Expired products: give a second life or throw away?

Food goes rotten in the home refrigerator. We store them incorrectly.

We all pay attention to the expiration dates of goods and will not buy spoiled cheese, stale bread or stale sausage. But as soon as the purchased products enter the house, our vigilance disappears, as if they were not in danger of spoiling in the walls of our own refrigerator. We forget about the terms and rules of their storage, we safely eat the loaf, having first cut off the moldy crust from it. We eat sausages covered with a slippery coating after washing them under running water, use sour milk to make pancakes and do not think about the fact that these products can be deadly dangerous to health.

Milk is the most dangerous product!

Every housewife knows that milk spoils quickly. Many people think that sour milk can be used for food, that it is even good for health. In fact, milk is an ideal nutrient medium not only for lacto and bifidobacteria, “responsible” for the formation of nutritious curdled milk; various microbes multiply in milk at an accelerated pace, including E. coli, staphylococci, which can cause toxic infection and dysbacteriosis.

The shelf life of pasteurized milk is 3 days. If it is not used within this time, pour it into a jar and ferment it with kefir, sour cream or other fermented milk product containing beneficial lactic acid bacteria.

Symptoms of dairy product poisoning

Milk poisoning may not manifest itself immediately. How many hours will pass from the moment the poison enters until the poisoning develops depends on the human body. The first symptoms may appear half an hour later, or perhaps a day after consuming an expired product. Most often it looks like this:

1. Nausea appears, developing into vomiting from milk.
2. The stomach reacts to poison with spasms, sometimes very painful.
3. Bacteria cause inflammation in the intestines. The body begins to get rid of harmful substances. Diarrhea begins.
4. In some cases, the body reacts to infection with an increase in temperature.

The severity of dairy product poisoning depends largely on the amount of milk or kefir you drink. The condition of the body and age also play a role.

In children, symptoms are more pronounced and develop faster. They often respond by raising their temperature. Due to vomiting and diarrhea, the child also quickly becomes dehydrated.

Consequences

When considering whether you can drink expired tea bags, do not forget that they can increase the level of fluoride compounds in the body to dangerous concentrations. This is manifested by osteoporosis, muscle weakness, the formation of bone spurs, joint pain, and vertebral fusion. In addition, excess fluoride can provoke the development of kidney disease and reduce the strength of teeth. By the way, the first sign of fluoride poisoning is the appearance of dark spots on the teeth. In cheap tea bags, the daily dose of fluoride exceeds the permissible limit by 75%. Old leaves have especially high levels of fluoride. You should not drink more than five cups of bagged tea per day. Especially for older people and pregnant women.

Help with poisoning

Usually after milk poisoning, symptoms disappear after three days. Most often - earlier. The healing process can be accelerated. To do this you will need:

1. Stop consuming suspicious products so as not to worsen the poisoning after milk.
2. Rinse the stomach. To do this, it is enough to drink 1 liter. water with 1 tsp diluted in it. salt. After this, you need to pull it out by pressing on the root of the tongue.
3. To cleanse the body of poison, you need to drink a sorbent, for example, activated carbon or a similar product.
4. To prevent dehydration, you need to drink plenty of fluids.
5. If you have a fever, take an antipyretic.

For mild poisoning, these measures will be sufficient. But it also happens differently. If the poisoning progresses, you should immediately call an ambulance so that the patient can receive qualified assistance.

This is necessary if:

• Vomiting does not stop, the temperature rises above 38 degrees, or the intestines are cleared more than a dozen times a day.
• Pain in the stomach increases.
• Mucus or blood stains appear in the stool.
• Symptoms do not go away after three days.
• There are acute diseases of the gastrointestinal tract or chronic diseases of the heart and blood vessels.

In this case, the help of doctors is necessary to eliminate the danger not only to the health, but also to the life of the patient. This is especially important for people suffering from chronic illnesses. Kefir poisoning can cause complications that will pose a serious threat to life.

A large dose of poison can lead to toxic shock, and a similar effect can occur due to dehydration. There is also a chance of developing acute cardiovascular failure. In addition, weakening of the body due to poisoning can provoke an attack in the presence of chronic diseases. An untreated infection that was present in the body at that moment may also appear.

What are carbonated drinks made from?

The composition of carbonated drinks can vary quite a bit depending on the raw materials used in production.

Depending on the ingredients, they are divided into the following groups:

• based on natural raw materials;
• on synthetic flavors;
• tonic;
• fortified;
• for diabetics.

Drinks made from natural raw materials are characterized by a high sugar content (10-12%, but recently 5-6%). But they do not contain any artificial dye; the color is created only by the color of the raw material.

The labels of drinks with artificial colors and flavors must indicate the type of food additive added to the bottle.

Tonic drinks contain infusions and extracts, thanks to which these drinks are able to relieve fatigue and have a thirst-quenching effect.

Carbonated drinks for diabetics contain sweeteners instead of sugar. These drinks are intended only for patients with diabetes, and are strictly prohibited for other people, as they disrupt the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract.

