from frozen food, as long as it was not frozen with dangerous bacteria.

– Freezing is a wonderful preservation method. Only what you put down is in good condition, it’s in good condition when you take it out.

However, meat and fish can become rancid and taste bad. Rancid food tastes bitter and sour and you don’t want to eat that, says Marie-Louise Danielsson-Tham.

– What happens in the freezer is that the enzymes found in meat continue to live in the freezer and slowly break down the food. And what they go for first is the fat in the food. And then the result is that it goes rancid.

Don’t throw away food unnecessarily – do the cooking test

It is not possible to look at the food if it has gone bad. It is also difficult to smell a cold food. But there is a trick to find out if the food has gone bad in the freezer – the cooking test.

– You thaw it enough that you can cut off a small piece and then you boil it in a little water so that it is cooked through. Then you smell and taste it. If it tastes good, you can eat it.

Wild meat can be stored longer

Marie-Louise Danielsson-Tham cannot say exactly how long specific foods last in the freezer, it depends on the quality of the fat. But venison can be stored for a very long time, she says.

– Wild animals eat pine needles and they contain vitamin E, which is an antioxidant that prevents the fat from going rancid.

When you freeze something, you should pack it with as little air as possible and the best thing is to vacuum pack, says Marie-Louise Danielsson-Tham.

– There should be no gap between air and packaging. Then it lasts longer. For one thing, you protect it from the oxygen in the air, which also causes the fat to go rancid, and you put pressure on the meat so that it doesn’t lose as much liquid, she says.