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?

Mine was cooked Christmas Day and I finished the last bits yesterday with some Brie and cranberry sauce. I’m still alive, so far….

Sadly my own mum is dead, too, otherwise I'd ask her on your behalf. I say that if you chop it up (and if all the meat all the way through look and smells good) then cook it up in a white sauce or a curry or similar, making sure it gets a really good boiling for at least five minutes, you'll probably be fine. Why not do that, try eating some and, if you're fine 12 hours later, serving to others? I'd be horrified at the thought not just of the expense of chucking away £60+ of meat, but that the poor bird was killed for nothing. Though it sounds as if a lot of animals are dying in order for people to throw their perfectly good flesh away if they don't eat it in three days.

Love this. It could go in the cupboard with the unused Christmas crackers, fizzy drinks and alcohol.

Absolutely not!

We gave our week old chicken to the dog so I don’t think I’d risk 9 days myself and I always eat meat past it’s sell by date if it looks and smells ok.

Very glad to hear you're still with us! Check back in again later please, just in case.

I save, and use, every morsel of meat and rarely - as in once or twice a year if I really drop the ball - throw any food away at all, to the point that I regularly use table and teaspoons' worth of foods so as not to waste it. I am one of those who comes as close to the miracle of the 1500 proverbial MN chicken meals as it's possible to get. So when I say I would've processed it all long before I was worried about it being unsafe, I mean it.

But the animal is just as dead whether OP eats it or not.

😂it was about 26 hours ago I ate it. Do you think any side effects would have kicked in by now??
H hasn’t spoken to me for 6 days, do you think I should tell him incase I take a turn for the worse and he has no idea?! Actually, I don’t think he’d care. I’ll leave a note for my Mum.

I’m Team Eat It. And good luck.

Ah yes, the MN chicken of lore.

Ewww no @TobleroneWrestling Not in a million years would I eat this. GROSS!!! 😖 Jeeez, you'll be in A & E within 6 hours. 😱

Bin it. Don't even give it to any animal/leave it out for any animal. It will be NASTY!

I wouldn't be proud of this thread trending to be honest (as you said in your post at 14.23,) I would be embarrassed. You cooked a supposedly expensive Waitrose turkey, and then left it in the fridge, didn't eat any of it, and then suggested eating in 9 days later. People will be laughing at you, they won't be 'impressed' because your thread is 'trending!' Just pray the Daily Fail don't pick it up, you'll be a laughing stock.

Hmm, you're obviously leaning towards eating it so why not make yourself a small sandwich now, eat it immediately, and see if any negative effects before serving it to everyone else. My fridge runs so cold that vegetables in the crisper drawer at the bottom frequently have ice on them! If your fridge is like that, then I reckon the turkey's safe.

If you haven't started violently ejecting the turkey sandwich at both ends after four hours, it's safe!

If not - have the immodium and milk of magnesia handy!

THIS! ^ 😱

I think I'd quite like to use your H as my turkey food tester. It sounds like he might deserve any full-blown adverse consequences.

Stay with us @IWantToBeADCC - we care!

Well tbf, if it is a free range (usually more fat cover) and dry plucked and dry aged turkey (the best and most expensive basically) then they do keep much better than the wet plucked, hot eviscerated and super lean things that are all soggy and sat shrink wrapped on a supermarket fridge counter for days/weeks before you buy them. So would likely have been in better condition before it was cooked.

If it looks and smells fine and literally hasn’t been touched until now I’d probably risk eating it, but not cold. I’d want to reheat it until it was absolutely piping hot so that if there is some bacteria in it it’s hopefully killed off.

Just nooooo! I’m pretty relaxed about dates and tend to trust my nose. But NO Fucking way OP!

Heating to piping hot doesn't kill all toxins from bacteria.

I've had food poisoning from bad chicken before - the experience left me unwilling to eat anything other than freshly cooked meat. It was bad. I genuinely believed I was going to die. Don't fuck about with meat or dairy!