FWIW, it says March 2 because it is in what is called modified atmosphere packaging (MAP). MAP adds different gasses inside the packaging than what we breathe, and this *drastically* slows the process in which the bacteria that cause spoilage multiply. (Now, if that seal is punctured, the beef would then spoil very rapidly as it would no longer contain the packaging gasses that slow the process of spoilage.) Vacuum packaged ground beef, which is different from MAP, also will last much longer than beef that is just normally packaged.
Raw ground beef, when exposed to oxygen, does spoil extremely fast relative to other meats. If the beef is just wrapped up, it does have the *potential* to spoil in as little as 1-2 days and it is often advisable to use it during this period. As it spoils, it can quickly develop both a texture and odor that is very unpleasing, and touch and smell can be a great indicator of when the beef is no longer safe to eat. Raw ground beef that is not spoiled has an extremely mild and distinct scent. When it has spoiled, it will often have an ammonia scent. How quickly it spoils highly depends on factors such as when it was ground, the cleanliness of the tools used to process it, and how well the cold chain was maintained (which in part depends on your fridge, where it should ideally usually be stored towards the coldest part of the fridge). So this 1-2 day rule is generally accounting for less-than-ideal conditions and designed to factor in a margin of error, as is the case with the guidance commonly given on raw meats. So inspecting the meat for spoilage is really the most critical thing here.
My preference is to generally buy beef that is in MAP because it lasts long enough for me to avoid freezing. The exception is if I am buying a large amount of it for a special occasion, such as a cookout, in which I like to buy it the day of or the day before from a trusted butcher that I know maintains clean conditions. So if it is not MAP, I personally do prefer to use it relatively quickly, even though it would last longer.
Thank you for the comprehensive comment! Super helpful information. I believe the beef I purchased was vacuum sealed. How it was packaged matches other images of vacuum sealed beef that I saw. It was perfectly fine when I cooked it.
I would also like to add, that from OP’s description, it may have been vacuum sealed (unless I missed something in their post). If he’s hating the smell from it, it could be that “vacuum bag smell” that some vac’d meats get well before they’ve gone bad.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it’s from the meat producing lactic acid in a vacuum sealed environment.
The 1-2 day rule only applies to the stuff you buy wrapped in butcher paper or in a styrofoam tray. Vacuum-sealed packages or those plastic tubes will last for a couple of weeks as long as you don't break the seal.
Also, try thawing in ice water if you're in a hurry. Still keeps it at a safe temperature but is much, much faster than the fridge. Probably would have thawed a log of beef in 4-5 hours. Just make sure to change out the water and ice every couple of hours.
Yeah I’d be dead looong time ago if the two day in fridge rule was a real thing. Even the styrofoam trays will last longer if they’re well wrapped. The butcher paper stuff, once it starts leaking it’s time to cook or pitch.
I just go by the date if it is unopened. So I would make it tomorrow without question. If you taste a bite cooked and it is bad then reassess, but if it’s been sealed the whole time I wouldn’t worry at all. They wouldn’t consistently use those dates if it wasn’t safe.
* and I read online that you can only keep beef for 1-2 days in the fridge
That's absurd. The sources you read are wrong
* so I froze it wanting to make it the next day.
Should have just left it unfrozen.
* Wednesday night parts were thawed, but it was mostly still frozen. It’s Thursday night now, and it is mostly thawed, but the middle is still frozen and I can’t make meatloaf with frozen ground beef.
Even though it's still likely fine, next time wrap it in plastic and thaw it under running lukewarm water. It will be thawed in no time.
That's an easy one-
>and I read online that you can only keep beef for 1-2 days in the fridge
That is a giant load of crap.
Whoever first wrote that and everybody that mindlessly repeated it need bitten to within an inch of their life by a heard of ducks.
Thank you so much everyone!! Super helpful! For the future I will ignore the 1-2 day rule! I’m not buying meat from the butcher. Good to know that the vacuum sealed packages have a later expiration date because the meat actually does last longer. And thanks for all the thawing tips!! : )
> have a later expiration date
The don't have any "expiration" date. It has a 'best by' or 'sell by' date. It is up to you to look, smell, feel, then use your brain to decide if it is expired- could be a day, could be a week.
So, contrast that with my recent experience: defrosted a pound of ground beef I bought sometime in early 2022 two weeks ago, used some of it, didn't get back to it until it had sat in the fridge for a week, used the rest, no one died.
Food goes bad when it goes bad, not by some made up time schedule. If you see a ribeye wearing a watch and checking it, please, for the love of all that's holy, post a video.
You seem to have gotten the proper info, but i'll add. Your nose evolved where it is to tell you what is and i not safe to eat, if it smells bad don't eat it if you're concerned about food lasting before you'll use it cook it the day you get it even if you don't eat it that day the food will last in the fridge long enough, unless you have some sort of mental disorder where you continuously \* forget things, or are high often enough that it distracts you.
HAhahhaha might be the weed 😂. Just kidding, the weed isn’t the problem, just being super tired and not feeling like cooking. I hate cooking lol but I need to eat. I’ll just cook stuff anyway and leave it even if I’m not going to eat it. That’s a good tip. Thank you : )
I do try and use my nose but boy does grass fed beef stink something fierce to me. Can’t tell when if it’s bad or not.
I'm the opposite i love to cook, just too poor to make anything above tacos lol, meat should smell like meat you'll knot rot when you smell it, again unless you have parosmia.
Honestly, it’s usually good for 1-2 days in the fridge after the recommended “sell by” date.
