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?

Or use bones to make stock. It only takes a couple of minutes and you can add in any left over vegetables.

And off we go into feeding six people for a week from one chicken.

Absolutely not - 9 days is way too long. 3 days - 4 at a push.

Noooo ma'am.

You could make a pie, or a pie pie

There is no way I'd eat it 9 days later. Really you should have frozen it a week ago if you hadn't managed to eat it.

I absolutely love chicken and veg soup made from the bones and shredded meat. But for some reason, although I like turkey, I can’t stand turkey soup - the stock is really strong.

We, (and by we I mean they, as I’m vegetarian), threw the last of the turkey away yesterday. Even then it looked and smelt fine, but I felt enough risks had been taken. It was stripped off the bone while hot on Christmas Day then tightly covered and refrigerated. Most of it was used in the days following Christmas, and I’ve cooked the filling for a turkey, leek and ham pie and frozen it for later use. The rest of it has been eaten cold in sandwiches. Never killed anyone yet in 40 odd years of Christmas leftovers.

@TobleroneWrestling

How much toilet roll do you have?
How much weight do you want to loose?
Do you like hospital?
It will makes you so ill 🤮💀

Absolutely not. I would have frozen. 3-4 days in the fridge maximum

I agree. Turkey stock is not pleasant. I'm not wild about turkey at the best of times, so the idea of having turkey soup for weeks after Christmas is not enticing. The only acceptable way of using it is in a tasty curry strong enough to disguise the turkey flavour.

Bit more tin foil and save it for Christmas 2025. Pop it in a cupboard if you need to make room in the fridge.

I don't think it's worth the risk tbh

Just to reassure everyone that:

• I'm not determined to eat it or serve it. I'm reading and taking on board everyone's opinions and experiences. I wasn't sure. That's why I asked here.
• I am risk-averse generally. I've steered my family though all these years and thousands of meals without giving anyone food poisoning but also without unnecessarily wasting food. Everybody fed, nobody dead and all that.
• This 9 day turkey is just beyond my experience to decide on my own. My late mum would have been the perfect person to ask, as she was raised in the war before people had fridges or use by/best before dates, when cooked meat was kept on cold stone shelves in the larder and had to feed as many people as possible for as long as possible.
• The Waitrose turkey was a Christmas gift. We're fortunate not to need to eat it but I would like to avoid wasting it if possible.
• It's not a joke thread. I've name-changed for this but have been around for donkey's years. Without my mum to ask now, I just wanted to avoid waste, food poisoning and preferably both.

Lolol Grumpy. I would, too.
In fact, we did. 🤣
And we're still alive.

Although I did freeze most of it by day three.

I'm sure the person who gifted it to you didn't want it to cause illness though, and wouldn't want you to suffer even more than you have done this Christmas.

I'm not generally fussy about food, If the use by date of a yoghurt was a week ago and it smells and looks OK, I will eat it cos basically its a pile of bacteria anyway and I have a very healthy immune system I am the same with many things, I also apply the 5 second rule...except meat.. It may not seem rational but food poisoning from meat is pretty nasty.

Even though your Turkey looks and smells okay, bacteria that cause food poisoning can multiply to dangerous levels without affecting the appearance or odour of the food. By day nine, the risk of harmful bacteria like Listeria or Salmonella is significantly higher so I would err on the side of caution and bin it.

@Rubydoobydoobydoo
I agree as a country we do waste far too much waste but risking eating a cooked turkey from 9 days ago is a bit too far.
OP would have been better using it up or freezing it.

Honestly OP I'm as laid back as they come over this stuff, but 5 days would be my max.

Bag and bin it. Not worth the gamble.

If the fridge is cold and it looks and smells ok and if I ate turkey (which I don't as it's vile) I would probably eat it.

Well that’s incorrect as well. Cooking the turkey would have prolonged its use by date. Conversely if turkey has a use by date of 26th December and you cook it on 18th December, it could well have gone bad well before the 26th. The use by date is for the fresh produce. There is then another use by date once the meat is cooked of a few days.

No way would I eat it 9 days old. 4 or 5 at a push max.

Yes...but a few days ago is different to today.

I would happily eat meat up to 5 or 6 days after it's been cooked. I also have eaten food that's accidentally been left out overnight. I cook meat that's well past its due date without batting an eyelid. I was around before those dates were a thing.

I was once ill from turkey that was less than a week old. Woke my mum up a 3am because I genuinely thought I was going to do die.Of course at that point, the worst was over, because "the worst" was when I was hanging over the toilet bowl, heaving so constantly that I was barely able to actually draw a proper breath, my vision was turning dark from the edges exept for the stars I was seeing, and my arms and legs were going numb and tingly.

I'd say don't eat the turkey.

Not that I've started many threads, but my thread is trending for the first time ever in my MN career, after all these years, and it only took 9 day old turkey to do it. Who knew?! Should I perfect my Daily Fail disappointed face or nauseous face?!

Nope.

We are very relaxed and one year had an almost identical scenario. Everyone became violently ill. I would never ever take the chance again.