What Your Stance on Leftovers Says About You

“Leftovers” - the second wind for a meal that was left unfinished. The lunchtime hero for many full time workers. The savior for new parents that forgot they also need to eat. Leftovers are also the boogey-man to germophobes. The irk to their quirk. The ick to their sick. The cataclysm to their hypochondira. The trojan horse to their immune system. These two stances on leftovers are clearly in conflict, but who’s actually in the right? Is there even a right? The answer is Yes. Yes, there absolutely is a correct stance on leftovers that everyone should follow.

What are Leftovers though?

Let’s first think about what leftovers even are. What qualifies a dish as a leftover? Technically speaking, it’s just a dish that isn’t consumed within a couple of hours of it being prepared. The obvious one is if you don’t finish you food and put it into a container that you then save in the frig, clearly that’s considered leftovers. If you do meal prep for the week - that’s also leftovers. Those hot pockets you love? Or the pizza bagels? Chicken nuggets? All of those are technically leftovers if you got them from the freezer to reheat in your oven or airfryer.

Realistically, there’s really only two valid reasons you shouldn’t eat leftovers and that’s if they’ve spoiled or have been containminated. If this isn’t the case, then you should eat your leftovers; There’s no health-related reason for you not to.

How to tell if my leftovers have spoiled?

Different foods will have different “tells” for when they’ve spoiled. Here’s some common things to check for:

• Does the food smell sour or putrid?
• Is there any signs of mold growing anywhere on the food?
• Does the food look like there’s a slimy layer covering it? (assuming there wasn’t one before)

Outside of the smell or any visual clues to spoilage, you’d have to taste it. I wouldn’t really recommend that though.. since you could get sick. You can also just base it off of time. Personally, I have found that about a week is the maximum time leftovers stay good. After that, it becomes a gamble depending on what the ingredients were. With that in mind, these suggestions are purely suggesitons and are not meant as a guarantee of any kind; Thank you.

How can I maximize my leftovers’ shelf life?

Extending the life of your leftovers is quite simple. It won’t make them last forever, but your food will stay good for a pretty darn long time if you use airtight glass containers with a lid that locks into place. It’s really easy to find them and they’re a great investment to make; Way better than the plastic ones that can potentially leak and ruin your day. Personally, I use these leak proof, dishwasher safe glass containers from FineDine. They’re very reasonably priced and have served me well for years.

I also have a few glass containers by Komuee that have a divider built into them. I use these a lot when packing lunch for myself or my family. It works amazingly well when you want to separate some of the more wet items from your rice, noodles, or anything you don’t want mixing together.

If I didn’t already have enough containers, I would probably upgrade to something with vacuum sealing. I don’t personally own this one (if that wasn’t obvious from the last sentence), but I do have a friend who does and they’ve been trying to talk me into it. If it weren’t for my limited kitchen space, I’d probably buy it since it’s made by a company of whom I own several kitchen knives. It’s a vacuum sealer machine by ZWILLING and if you know anything about the quality of their knives, then you know you can trust them.

Final Verdict?

If you don’t eat leftovers and still refuse to do so despite knowing there’s no harm in doing so when the food hasn’t spoiled… then you’re probably also the type of person that would rather use paper plates over actual plates. Or the type of person that doesn’t believe in doing laundry. Or the type of person that would use paper towels instead of a bath towel.

And if you do eat leftovers or am now going to try to eat more leftovers, then you’re a reasonable person that probably believes in being nice to other people, saving kittens, and didn’t grow up as a trust fund baby.

Basically put, don’t act like a spoiled brat and eat your leftovers! Unless of course.. the food is spoiled cause you know, that’s not good for you.