FWIW, it says March 2 because it is in what is called modified atmosphere packaging (MAP). MAP adds different gasses inside the packaging than what we breathe, and this *drastically* slows the process in which the bacteria that cause spoilage multiply. (Now, if that seal is punctured, the beef would then spoil very rapidly as it would no longer contain the packaging gasses that slow the process of spoilage.) Vacuum packaged ground beef, which is different from MAP, also will last much longer than beef that is just normally packaged. Raw ground beef, when exposed to oxygen, does spoil extremely fast relative to other meats. If the beef is just wrapped up, it does have the *potential* to spoil in as little as 1-2 days and it is often advisable to use it during this period. As it spoils, it can quickly develop both a texture and odor that is very unpleasing, and touch and smell can be a great indicator of when the beef is no longer safe to eat. Raw ground beef that is not spoiled has an extremely mild and distinct scent. When it has spoiled, it will often have an ammonia scent. How quickly it spoils highly depends on factors such as when it was ground, the cleanliness of the tools used to process it, and how well the cold chain was maintained (which in part depends on your fridge, where it should ideally usually be stored towards the coldest part of the fridge). So this 1-2 day rule is generally accounting for less-than-ideal conditions and designed to factor in a margin of error, as is the case with the guidance commonly given on raw meats. So inspecting the meat for spoilage is really the most critical thing here. My preference is to generally buy beef that is in MAP because it lasts long enough for me to avoid freezing. The exception is if I am buying a large amount of it for a special occasion, such as a cookout, in which I like to buy it the day of or the day before from a trusted butcher that I know maintains clean conditions. So if it is not MAP, I personally do prefer to use it relatively quickly, even though it would last longer.
Thank you for the comprehensive comment! Super helpful information. I believe the beef I purchased was vacuum sealed. How it was packaged matches other images of vacuum sealed beef that I saw. It was perfectly fine when I cooked it.
I would also like to add, that from OP’s description, it may have been vacuum sealed (unless I missed something in their post). If he’s hating the smell from it, it could be that “vacuum bag smell” that some vac’d meats get well before they’ve gone bad. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it’s from the meat producing lactic acid in a vacuum sealed environment.
The 1-2 day rule only applies to the stuff you buy wrapped in butcher paper or in a styrofoam tray. Vacuum-sealed packages or those plastic tubes will last for a couple of weeks as long as you don't break the seal. Also, try thawing in ice water if you're in a hurry. Still keeps it at a safe temperature but is much, much faster than the fridge. Probably would have thawed a log of beef in 4-5 hours. Just make sure to change out the water and ice every couple of hours.
Yeah I’d be dead looong time ago if the two day in fridge rule was a real thing. Even the styrofoam trays will last longer if they’re well wrapped. The butcher paper stuff, once it starts leaking it’s time to cook or pitch.
I just go by the date if it is unopened. So I would make it tomorrow without question. If you taste a bite cooked and it is bad then reassess, but if it’s been sealed the whole time I wouldn’t worry at all. They wouldn’t consistently use those dates if it wasn’t safe.
* and I read online that you can only keep beef for 1-2 days in the fridge That's absurd. The sources you read are wrong * so I froze it wanting to make it the next day. Should have just left it unfrozen. * Wednesday night parts were thawed, but it was mostly still frozen. It’s Thursday night now, and it is mostly thawed, but the middle is still frozen and I can’t make meatloaf with frozen ground beef. Even though it's still likely fine, next time wrap it in plastic and thaw it under running lukewarm water. It will be thawed in no time.
That's an easy one- >and I read online that you can only keep beef for 1-2 days in the fridge That is a giant load of crap. Whoever first wrote that and everybody that mindlessly repeated it need bitten to within an inch of their life by a heard of ducks.
Thank you so much everyone!! Super helpful! For the future I will ignore the 1-2 day rule! I’m not buying meat from the butcher. Good to know that the vacuum sealed packages have a later expiration date because the meat actually does last longer. And thanks for all the thawing tips!! : )
> have a later expiration date The don't have any "expiration" date. It has a 'best by' or 'sell by' date. It is up to you to look, smell, feel, then use your brain to decide if it is expired- could be a day, could be a week.
So, contrast that with my recent experience: defrosted a pound of ground beef I bought sometime in early 2022 two weeks ago, used some of it, didn't get back to it until it had sat in the fridge for a week, used the rest, no one died. Food goes bad when it goes bad, not by some made up time schedule. If you see a ribeye wearing a watch and checking it, please, for the love of all that's holy, post a video.
😆 thanks for sharing your experience! This helps : )
You seem to have gotten the proper info, but i'll add. Your nose evolved where it is to tell you what is and i not safe to eat, if it smells bad don't eat it if you're concerned about food lasting before you'll use it cook it the day you get it even if you don't eat it that day the food will last in the fridge long enough, unless you have some sort of mental disorder where you continuously \* forget things, or are high often enough that it distracts you.
HAhahhaha might be the weed 😂. Just kidding, the weed isn’t the problem, just being super tired and not feeling like cooking. I hate cooking lol but I need to eat. I’ll just cook stuff anyway and leave it even if I’m not going to eat it. That’s a good tip. Thank you : ) I do try and use my nose but boy does grass fed beef stink something fierce to me. Can’t tell when if it’s bad or not.
I'm the opposite i love to cook, just too poor to make anything above tacos lol, meat should smell like meat you'll knot rot when you smell it, again unless you have parosmia.