Are You Using Your Freezer Correctly?

Do you know the safest ways to freeze food? What about how long you should keep frozen food for? The chances are what you think is right when it comes to your freezer may not be totally correct.

You’re not the only one to make some mistakes about when you should freeze food and what actually happens to it when it’s in your freezer. In fact, so many people are getting it wrong, it is causing around seven million tonnes of waste food to be thrown out by homes in the UK every year.

Not only is this hugely wasteful, especially when you consider how much food was probably fine to eat, it also means you could effectively be throwing money away.

According to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), there seems to be huge misconceptions around frozen food. A survey of 1,500 people found that almost half (43 per cent) thought that you could only freeze food on the day you bought it, which is wrong.

Over a third (38 per cent) also thought that food could end up being unsafe to eat after being stored in the freezer, which is also incorrect and could lead to these people throwing out perfectly good food.

Steve Wearne from the FSA explained that your freezer is essentially a big pause button in your kitchen. Once food is frozen, it can’t go bad and can last for an extended period of time. This is because any bacteria in the food becomes inactive when it is frozen. It is only once you’ve defrosted it, that it is able to spoil as a result of the bacteria.

In fact, you should aim to cook food on the day it becomes fully defrosted, as sometimes the bacteria can go to work faster after something has been frozen. This will reduce the chances of illness after you’ve eaten.

You can also freeze food at any point up to its use by date, which means you are fine to freeze that beef mince in your fridge if you don’t get around to cooking the lasagna you had planned. The only time you should avoid freezing food is if it is already showing signs of going bad.

Food can be frozen indefinitely, but guidance is given on how long certain food items should be frozen in order to ensure you eat the best quality food. This is because ice crystals can damage the taste and texture of food over time, so something that has been frozen for years won’t taste the same as food that has only been frozen for a week.

Knowing more about what freezing your food actually means can help you avoid being one of the households in the UK that throw out around six meals a week – keeping your freezer stocked and your bank account happy!