Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Today is a fun day to celebrate and eat lots of green coloured foods. However, green is not your friend when it comes to meat. We’ve been getting many questions lately at our meat shop about how long you can keep your meat in the fridge and freezer and how to know when your meat has gone bad.
If you don’t want to be eating green meat, here are some general guidelines to help you identify how long your meat will stay fresh and when it’s past its safe-to-consume-date:
What Happens When You Eat Spoiled Meat?
Consuming spoiled meat can be harmful to you and your family. Raw meat can have bacteria on it, which is why you should always be sure to cook your meat properly to ensure you are killing that bacteria. With spoiled meat, the toxins from the bacteria won’t be killed even if you cook it properly, so it can give you food poisoning if consumed. If you aren’t sure how long your meat has been in the freezer (or fridge), it’s best not to risk it.
How Do You Know When Meat Has Gone Bad?
The most prominent signs that meat has gone bad are the look, smell and texture. Spoiled meat will change in colour, smell very pungent and wrong, and will be slimy to the touch. If you end up cooking that meat, it will also not taste very good. If your meat has turned a tinted white-blue, green, gray, purple-brown, or any other unusual colour, it doesn’t belong on your barbecue or your plate.
How Long Can I Keep Meat?
Buying meat in bulk is a great way to save money and reduce your trips to the grocery store, but how can you store your meat safely? If you don’t plan on consuming your meat right away, it should be placed in the freezer. This will significantly extend its shelf-life. However, once you take out the meat to thaw, it should be cooked within 1-2 days as a general rule of thumb and never refrozen unless cooked. Once you cook that meat, it can last in the fridge for an additional 3-4 days or the freezer for 1-2 months.
Here is a quick reference guide for our most popular cuts of meat:
Uncooked:Chicken: 2-3 days in the fridge, 1 year in the freezer
Ground pork/beef: 2-3 days in the fridge, 3-4 months in the freezer
Sausage: 5-6 days in the fridge, 1-2 months in the freezer
Boneless pork chops: 3-5 days in the fridge, 4-6 months in the freezer
Bone-in pork chops: 1-3 days in the fridge, 3-4 months in the freezer
General guideline: any cut of meat with a bone will have a shorter shelf-life in the fridge than its boneless counterpart by about two days.Steak: 3-5 days in the fridge, 4-6 months in the freezer
Lamb: 3-5 days in the fridge, 4-6 months in the freezer
Seafood: 1-2 days in the fridge, 1-2 months in the freezer
Deli meat: 3-5 days in the fridge, 1-2 months in the freezer
Bacon: 5-7 days in the fridge, 1 month in the freezer
We recommend adding dates to the package of any meat that you put in the freezer so that you know exactly how long it’s been in there and when it should be eaten by.
What Other Factors Contribute to the Shelf-life of Meat?
Did you know that your fridge temperature plays a factor in the length of time you can keep meat in the fridge? Most refrigerator temperatures should be at 4 degrees Celsius or lower, and a change of only two degrees can impact the eat-by-date of meat by two days!
If you have any questions about our products and their shelf-lives when you are shopping for your meat, our knowledgeable meat shop staff would be more than happy to chat with you.
Shop our Alberta raised, sustainably farmed, free-range pork at either of our meat shops in Rosemary or Calgary, or find us at our two booths at the Calgary Farmers’ Market. Thank you for shopping local!
SPRAGG’S MEAT SHOP CALGARY
9675 Macleod Trail SE
Calgary, AB, T2J 0P6
P: 403.255.1232
E: calgarystore@spraggsmeatshop.com
SPRAGG’S MEAT SHOP ROSEMARY
438 Centre St
Rosemary, AB, T0J 2W0
P: 403.378.3800
E: meatshop@spraggsmeatshop.com