How long will this soup last in the fridge?

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Shcoob

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Thank you all sooo much for helping me with my soup yesterday. As you can guess, I'm not a skilled cook. However the soup is utterly delicious. I just made another huge batch, and now need to ask how long it will last in the fridge without freezing it. It is split pea soup, with split peas, onions, green beans, green peas, carrots, and potatoes. No dairy, just chicken stock from bouillon. Any advice appreciated!
 
The food safety popo‘s bog standard answer would be 3 days.

Personally I’d go five days but it must be reheated to piping (and I mean piping) hot and the following variables have to be considered.

Was it cooled and refrigerated quickly?
Has the whole batch been taken out and reheated at any point or was it just cooked and chilled once?
Is your fridge efficient ie operating well at the correct temperature?
What is the shortest fridge life of the ingredients you have used? eg if you did a nice Cullen Skink with chunks of fish three days for keeping cooked fish would be my absolute max - two days safer still.

Some people also consider the use by dates on the ingredients, if they were close to their date when used the bacterial count would naturally be higher.
This isn’t something I subscribe to though as the bacterial count on a long cook high temp food is tiny after cooking.

Of course Im not advising you to do five days but I’ve never had a problem with it.

As a general rule cool quick, refrigerate or freeze fast and reheat til piping.
 
Since I live alone, I never finish a batch of soup/stew/gumbo at one meal. I will regularly make a big pot on a weekend, and eat from it the rest of the week. Your split pea soup is basically all veggies, and chicken stock from bouillon has a lot of salt, so that's on your side. If you added salt to the soup, even better. Salt is a natural preservative.

If your refrigerator is operating properly, and is set to a food-safe temperature, I would be fine with five days.

CD
 
No one here can or frankly should say you can safely go passed the recommendation of Food standards agency for your state/county/territory and country. All we can say is what we have done and found to be OK for us. It has to be your decision and your's alone. We don't know how clean your kitchen work top is, how cold your fridge is, how fresh or how clean your veg was before you cooked it. We don't know where your stock came from, it's it home made, shop bought, from powder or a cube and so on. And we don't know how well it is being reheated (in single portions, not all if it each time) and for how long each reheated portion has been boiled (just reheating to eating temp is not enough). Everything is a variable and will affect the end result and how safe it is to eat it passed the recommended time.

What we can say is what we have done and been OK with.
So, all that said, we often take soup/stew and chowder/casseroles to 4 days in the fridge without any problems. Sometimes I'll stretch it to 5, if it made it to the fridge on the day it was cooked (rare) and never had any issues. But and this is a big but, I don't use animal products or any kind (except for eggs from my own chickens when they are laying), so I have fewer concerns than those who eat meat. I also have routinely done this all of my life and I've lived in private unfiltered untreated water almost all of my life so I know my digestive system is now robust than most.

At the end of the day, the decision has to be your's and your's alone.
 
I was looking at weighted sandwich recipes the other day (Shooters Sandwich etc) and these are recommended to be weighted for hours (and in some cases overnight) unfridged.
This gave me the collywobbles.
I’m still going to make some but I’ll be doing what I usually do in uncharted territory and try them out on myself before poisoning everyone else 😆
 
I also make big batch soups and stews with the plan to freeze half of it. Pea soup always unfreezes in a like-new state (except maybe for some water separation). I would expect your soup would still be good for several days (and probably less, considering how tasty is sounds, since you may be tempted to finish it up sooner).
 
LissaC said:
I really like the Food Keeper app - it's free, and it tells you how long you can safely keep each food item depending on what it is, how you prepared it and if you're going to freeze it or keep it in the fridge, etc. I believe the app was developed by the USFDA so it is reliable.
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Not sure the USFDA has a great rep globally 😬

But we have to draw the line somewhere.

Probably where you grow the food yourself and now what’s happened to ay.

Bit time consuming though perhaps!
 
SandwichShortOfAPicnic said:
Not sure the USFDA has a great rep globally 😬
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The Economist regularly updates a report that measures the Global Food Security Index, which considers food affordability, availability, quality and safety, and sustainability and adaptation, across 113 countries. The U.S. was tied for first place for food safety in 2022.

I believe they are one of your publications, although I'm not sure The Economist has a great rep globally. :wink:

CD
 
caseydog said:
The Economist regularly updates a report that measures the Global Food Security Index, which considers food affordability, availability, quality and safety, and sustainability and adaptation, across 113 countries. The U.S. was tied for first place for food safety in 2022.

