Since you two are at odds, I'll have to take one for the team and see what happens. Place your bets!

Pie Lady wrote:I accidentally left my Cedar's hummus out all night. So basically, it's been sitting on my desk since "breakfast" yesterday. Can I polish this off without dying?

I'd eat it without hesitation, though I never would have bought it in the first place.

=R=

JustJoan is right: it's cheap, why risk it?

OTOH, it contains both oil and citric acid, each of which contributes to stability. I suspect it would be just fine––but why risk it?

On the whole question "Darest I?" I've just found a most interesting website devoted to this very issue: https://www.doesitgobad.com/does-hummus-go-bad/

Geo

Pie Lady wrote:Since you two are at odds, I'll have to take one for the team and see what happens. Place your bets!

if you die, i'm not attending your funeral (!)

justjoan wrote:

Pie Lady wrote:Since you two are at odds, I'll have to take one for the team and see what happens. Place your bets!

if you die, i'm not attending your funeral (!)

I wasn't planning on having anything but cupcakes anyway

Geo wrote:JustJoan is right: it's cheap, why risk it?

OTOH, it contains both oil and citric acid, each of which contributes to stability. I suspect it would be just fine––but why risk it?

On the whole question "Darest I?" I've just found a most interesting website devoted to this very issue: https://www.doesitgobad.com/does-hummus-go-bad/

Geo

Hey, neato. Thanks!

Well after further debate, we're still even, 2:2.

I tried it over an hour ago and I'm still alive. No problems. If that changes and I take a turn for the worse, I'll write back before I meet the grillmaster in the sky.

Darest I ...

(1) Drink plain kefir with an exp date of 5/22/18? It looks and smells fine. Smells like buttermilk.

(2) (This one's a bit more embarassing) Eat some unopened Yoplait custard-style yogurts with a Nov 2017 exp date? Last time I opened one, a few weeks ago (I said it was embarassing), it was fine. I used it in a smoothie.

The general question is what to think of best-by or expiration dates for cultured dairy products? Do the live cultures extend the product life or make them more dangerous over time? In the past I've had buttermilk and sour cream last much longer than I expected.

Most "use by" dates note when the product is no longer at its best: texture changes, loss of flavor, etc. It doesn't mean spoiled. Unopened yogurt appears to be pretty safe stuff, but it might be more watery or curdled. The one product which I've had go moldy a couple times now without being opened (and long before the expiration date) is sliced muenster.
Once opened, it's another thing entirely. If I open a large tub of yogurt and don't use it all, though, it's almost certain to grow green stuff. Not good eats.

Kefir, in particular, can remain unspoiled for a very long time. Unlike other cultured dairy products, kefir is fermented not only with beneficial bacteria, but also with yeasts. So much going on in there, spoilage bacteria almost don't have a chance.

I'd definitely give the thumbs up to #1.
#2...if you ate the other one only a couple weeks ago, I'd try that one. If the smell and appearance is fine I bet you will be too.

I bought a crapton of travel dealies of Dunkies' coffee today, and instead of the little wiener tubs of creamer, they gave me a whole half gallon of light cream. At the end of the event, there was, oh, 6 ounces tops left in there. And I promptly forgot to refrigerate it.

It was out from roughly 12:30pm and will be until I get to work tomorrow, roughly 8:30am. How dead will I be if I put it in the fridge immediately and wait a day to spike my coffee with it? Will it be cheese? Will I be toast?

Pie Lady,

If it smells ok, I'd not hesitate an instant. Pasteurized+Homogenized dairy doesn't go off naturally, it hangs on and then goes with nasty smelling stuff. Cream also is stabler than milk. So smell and lightly taste it. If it doesn't seem 'odd', it's certainly ok enough to use in your coffee.

Geo

Pie Lady wrote:At the end of the event, there was, oh, 6 ounces tops left in there. And I promptly forgot to refrigerate it.

It was out from roughly 12:30pm and will be until I get to work tomorrow, roughly 8:30am. ... Will it be cheese? Will I be toast?

