I find the idea of food safety interesting as I am a 100% date girl, if the carton says its old, I toss it, but am I being as safe as I can be when it comes to 'safe' foods and keeping food illnesses away? Take the test yourself and see if you could be putting your family at risk.

bad eggs
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Eggs are probably the one item that I waste more than anything as I am very strict about the date on the carton, if I use an egg a day past the date, I wait for gastro distress, which of course never comes, but a sure fire way to know if your eggs are good or not, try this: take a bowl of water and place the egg in it, if the egg sits nicely at the bottom its good, if it stays at the bottom but kind of stands up, its time to eat it and if it floats, well that is a bad egg, throw it out and do not eat it.

When you order a latte and sit it on your desk, do you sip it through the day? That is not a good idea, as a latte is primarily made of milk and milk can start to turn bad in as little as ten minutes, if you don't drink it in a timely matter, think twice about taking that sip at noon and throw it out.

Pizza and leftovers, it isn't uncommon to have a pizza party and leave it sitting out for two or more hours, just remember the longer it sits there the bigger the bacteria party is and the greater the chances are for you to get sick. Leftovers will last in the refrigerator for 3-4 days and it's always a good idea to reheat your left overs, it may be tempting to go for that cold piece of pizza, but even though its been in the fridge, it can still harbor harmful bacteria, so warm it up first and remember after about 3 days or so, just toss it.

Baby food is pretty simple, don't feed it to your baby out of the jar as that increases bacteria growth and never put the uneaten food from a bowl back into the jar. The open jar of baby food should be eaten within 24 hours.

Egg Salad or Chicken Salad should not be eaten after 3-5 days and cold cuts/deli meats for about 5 days.

The real measure of safety is your nose and eyes, if there is any question, throw it out, the money you lose on the food item could save your pocket book if you need to see the doctor and in extreme situations your life.

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