Food Spoilage Tests
  

FINALLY, a way to know

what to pitch and what to save!

   
THE GAG TEST
Anything that makes you gag is spoiled (except for leftovers from what you cooked for yourself last night).
   
EGGS
When something starts pecking its way out of the shell, the egg is probably past its prime.
   
DAIRY PRODUCTS
Milk is spoiled when it starts to look like yogurt. Yogurt is spoiled when it starts to look like cottage cheese. Cottage cheese is spoiled when it starts to look like regular cheese. Regular cheese is nothing but spoiled milk anyway and can't get any more spoiled than it is already. Cheddar cheese is spoiled when you think it is blue cheese but you realize you've never purchased that kind.
    
MAYONNAISE
If it makes you violently ill after you eat it, the mayonnaise is spoiled.
   
FROZEN FOODS
Frozen foods that have become an integral part of the defrosting problem in your freezer compartment will probably be spoiled - (or wrecked anyway) by the time you pry them out with a kitchen knife.
   
EXPIRATION DATES
This is NOT a marketing ploy to encourage you to throw away perfectly good food so that you'll spend more on groceries. Perhaps you'd benefit by having a calendar in your kitchen.
   
MEAT
If opening the refrigerator door causes stray animals from a three-block radius to congregate outside your house, the meat is spoiled.
  
BREAD
Sesame seeds and Poppy seeds are the only officially acceptable "spots" that should be seen on the surface of any loaf of bread. Fuzzy and hairy looking white or green growth areas are a good indication that your bread has turned into a pharmaceutical laboratory experiment.
   
FLOUR
Flour is spoiled when it wiggles.
   
SALT
It never spoils.

   
CEREAL
It is generally a good rule of thumb that cereal should be discarded when it is two years or longer beyond the expiration date.

LETTUCE
Bibb lettuce is spoiled when you can't get it off the bottom of the vegetable crisper without Comet. Romaine lettuce is spoiled when it turns liquid.

CANNED GOODS
Any canned goods that have become the size or shape of a softball should be disposed of. Carefully.

CARROTS
A carrot that you can tie a clove hitch in is not fresh.

RAISINS
Raisins should not be harder than your teeth.

POTATOES
Fresh potatoes do not have roots, branches, or dense, leafy undergrowth.

CHIP DIP
If you can take it out of its container and bounce it on the floor, it has gone bad.

EMPTY CONTAINERS
Putting empty containers back into the refrigerator is an old trick, but it only works if you live with someone or have a maid.

UNMARKED ITEMS:
You know it is well beyond prime when you're tempted to discard the Tupperware along with the food. Generally speaking, Tupperware containers should not burp when you open them.

GENERAL GUIDELINE:
Most food cannot be kept longer than the average life span of a hamster. Keep a hamster in or near your refrigerator to gauge this. 

Chocolate Rules

If you get melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.
  
Chocolate-covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so you can eat as many as you want.
    
Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It will take the edge off your appetite, and you will eat less.
  
If you can't eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can't eat all your chocolate, it may be a sign of a deeper problem.
  
Store your chocolate on top of the refrigerator. Calories are afraid of heights and will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.
  
Equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate make a balanced diet.
  
The preservatives in chocolate will make you look younger.
  
If not for chocolate, there would be no need for control-top pantyhose and an entire garment industry would be out of business.
  
A nice box of chocolate provides your total intake of calories in one place. Isn't that handy?
  
Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you will get one thing done.
  
Question: Why is there no such organization as Chocoholics Anonymous?
Answer: Because no one wants to quit. (eating chocolate)

Problem: How do you get two pounds of chocolate home from the store in a hot car?
Solution: Eat it in the parking lot.

> It Turns out that Chocolate Is Good For you......
> 
> Chocolate is a Vegetable: Chocolate is derived from cocoa
> beans. Beans are a vegetable. Sugar is derived from either
> sugar CANE or sugar BEETS. Both are plants, which places
> them in the vegetable category. Thus, chocolate is a
> vegetable. 
> 
> To go one step further, chocolate candy bars also contain
> milk, which is dairy. So candy bars are a health food.
> Chocolate-covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and
> strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you
> want. 
> 
> If you've got melted chocolate all over your hands, you're
> eating it too slowly.
> 
> The problem: How to get 2 pounds of chocolate home from the
> store in a hot car. The solution: Eat it in the parking
> lot. 
> 
> Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take
> the edge off your appetite, and you'll eat less. 
> 
> If you eat equal amounts of dark chocolate and white
> chocolate, it is a balanced diet. They actually counteract
> each other. 
> 
> Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you
> look younger. Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list
> of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one
> thing done. 
> 
> A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily
> intake of calories in one place. Now, isn't that handy? If
> not for chocolate, there would be no need for control top
> pantyhose. An entire garment industry would be devastated.
> You can't let that happen, can you? 
> 
> REMEMBER: "Stressed" spelled backward is "desserts".

I've been on a constant diet

for the last two decades. I've lost a
total of 789 pounds.

By all accounts, I should be hanging

from a charm bracelet.

   ~ Erma Bombeck     

Ice Cream

for the Soul
  

Last week I took my children to a restaurant. My six-year-old son asked if he could say grace. As we bowed our heads, he said, "God is good. God is great. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if mom gets us ice cream for dessert. And liberty and justice for all! Amen!"
  
Along with laughter from the other customers nearby, I heard a woman remark, "That's what's wrong with this country.  Kids today don't even know how to pray. Asking God for ice cream!  Why, I never!"
   
Hearing this, my son burst into tears and asked me, "Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?"
   
As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table. He winked at my son and said, "I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer."
  
"Really?" my son asked. "Cross my heart."  Then in a theatrical whisper the gentleman added (indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing),  "Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is
good for the soul sometimes."
  
Naturally, I bought my kids ice cream at the end of the meal. My son stared at his for a moment and then did something I will remember the rest of my life...
  
He picked up his sundae and without a word walked over and placed it in front of the woman.  With a big smile he told her, "Here, this is for you.  Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes, and my soul is already good."

LOW-CALORIE HUMOR
      

1. If you eat something, but no one else sees you eat it, it has no calories.
  
2. When drinking a diet soda while eating a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are cancelled by the diet soda.
  
3. When you eat with someone else, calories don't count as long as you don't eat more than they do.
  
4. Foods used for medicinal purposes *never* count. (e.g. hot chocolate, toast, Sara Lee cheesecake.)
  
5. If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner. 
  
6. Movie-related foods do not have calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. (e.g. milk duds, buttered popcorn, junior mints and Tootsie Rolls.)
   
7. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking the cookie causes calorie leakage. 
  
8. Late-night snacks have no calories. The refrigerator light is not strong enough for the calories to see their way into the calorie counter.
  
9. If you are in the process of preparing something, food licked off knives and spoons has no calories. (e.g. peanut butter on a knife, ice cream on a spoon.) 
    
10. Foods of the same color have the same number of calories; for example: spinach and pistachio ice cream.

I got the lovely grape border from:

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