Odds are the worst case scenario is creme fraiche. Probably not what you want in your coffee, but maybe pick up a pint of strawberries on the way to work and you'll be a hero.

Okay, that was less than delicious...
I couldn't tell if the off smell was the plastic jug or the cream. It tasted okay. I poured it into hot coffee and I got a sea of chunks. Still tasted okay, but the texture was so off-putting I tossed the rest. RIP, old cream.

Yeah, the 'chunks' are indication of curding, a natural process 'condensing' the proteins. First step on the way toward cheese, given that the following steps are correct! : )

Geo

Sometimes, though, things will curdle into chunks even if they aren't "bad" per se. For instance, I can't pour soy milk into hot coffee without it separating, but if I put soy milk into a cup, and then slowly add the hot coffee into it, that works. Nevermind that I don't prefer soy milk in coffee. I think it's the same idea of putting your milk into the cup and then adding your tea, instead of the other way.

True. I've had this happen with older cream/half&half that are still perfectly good. Boo hiss.

My hypothesis, leek, would be that the proteins in the soy milk (I suspect that there's some albumin in there) are behaving exactly as do the proteins in eggs. When you combine eggs and a hot liquid, you have to 'temper' the eggs by gradual addition of the hot liquid. Same with soy milk, I should think.

Geo

Leftover block (I'd say, 12 oz) Callebaut chocolate, unsweetened, wrapped in its original wrapper as well as a Ziploc bag...sell by date: 2016.

??

Not medically dangerous, but probably covered with white bloom, and it'll most likely be stale beyond belief, oxidized, etc. In other words, untasty.

Geo

Geo wrote:Not medically dangerous, but probably covered with white bloom, and it'll most likely be stale beyond belief, oxidized, etc. In other words, untasty.

Geo

No bloom, but yeah...I figured. Well, saves me from chopping it. Thanks!

Pie Lady wrote:

Geo wrote:Not medically dangerous, but probably covered with white bloom, and it'll most likely be stale beyond belief, oxidized, etc. In other words, untasty.

Geo

No bloom, but yeah...I figured. Well, saves me from chopping it. Thanks!

If no bloom, tasting it might reveal that it's still palatable and I seriously doubt that doing so would be potentially harmful to you.

=R=

It would be worth tasting.... even a stale Callebaut is probably still pretty decent!

I would always defer to Geo on such matters, but left to my own devices, I'd use a vegetable peeler to shave off the surface and taste the chocolate underneath. My understanding is that a high-sugar environment is just as inhospitable to spoilage as a high-salt environment.

Katie wrote:My understanding is that a high-sugar environment is just as inhospitable to spoilage as a high-salt environment.

It's unsweetened. I may just have to make myself a hot chocolate and see. I'll report back.

'Twas good! I used whole milk and added nothing but sugar and a dash of salt. I cooked it so long it turned into a thin pudding, not that I minded.

Okay, here's a new one: I have a Rubbermaid glass container with a rubber-seal lid. The rubber seal gasket thingy fell out. If I don't reattach this gasket, the lid is useless.

I read that superglue is flammable and microwaving is a bad idea. Has anyone else done something like this? Otherwise I think it's non-toxic...?

Pie Lady wrote:Okay, here's a new one: I have a Rubbermaid glass container with a rubber-seal lid. The rubber seal gasket thingy fell out. If I don't reattach this gasket, the lid is useless.

I read that superglue is flammable and microwaving is a bad idea. Has anyone else done something like this? Otherwise I think it's non-toxic...?

Toss it.

=R=

These 1940s chocolate bars from rations on both sides of the pond were perfectly edible to MRE Steve, so I'm thinking your Callebaut was probably dandy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZtaBrQ-3EA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdLnPGZ0Rc&t=270s

Santander wrote:These 1940s chocolate bars from rations on both sides of the pond were perfectly edible to MRE Steve, so I'm thinking your Callebaut was probably dandy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZtaBrQ-3EA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdLnPGZ0Rc&t=270s

I haven't thrown it out yet. I'm going to hack it to pieces and make a plain hot cocoa. I'll report back to see who wins this bet.