I believe they are one of your publications, although I'm not sure The Economist has a great rep globally. :wink:

CD
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Are we talking about the Food and Drug Administration for the US or is this a different body?
Europe has concerns about the FDA in the US

It’s funding by the companies it supposed to regulate, inadequate test methods for unsafe ingredients, supply chain oversights and poor quality management.
They have documented many occasions when they have behaved in a less than scrupulous manner, particularly policy being shaped by lobbyists.

They don’t want chlorine dipped chicken replacing good husbandry or drugs and hormones in the livestock they eat that are banned in Europe. There are also food additives that are potentially carcinogenic that Europe banned long ago but are still approved for use by the FDA. The FDA has no system in place for rechecking additives after approval so approval decades ago means approval today.

These aren’t my words so don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just explaining what the FDA’s poor rep is about over here.
 
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SandwichShortOfAPicnic said:
Are we talking about the Food and Drug Administration for the US or is this a different body?
Europe has concerns about the FDA in the US

It’s funding by the companies it supposed to regulate, inadequate test methods for unsafe ingredients, supply chain oversights and poor quality management.
They have documented many occasions when they have behaved in a less than scrupulous manner, particularly policy being shaped by lobbyists.

They don’t want chlorine dipped chicken replacing good husbandry or drugs and hormones in the livestock they eat that are banned in Europe. There are also food additives that are potentially carcinogenic that Europe banned long ago but are still approved for use by the FDA. The FDA has no system in place for rechecking additives after approval so approval decades ago means approval today.

These aren’t my words so don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just explaining what the FDA’s poor rep is about over here.
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Salmonella levels in US chicken samples were lower than those in the EU even before chlorine dioxide washing, and now the level is averaging 2-percent in the US, compared to a 15-percent average in the EU.

According to the survey of 113 countries I mentioned previously, Canada, Denmark, USA, Finland and Belgium make up the top five in food quality and safety. The UK ranks below Russia, but does do better than China.

BTW, Despite what you may hear, no artificial or added hormones are used in the production of any poultry in the United States. Any chicken that has been treated with antibiotics mush be labeled as such. At the grocery store, most chicken is labeled antibiotic free. Our food labeling laws are pretty good, and getting better.

We have a gun problem here, not a food problem. I don't even think about whether the food I buy at my grocery store is safe. I worry about getting shot by some nut-job with an AR-15 while shopping at my grocery store. :eek:

CD
 
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Shcoob said:
Thank you all sooo much for helping me with my soup yesterday. As you can guess, I'm not a skilled cook. However the soup is utterly delicious. I just made another huge batch, and now need to ask how long it will last in the fridge without freezing it. It is split pea soup, with split peas, onions, green beans, green peas, carrots, and potatoes. No dairy, just chicken stock from bouillon. Any advice appreciated!
Click to expand...
Hi, Shcoob.

I made some Veggie Beef & Barley soup last month. A day or so later, I vacuum sealed some of it with my new chamber vacuum sealer & put it in the freezer. Next time that I want some, i don't have to make any for a while!! :whistling:
 
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caseydog said:
Salmonella levels in US chicken samples were lower than those in the EU even before chlorine dioxide washing, and now the level is averaging 2-percent in the US, compared to a 15-percent average in the EU.

According to the survey of 113 countries I mentioned previously, Canada, Denmark, USA, Finland and Belgium make up the top five in food quality and safety. The UK ranks below Russia, but does do better than China.

BTW, Despite what you may hear, no artificial or added hormones are used in the production of any poultry in the United States. Any chicken that has been treated with antibiotics mush be labeled as such. At the grocery store, most chicken is labeled antibiotic free. Our food labeling laws are pretty good, and getting better.

We have a gun problem here, not a food problem. I don't even think about whether the food I buy at my grocery store is safe. I worry about getting shot by some nut-job with an AR-15 while shopping at my grocery store. :eek:

CD
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I‘m not doubting your article (well that’s not true tbh, research wise I need a lot more than one resource written by a mag owned by a bunch of exceptionally wealthy families to be convinced of anything that’s often used as a political football) I‘m simply letting you know the perceptions of the FDA in Europe.
I believe Spain is actually right up the top of the charts on the food poisoning front.

The academic side of me isn’t generally satisfied with anything less than 10 separate peer reviewed pieces of research and even then I’d like meta-analysis 🤪

I find the gun thing incomprehensible. I have some American friends and their fervent beliefs about gun ownership are shockingly at odds with rest of their personality. When they speak about it I feel they were indoctrinated into a cult before they had a chance to make up their own mind.
What horrifies me more is how vociferous stupid people are, they seem to be able to silence people who don’t agree by shouting louder and tubthumping.

Happened over here with Brexit. It became a topic no-one will discuss in polite company. Someone brought it up the other day and the whole room went quiet 🤐
 
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