How to avoid intoxication?

Don’t worry about whether you can be poisoned by milk; know the symptoms and treatment for this health problem. It is better to take control of your health and follow simple prevention methods to avoid any unpleasant consequences than to treat them. It's completely easy:

1. Control the source of the product. When buying milk secondhand, there is always a chance to buy low-quality products. It is very good if you have the opportunity to personally see the cow and the conditions in which it is kept. But when buying products on the market, you can rarely find out all this. Therefore, it is preferable to buy pasteurized milk when there is a guarantee of product quality.
2. Follow the rules for storing fermented milk products. The manufacturer is responsible for his product. But even the highest quality milk from a healthy and well-groomed cow can become poisonous if left to bask in the sun for several days or stored in dirty containers.
3. Do not use expired products. Expiration dates are indicated for a reason. This is the time during which food products are guaranteed to retain all their beneficial and nutritional properties if storage conditions are followed. But how long after the expiration date the product will become unusable is unknown. In this case, you can drink milk or kefir entirely at your own risk.

• home
• Food poisoning
• Food poisoning

No one wants to eat spoiled food and put their family in danger.

We are used to looking at the expiration date of food to understand when it should be thrown away.

However, many of us are confused and do not understand what the dates on food packages actually mean.

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To understand everything, you first need to know how to decipher the labels on packages and understand when a product is safe for consumption and when you can get rid of it.

Firstly, dates on products help you know how long a product can be stored on store shelves, and this depends on many factors.

For example, whether the product is properly refrigerated or will be frozen, stored in a dark room, or exposed to external factors. It also depends on how well it will keep after being purchased from the store.

In other words, the labeling on the packaging does not indicate whether the product is safe for consumption.

In fact, these dates are needed so that sellers know when to remove goods from store shelves or are used for advertising purposes so that people buy certain products more often.

Prevention

Measures to prevent juice poisoning are as follows:

1. Buying a drink in trusted stores. It is recommended to choose products from reliable manufacturers.
2. You should avoid purchasing juice in packaging with visible damage.
3. It is imperative to check the expiration date, because it determines the freshness of the finished product. The quality of the drink depends on this.
4. Opened packaging is stored in the refrigerator for no more than 3 days. Then pathogenic microorganisms begin to develop in the juice.
5. You cannot drink bottled juices sold in regular stalls. Such a drink will not be of high quality.
6. Fresh fruits of high quality are suitable for making fresh juice. Fruits and vegetables should be thoroughly washed before putting them into the juicer. Otherwise, there will be a risk of drink poisoning and the development of an intestinal infection.

The juice must be of high quality and meet established standards. Products are divided into the following varieties:

• freshly squeezed, which is prepared in the presence of the consumer;
• directly pressed juice made from ripe products;
• pasteurized - the juice is then bottled into special bags or glass jars;
• reconstituted - this drink is prepared from concentrated juice and fresh water. Thus, tomato juice can be prepared not only from fresh tomatoes, but also from tomato paste.

It is important to store a fresh drink or an opened juice pack correctly - in the refrigerator, no longer than three days. At the slightest violation of storage conditions, the drink will deteriorate and become potentially dangerous.

Shelf life and shelf life

When a product says “sell by date”, these dates are for sellers only and not for buyers.

. They tell stores how long they should keep products on shelves and are not related to the expiration date of the products.

The sell-by date does not indicate the time at which a product will begin to spoil or become unsafe for consumption. But it does give clues to how long it will last at home if stored properly. If a product is still on the shelves and has not been sold, the store must remove it from the shelves.

The shelf life is different from the sell-by date and indicates the degree of freshness, but not the expiration date.

In most cases, this date is set by tasters in the laboratory, who determine that the product tasted best before a certain date.

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This also has nothing to do with the safety of the product, but rather with how long it can be stored without losing its properties. For example, sour cream may become slightly sour after a certain date.

These dates can serve as an indication of when the product is approaching its expiration date. This means you should pay attention to indicators that the product may be going bad.

, for example, smell or color. Often these dates are approximate and several days before the product becomes inedible.

Perhaps we should get rid of dates on packages altogether, and instead print on them instructions on how to properly store food and how to tell if it has gone bad.

So how long can you store these foods?

Results

Since this tea is expired, there is no point in even talking about its color, aroma and taste. At best it is the so-called hay aroma. Or the aroma of the place where it is stored.

So, if you are watching your health, if you are a thinking person, watch what you use in your diet. Drink fresh, high-quality loose leaf tea. After all, health is more valuable! Think about yourself. A good, invigorating drink from a ceramic cup (instead of slop in a plastic cup) is exactly what you need.

In a word, high-quality fresh tea in the morning, at lunch or after dinner is wonderful, tasty and healthy!

The statistics are as follows: the products that are thrown into the trash during the year could feed 30 million (!) people. 85 billion rubles worth of what is produced but not sold is thrown away. In fact, the labor of farmers, bakers, cooks, fishermen is sent to a landfill... While those living below the poverty line rummage through garbage cans. Is this fair?

