Things that might kill you... Confessions Part 2

The USDA and I do not agree. I know it is in their best interest to provide cautionary measures that will keep people healthy in the long run, but I hate to follow them at the expense of wasted food. And I haven't died yet. So mostly I just warn my wife in advance, "In case I get really ill and have to go to the hospital, this is what I ate..." DISCLAIMER: I am not advising anyone else to participate in such extreme food practices.

(No photos included for the sake of mental health)

Exhibit A: a quart of stewed plums canned by my dear mother. The most glorious of oatmeal and yogurt toppings,simultaneously tart and sweet. Apparently we haven't been eating oatmeal very frequently with the warmer weather, or someone stuck a contaminated spoon in the jar, but about halfway through the jar, the plums developed a delicate blanket of fuzzy white green mold. But all I could see was half of a jar of plums (in fact the second to last jar that we have), sitting there, forlornly neglected, a rich plum treasure about to be discarded. It broke my little cooking heart. So....I scooped off the mold (which the USDA does not recommend, although many other adventurous jelly/jam eaters online claim that they scrape off the top inch or so and continue eating. According to the USDA, one should not do this since mold can have long creeping tendrils of moldness and it's possible the mold could be producing a mycotoxin that could kill you), boiled it for 15 minutes and poured it into a clean jar. We ate it, and did not die. Success!

Exhibit B: egg whites. According to the USDA, if you are going to have left over egg whites, it's recommended that you use them within 1-3 days of sitting in the fridge (covered). After that, it's better to freeze them in ice cube trays. As though I have spare ice cube trays ... hah. So after 7 days sitting in the fridge, I cooked it up in an omelet and ate it. And did not die.

Exhibit C: Kefir cheese that although fermented by the kefir grains starts to smell really fermented and not taste good on toast... yep stirred that into my buttermilk biscuits. And did not die.

Generally if it's a hard cheese, I cut off the moldy bit and keep eating. If it's a soft cheese, or a yogurt with only a tiny bit of mold, I might get rid of the mold part and bake it in something. For raw veggies, I would cut off a chunk with the mold and toss it, use the rest. If it's an actual cooked food item, I do chuck it. Obviously if it a were a meat product (raw), it would also go straight in the bin.  Oh and bread, depending on the mold penetration, I have been known to just throw away a couple of slices or cut off a chunk and eat the rest....

DISCLAIMER 2: I save all of these experiments with reject or expired food for myself, so never fear guests! You are still being fed high quality food!