When we put food into the freezer, it is easy for them to “disappear”. Sometimes they are forgotten for several years. The question then is – can you eat them? How long do different foods keep in the freezer? In this article, we go through the “shelf life” of various frozen foods when they are placed in the freezer. Some probably have a shorter shelf life than you think.
Do you also have the feeling that your frozen foods are playing hide-and-seek with you? They creep in at the bottom of the shelf and make themselves invisible. It also does not help that many foods become unrecognizable after a time in the freezer. Just think of what a frozen bag of minced meat can look like – a brown, unidentifiable lump. It is easy to forget both what you have in the freezer bags and how long they have actually been there.
It is a bit of a struggle to keep control of the frozen goods, but it pays off in the long run.
Foods in the freezer
The rule of thumb is that foods with a high-fat content stay longer in the freezer than lean foods. When the shelf life is specified as a time interval, it means a scale from the leanest foods to the fattest.
Sort the contents and mark the bags
Always write on the bags what is inside and what date you put them in the freezer. If you put the food in boxes, you can paste a note on the lid. This makes it much easier to know what you actually have in the freezer. In addition, it gives an extra reminder to really use foods that have been in the freezer for a long time.
Another good tip is to sort the contents of the freezer so that you store meat in a box, vegetables in another, etc.
How long different groceries can last in the freezer
- Fruits and vegetables 10-12 months
- Ready meals 1-3 months
- Dairy products 3 months
- Cheese 3-4 months
- Pastries 2-8 months
- Minced meat 4 months
- Bird 3-9 months
- Pork meat 3-6 months
- Whole pieces of beef 1 year
- Lamb 1.5 years
- Lean game meat 1.5 years