Expiring products

The expiration date on a milk carton does not always indicate the date it will go bad. Usually the date is given because it is influenced by many factors. It loses vitamins or takes on an unpleasant taste when exposed to light, which is why it is often sold in cardboard or opaque plastic packaging.

If you store pasteurized milk at a temperature of 2-3 degrees Celsius, it will remain fresh for another 2-5 days

after the expiration date.

Use smell when deciding whether milk is safe to drink. If you notice a sour smell or taste, or it has turned a blue-green color, it's time to throw it away.

Fresh meat should be eaten within 1-2 days after purchase

. Home refrigerators are generally not cold enough to keep meat fresh for more than 2 days.

Wonderful pie made from cherries and expired yogurt

In a bowl of sufficient depth, mix the ingredients for the dough:

• stale yogurt - 1 cup;
• cherry jam - 1 glass;
• soda - 1 spoon.

• Mix the ingredients for 10-14 minutes, then add 2 beaten eggs, add sugar to taste, 1 cup of any crushed nuts (to taste), add flour;
• Add flour until the dough has a consistency similar to sour cream. Mix everything well;
• Place the parchment in a baking dish, coat it with butter or margarine, pour in the dough;
• Ready time: 1 hour or a little more. We check with a toothpick or wooden stick;
• After the pie has cooled, it can be coated with any cream or sweet sauce.

Expired shelf life

This is another dairy product that can be consumed after the expiration date. An open jar of yogurt will spoil faster than a closed one, so in an airtight container it can last 1-2 weeks

after the date recommended on the packaging.

Pay attention to the smell and presence of mold in the yogurt, and if everything is fine, it is safe to eat.

Chips may also become stale after the expiration date, but they may be quite safe to eat.

Since this product is subject to intensive processing, it can be stored for quite a long time. If the package was opened, the chips will be fine for several more weeks, and if closed, then for several months.

Have you ever noticed a white coating on a chocolate bar? This is not mold, but what is called "chocolate bloom", and is associated with fat or sugar content, but is safe to consume.

If you store chocolate in a cool place below 20 degrees Celsius, it will outlive its expiration date.

Many seasonings have a long shelf life due to their high sugar and salt content. Here's how long these seasonings last after opening:

Ketchup can be stored for about a month in the kitchen cupboard and 6-8 months in the refrigerator.

Mayonnaise 2 months in the refrigerator

Jams and confitures for about 1 year in the refrigerator

Mustard – 6-8 months in the refrigerator

Salad dressing - 3 months in the refrigerator

Most eggs stay fresh for about a month after the expiration date if stored in the refrigerator.

If you're not sure, there's an easy way to check if your eggs are spoiled.

Place them in a glass of water: if the egg sinks to the bottom, it is suitable for consumption, but if it floats, it should be thrown away.

Is it possible to use expired kefir for cooking?

If an expired fermented milk product has no signs of spoilage, then this product can be used for culinary and cosmetic purposes (baked goods, masks and kefir-based creams). A drink with a characteristic odor and color, indicating the occurrence of pathological processes, should be thrown away.

What can be prepared from expired kefir? To prevent such a product from having a negative impact on health, you should opt for recipes that include heat treatment (pancakes, pies, muffins).

Since all pathogenic microorganisms die under the influence of high temperature, dough with expired kefir after baking or frying does not pose any harm to health.

When is hospitalization required?

The reasons for hospitalization are:

1. Yogurt poisoning occurred in a pregnant woman, child or elderly person.
2. Symptoms of poisoning persist for more than a day.
3. A person is bothered by severe abdominal pain and high fever.
4. After first aid was provided, the patient's condition did not improve.
5. The victim is unconscious.

The emergency team that arrives to the call will assess the victim’s condition and, if necessary, take him to a medical facility. In the hospital, before starting complex treatment, the patient is diagnosed.

Examination methods:

• General urine analysis.
• Stool culture.
• Biochemical blood test.
• Ultrasound of the abdominal organs.
• Laboratory examination of vomit.

Based on the results of the examination, the patient is prescribed appropriate treatment.

Treatment of yogurt poisoning:

1. Gastric lavage through a special tube.
2. Taking enterosorbents.
3. Intravenous administration of drugs that restore water and electrolyte balance.
4. If necessary, the patient is prescribed a course of treatment with antibacterial drugs.
5. Normalization of beneficial microflora in the intestines.

The main place in the treatment of food poisoning is occupied by dietary nutrition. The first day the patient is prescribed therapeutic fasting, then food is introduced into the daily diet in small portions.

Recommended foods for poisoning:

• Tea, dried fruit compote.
• Crackers.
• Biolact.
• Puree soups with a second broth.
• Porridge on the water.
• Lean meats can be eaten 3 days after the symptoms of poisoning have disappeared.

Fried, salty foods are strictly prohibited in case of intoxication. The inflamed walls of the stomach are not able to process such food and the patient faces serious problems with the digestive organs.