VC Reporter
December 5, 2024
Do you still have Thanksgiving leftovers, and are you wondering how long food lasts before it should be moved from your refrigerator to your curbside organics cart?
Perhaps the tradition of overeating at Thanksgiving feasts can be tied to the age of the holiday. Thanksgiving commemorates a 1621 feast shared by Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indian tribe, and Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national day of observance in 1863. Both were long before Fred Wolf invented the first home electric refrigerator in 1913, and widespread refrigeration did not begin until the 1930s. Without refrigeration, much of the food prepared for a feast had to be eaten right away. Leftovers that could not be fed to animals became expensive waste in a world where food was not as plentiful as it is today.
Now, with refrigeration, the answer to how long leftovers last is, “it depends.” According to the United States Department of Agriculture, most leftovers can be safely kept in a refrigerator for up to four days, and freezing can keep food safe “indefinitely,” although food frozen for more than four months tends to lose moisture and flavor. Wrapping is one key to food longevity in a refrigerator. To “cover leftovers, wrap them in airtight packaging, or seal them in storage containers. These practices help keep bacteria out, retain moisture, and prevent leftovers from picking up odors from other food in the refrigerator,” advises the USDA website.
One major factor to monitor is how long the food was out of the temperature range required for safety. Most food, including meat, should not be between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit for more than two hours, or just one hour if the temperature is above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, warns Graciela Garcia, who manages food inspections for the Ventura County Environmental Health Division.
Specifically, temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit are referred to as “the danger zone” on the website of the United States Department of Agriculture. The department warns that bacteria can double in as little as 20 minutes when food is between these temperatures.
“Time out of temperature” is cumulative, beginning before food is given to guests. Therefore, some serving styles are essential for postponing the countdown to waste. Perishable food from a refrigerator, such as chicken salad, can be placed on the table in a dish nested in a bowl of ice; food from an oven, such as slices of holiday turkey, can be kept hot on a table with a chafing dish or a warming tray. These methods are most convenient when a meal is served from a buffet, where the bulkiness of ice bowls and chafing dishes will not crowd your table.
Another method to delay temperature exposure is to simply bring only small portions to the table, leaving replacement rounds in a warm oven or a cold refrigerator. Although this requires extra trips to the kitchen during a meal, it can leave your table less cluttered.
After the meal, when the time comes for storage of hot items directly into a refrigerator, the USDA suggests dividing leftovers into small portions and using sealed, shallow containers to assist with quicker cooling. If the energy cost of putting hot items directly into a refrigerator bothers you, the buffet suggestion for ice bowls can come in handy. The USDA website says “hot food can be… rapidly chilled in an ice or cold water bath before refrigerating.”
Cooking oil, another byproduct of holiday feasts, may be dropped off year-round at a site in Oxnard. Coastal Byproducts allows free dropoff at 1891 Sunkist Circle. No appointment is necessary, but dropoff is limited to 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
There is also a more convenient solution for those willing to ask the manager of a local restaurant. Restaurants pay for “trap cleanout” of their fat, oil and grease, but Coastal Byproducts collects restaurants’ cooking oil without a charge, according to Jodi Lape, office assistant at Coastal Byproducts. If you see a restaurant anywhere in Ventura County with a 55- or 90-gallon black drum, usually in the same enclosure as the trash container, chances are, the company receives free collection from Coastal Byproducts, which trucks the waste to recyclers, mainly for conversion into biodiesel. If you ask nicely, and especially if you mention you are a regular customer, the kitchen staff will likely allow you to pour your cooking oil into their container.
Just do not dump fat, oil or grease down drains. These wastes can cool, harden and clog sewer systems. If you must dispose, rather than recycling, a compromise is to pour it into a can, let it harden, and seal the can before disposing in the trash. Restaurants may not legally use this convenient alternative to recycling, but in small amounts, individual households are unlikely to cause problems for trash trucks, especially if the solidification is enhanced with a medium such as kitty litter.
David Goldstein, Environmental Resource Analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency, may be reached at 805-658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org.
