Buying food items for the house and then consuming them before they get spoiled is a challenge. While this might sound effortless, keeping up to date with the expiration dates of all the variety of perishable and semi-perishable food requires regular and careful observation. Eating spoiled food may lead to food poisoning and cause worse health conditions such as abdominal cramps, headaches, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, mild fever, weakness, loss of appetite, etc. So, it is imperative to know the signs that tell if food have spoiled.

Ways to identify spoiled and rotten food items

Here are 10 ways one can identify if their food has gone bad.

Rancid odor

One of the most effective ways to determine whether a food item is rotten or not is by the smell it spreads. Normally, each food has its own distinctive fragrance. But once the date expires, a bad, pungent odor is released which is quite prominent. 

This effective sniff test can help people to identify rotten food. Some food may require taking a whiff from a close distance while other foods which have gone well past their expiry dates will disseminate an odor that is guaranteed to alert the people around.

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Textural changes

Most foods change texturally when they go bad. Their consistencies can change into mushy, squishy, shrunken, wrinkly, concave, or soft. Such variations can be discerned by touching them with bare hands. 

A good example of this can be fruits and vegetables as most of them soften up with time, forming a squished up wrinkly texture. So a good rule of the book to remember is that fruits and vegetables are supposed to feel firm in order to hold their shape. If it is falling apart, then there is something wrong with it.

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Visible molds

Molds are greenish or blackish spores that appear on perishable food items once they have started rotting. One of the best examples of the rapid growth of molds is observed on stale bread. Bread usually comes with an expiration date of 3-4 days after its production. 

After a good 7 days, in an unfavorable condition, molds will begin to appear on the surface. The visibility of these molds is a definite sign that the bread has spoiled and thus should be dumped in the bin.

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Film of slime

Although meats are considered to remain fresh in the freezer for a good amount of time, sometimes keeping them for too long can result in them developing a thin film of slime. The slime can be recognized from its glossy and shiny texture. 

Sometimes, this lean slime can also be observed on a vegetable which suggests spoilage. Moreover, the texture of these slimy food items becomes soggy and they also fall apart, which is yet another indication of food spoilage.

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Floating eggs

As eggs have a hard shell on, it is quite difficult to tell if an egg has spoiled without breaking it. But a practical method of doing so is running it through the water test. Taking a bowl of water and dropping an egg in it can tell whether it is rotten or not. If the egg has drowned to the bottom of the bowl, it is a fresh egg. But if it is floating on the water, then chances are that the egg has spoiled. 

Another way to tell if eggs are rotten is by breaking them and taking a whiff, which can be an unpleasant experience if they have actually deteriorated because of the foul smell.

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Discoloration

A change in the natural color of food items can be an indication that they are well past their deadlines. Vegetables tend to be green or bright colors when they are bought fresh from the market. But with time, they begin wilting and losing color leaving a faded hue of yellow or a rotten brownish color. 

These are caused by the impact of different chemical changes in them once they are exposed to air. For instance, fresh and ripe bananas are bright yellow with black or brown spots. But a deteriorating banana will be mostly brown moving towards a blackish shade.

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Frost on food

Frozen foods are known for their longevity, yet, they can perish if they are kept for too long. A definitive way to pinpoint spoiled frozen food items is by the presence of frost on them. This frost should not be confused with the frost from the freezer that might be there due to a slight freezer burn. So to check whether the frozen food in the refrigerator has gone bad or not, look for a film of white frost on the food.

Souring

While this might be a daring test to determine if food has spoiled or not, tasting to see if it has gone sour is quite an effective way of identifying it. Some food products, especially milk-based ones tend to taste sour once they have deteriorated. Yogurt is a perfect example of showing this sign of spoilage. Once past its expiry date, yogurt tastes sour. The acidic taste itself is an indication of stale and rotten milk-based food products.

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Curdling

Another good way of telling if liquids have gone bad is the clumping or curdling of these products. Yogurt, apart from tasting sour, coagulates to form clumps that visibly float in the residual transparent liquid when gone bad. This curdling of milk products is a good telltale sign of spoilage. 

The texture of this curdled product also varies on how rotten a food item is. For instance, if a milk product has not been rotten for too long, it will form loose clumps. But if it has been a bit longer, then a creamy curd-like consistency can be found.

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Dents and bubbles in canned items

Canned goods have long shelf lives. But that does not completely guarantee that they will not get spoiled. To spot the signs of spoilage in canned items, it is necessary to look for dents on the canned packages. These dents can be an indication that there is something not right within the can. 

Another way to tell this is by opening the can and checking if there are bubbles visible inside the can. The bubbles can be an indication of the gases that have been released in the can, proving that the food has spoiled.

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Bottom Line

Looking out for these 10 signs in food items will efficiently alert people from eating spoiled food. While healthy eating builds up your body, consumption of rotten food can make you severely sick. So, it behooves us to check the quality as well as expiry dates of food before eating.