Food Spoilage Checklist

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• 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.
• MAYONNAISE - If it makes you violently ill after you eat it, if 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.
• MEAT - If opening the refrigerator door causes stray animals from a three-block radius to congregate outside your house, the meat is spoiled.
• LETTUCE - Lettuce is spoiled when you can't get it off the bottom of the vegetable crisper without a pan scourer.
• CANNED GOODS - Any canned goods that have become the size or shape of a football should be disposed of. Carefully.
• 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 calender in your kitchen.
• 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.
• RAISINS - Raisins should not be harder than your teeth.
• 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.
• CARROTS - A carrot that you can tie a clove hitch in is not fresh.
• WINE - It should not taste like salad dressing.
• POTATOES - Fresh potatoes do not have roots, branches, or dense, leafy undergrowth.
• DIP - If you can take it out of its container and bounce it on the floor, it has gone bad.
• GENERAL RULE OF THUMB - Most food cannot be kept longer than the average life span of a hamster. Keep a hamster in your refrigerator to gauge this.