Victor
When you buy raw meat, you risk losing that meat to spoilage. Raw meat is highly perishable. Spoilage is one of the most costly aspects of your grocery budget. The 24-hour rule, as long as it is followed, helps ensure that this cost factor will be significantly reduced or even eliminated.
What is the 24 Rule?
Simply put, the 24 Hour Rule is:
Cook all raw meats you purchase within 24 hours of bringing them home. If you can’t do that, don’t buy the meat.
I know what you are thinking. But Vic, I purchased 5 pounds of ground beef, 6 pounds of chicken breasts, and 6 pounds of pork chops that were all on sale. What will I do with all that meat once it is cooked?
The simple answer to that question is batch cook, seal, and freeze it. That is how you save hundreds and ultimately thousands of dollars over time in your grocery budget.
One of the most significant savings components begins with not wasting money in the first place.
In a restaurant, meat is purchased based on a usage forecast, which is calculated on historical usage plus or minus any known factors coming up in the next few days, such as holidays, reservations, or anything that may indicate a change in the volume of business.
At home, we should purchase on the same principle or treat our home purchases like a restaurant with a menu du jour, a menu that changes daily.
This includes buying meats for a specific meal plan, or batch cooking and storing those meats properly for future use.
Shopping with a Meal Plan
Following this rule will also help you get into the habit of shopping on purpose instead of randomly. This doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of savings, though. It just means that you will have to adjust your schedule to safely secure all of those savings you just realized by cooking that meat within 24 hours.
Let’s face it. We’ve all thrown out raw meat because we never got around to cooking it. Even as the creator of this system, I still make this mistake. I did this past week with ground beef. I underestimated my free time and wound up not being able to cook the ground beef I purchased in time.
We’re human. We make mistakes, but we can make concerted efforts to reduce or eliminate them. This rule, along with The 48 Rule, saves you money.
Why does the meat go bad faster than I expected?
Raw meat will last the longest if kept in ideal conditions. These ideal conditions mean a temperature of under 41 degrees Fahrenheit, which is out of the danger zone (41-135 degrees), in original packaging by the supplier or grocer, and out of direct exposure to sunlight or any other spot heat source.
Once the meat starts to go above 41 degrees, bacteria can begin to grow, and product quality will start to deteriorate. These are two elements you want to minimize if you want to enjoy a quality meal, even from a less expensive cut of meat.
So, now you can see that placing the ground beef in your cart, which was probably 36 degrees when you picked it up from the meat counter, and then walking it around the store for 30-60 minutes will allow it to start rising in temperature and go into the danger zone.
Then we take it out into the summer heat and put it into our car, probably 30 degrees warmer than the outside temperature. That meat is getting exposed to temperatures it is not supposed to see unless it is being cooked.
Next, you get home and put it in the fridge, hopefully as soon as you walk in the door, and expect everything to be alright. But, I have news for you. Everything is not alright.
It may take hours for the center of that meat to get back down to 41 degrees again, even though the outside gets there faster. This allows the bacteria and quality deterioration to continue well beyond the time you put it in the refrigerator.
This means that forces that you can’t see and may not have been aware of until reading this are working against you in the effort to save money by purchasing in bulk, on sale, or both.
The shopping scenario that I described above happens every day. You may often see the date on the label that says use or freeze by (date) and think you’re OK for X number of days, but this date doesn’t mean anything if the meat was exposed to the conditions in that scenario.
Exposure to warmer temperatures rapidly increases the rate at which the meat will spoil and thus shortens the time it takes to use the meat while it is still wholesome and fresh.
There’s nothing worse than opening the fridge every day, seeing that raw meat, and not being ready to cook it. You know in the back of your mind that it will spoil, even as you mutter “I will cook that tomorrow” under your breath. Why do you know it is going to spoil? Because you know deep down that you will probably not cook it tomorrow, but you are leaving it open to chance.
Don’t freeze that meat!
Wait a minute. We’ve exposed the meat to poor storage conditions (shopping and a hot car ride during the summer), and we haven’t had time to cook it in a few days, so the thought “I’ll just freeze it until later” pops into your head. That makes sense, right? Wrong. Freezing will not kill the bacteria that started to grow and will continue to grow as it starts thawing when you take it out later. Even if you thaw it in the fridge as you should. Freezing does not kill the bacteria. It just pauses or slows its growth.
You know that smell and texture when you do finally thaw it. It’s not pleasant, and it’s probably not safe. Don’t eat it or feed it to your family. Instead, bite the bullet, brush off your pride, and throw it away.
The first step is realizing this is a giant black hole in your grocery budget. Then, use the 24-hour rule to help you combat this problem, or at least reduce it to a nuisance factor.
I hope this helps you realize where there are areas of your food shopping and handling procedures that need to be addressed and corrected, mainly at no additional expense. It simply comes down to a few habit changes and understanding what your actions will do to the meat you purchase.
Solutions and Steps to Take
Now that we know what our problem is, what is causing it, and what the problem is costing us, we can take steps to fix it and reap the benefits that we expected in the first place. Which was money is saved by purchasing in bulk or on sale.
By the way, this doesn’t just apply to bulk purchases or sale purchases. It applies to all meat purchases, especially seafood. But the problem is compounded by the bulk purchase because the cooking job is bigger, the sale of meats means they were in the meat counter longer, and the original shelf life is almost gone. So the time has ticked away before you even get a chance to take advantage of the sale. The 24 Hour Rule will save you and your wallet.
Meats aren’t the only thing that is affected by poor temperature controls and heat exposure. Produce, and dairy is also prone to rapid deterioration with unwarranted heat.
Dairy products such as cheese and milk all have the potential to spoil more quickly when they are not kept refrigerated. While most cheeses are usually best served at room temperature, their quality can deteriorate with extreme temperature changes.
Produce will start to wilt in the heat and lose its structural integrity, which plays an important role in the dish. Sometimes the crunch or crispness of the vegetables or greens is what makes a dish great, and soft wilted vegetables just don’t work when crisp or firm textures are desired.
Remember, keep cold foods cold until they are supposed to be hot.
