Turkey: to eat or not to eat after 9 days?

[TobleroneWrestling]

Is it safe to eat a turkey, cooked on Boxing Day, allowed to cool and then kept in a cold fridge since? It looks and smells fine but it is almost 9 days since it was cooked. It seems a shame to waste it if it is safe to eat.

I know some people would eat it without considering it an issue and some people would run screaming for the hills rather than eat it!

But can anyone tell me please if it is safe to eat from an actual food safety knowledge point of view?

I'm fairly relaxed about such things, but over a week is pushing it.

Bloody hell @SallyWD your turkey must have been the size of an ostrich to get all that out of it! Very well put @KnoblesseOblige I once worked with someone who said the only exciting thing in his life was the consumption of out of date food and the possible consequences.

I admit to playing fast and loose with use by dates and rely on sniff tests more than dates, but even I wouldn’t risk this. A week? Yeah, totally. Nine days? Nope, not a chance.

9 days is a lot; 5 to 6 days probably if I cook it in a pie or other meal and eat it pipping hot

How have you got through life thinking you can eat cooked meat 9 days in the fridge even if it's covered in foil 😬
Waitrose or no Waitrose

Doubt they’ll be able to…. 😂

Exactly this. You go ahead if you feel ok risking it, but you really can’t feed it to anyone else without telling them how old it is; you could end up putting someone in hospital.

Mine was Organic and from Waitrose… leftovers went in the bin on the 28th! Not a chance I’d touch it to be honest.

It'll be fine. Even better, just leave it in the fridge until next Christmas.

We picked ours up on 23rd, cooked it Christmas Day and it's still completely fine. Had some for lunch, looks and tastes just as good at when first cooked.

\it's a crown on the bone, if that makes any difference. That was part of my thinking, that it is unsliced and hasn't been messed around with - similar to what a pp said about unsliced meats in delis. I was just thinking of turkey sandwiches with leftover apple and cranberry sauce for everyone with afternoon tea today to use it all up.

You are thinking of serving this to guests?

If I was part of your friends and family I would want to be warned about this so that I could make my own choice (which would be a no).

Look: people eat things days past their use-by all the time and are mostly OK. But what you are dealing with here is risk. If YOU want to take that risk, fine go ahead, but please don't give it to anyone else without giving them the full info.

And I would be most unimpressed as an employer if people were off work Monday for taking such an obvious risk.

Logically, it is unlikely to have any pathogenic bacteria due to having been cooked but when you can get so ill including organ failure and death from food related bacteria, why would you even consider it?

If the worst you could get was the scuds, then it's a maybe but death as a result of multi organ failure is not the punchline of a joke that I want to hear.

Bin it.

My turkey this year was from Aldi, it was a free range Chesham Bronze, cost £75 for 5.8 kg! So not cheap.
Never bought from there before but would do again, it was excellent, flavoursome and moist.
But I didn't leave it for 9 days in the fridge, 2 days later I picked all the remaining meat and froze in portions, boiled up the carcass for 3 hours to make excellent stock, we've had pie, risotto, lots of soup, and I've used every bit of the bird.
I would eat it up to about 5 or 6 days, but 9 seems too long, it's a shame because it's such a waste.

Yuk not for me! But your body!

I'm pretty relaxed about out of date food but that would be a step too far even for me.

i always slice up any left overs on Boxing Day and freeze in individual portions to eat over the next few months. DH has just had turkey rolls before going off to the football. Any messy looking bits go into the turkey soup which also gets frozen.

I hate throwing away food as it is such a waste and I get annoyed with myself that I haven’t used it up but sometimes it’s unavoidable.Just throw it away and next year remember this and plan better.

tbf you won't actually know if it is still completely fine til later.

If I went to someone's house in early Jan and they offered me turkey I'd be wary. I'd have to check when it was cooked.

If it smells fine, you are confident on the cold chain before it got to you and your fridge is properly cold (max 4 deg) I probably would.

I would reheat it thoroughly though.

I'm not in the UK and we're much more relaxed about that kind of thing here though. Never had food poisoning from my own home

No way, you’d be mad to even consider it.

Surely it’s worth buying a couple of chicken thighs or something and just cooking those? That’s about £4. And you’ll save on the petrol getting to A&E etc!

Go for it, OP. Get someone else to sniff it too, just in case there's something you can't smell. But if okay, and if the meat's still firm and looking good, and if no one in your family is ill or has digestive issues, I'd risk it in a cooked dish. Far too much food binned because someone somewhere decided that three days was the limit. My mum grew up during the war without a fridge: they ate everything they could get their hands on. My uncle used to shoot pheasant and they'd be hung for up to a week at this time of year before being plucked and cooked. I can hear half of MN fainting at the idea!

It's a disgrace that we waste so much good food and more of us should use the sniff test and common sense. Good luck, I hope it's tasty.

Why would you bin perfectly good meat after only 3 days? That's an appalling waste, not only of money but that bird died to give you a good meal, at least respect it by using all of it.

Gross, definitely not.

No 3 days max !

Oh, OP, having given you my blessing I didn't think you proposed to slice it and serve it cold in sandwiches. It needs throughly heating through, preferably cut into smallish chunks and boiled thoroughly in a sauce.