"freshness" news and stories

In the EU, meat cannot be treated with carbon monoxide to preserve a look of freshness, so food scientists have had to look for other methods of keeping packaged meat looking pink and appealing to consumers. Spanish researchers recently hit upon a possible solution: rosemary. Their studies show that a rosemary extract added to the packaging will have the same effect as carbon monoxide treatment. This so-called "active packaging" could be the wave of the future as far as meat products are concerned, since beef steaks packed in the "rosemary-enhanced plastic film" remained fresh-looking for 14 days under supermarket conditions - an increase of two days over chemical preservation.

The downside might be for consumers, who could have difficulty discerning the difference between a 2-day-old steak and a 2-week old one, although the idea of getting chemically-treated meat off the shelves sounds like one that most meat-eaters could get behind anyway.

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Generally, to keep foods fresh longer, we wrap them up and place them in the refrigerator. Sometimes, we don't give much thought to how things should actually be stored or whether we're doing it properly. As a result, you are more likely to get food poisoning at home than when eating out at a restaurant where health codes are strictly enforced. Some of the biggest food safety violations have to do with the refrigerator, the catch-all of food storage. Here are a few tips to keep you, and your family, a little safer.

• The refrigerator should be kept at, or below, 40°F. Keep in mind that the temperature can rise when the door is opened frequently and if the fridge is overcrowded and air cannot circulate.
• Store raw meat that you won't be eating right away in the freezer, not the refrigerator. Defrost it in the fridge.
• Milk is good for about 10 days past its "sell-by" date, although if it is left out to warm up, it can go bad before that time. It is better to keep it in the main part of the refrigerator than on the door.
• Fruits and vegetables can be stored at the same temperature they are stored in the store, though cut produce should be refrigerated and eaten within a few days.
• Hard cheeses can be stored, wrapped, for several weeks. If mold develops, the affected area and about 1/2-inch around it should be removed; the rest is safe to eat. Do not eat soft cheeses or dairy products, including cream cheese and yogurt, that have molded.
• Fresh eggs will last at least 3 or 4 weeks in the fridge, but hard-cooked eggs will only last one week. You can always check your eggs for freshness if in doubt. Eggs blend better with other ingredients in recipes for baked goods and get more volume when beaten if they are held at room temperature for 20 or 30 minutes before using.

Speaking of things staying good in the 'fridge, someone on FARK recently posted a link about Timestrips, "smart-labels" with built in timers that can count down days or weeks. The idea is that you slap one of these labels onto something open in your refrigerator, activate it and then have a better idea of how long it's been around. A dye inside the label creeps across at a consistent rate. As RealTechNews noted, the sniff check is probably all you'll ever need. Still, if for some reason you had a lot of different things to keep track of in your fridge, maybe something like this would help you keep your sanity. If that was the deciding factor of your sanity though, maybe you're the type of person that already has a neatly drawn chart with dates for what's in your icebox. At any rate, they're about $9 for a pack of 50.