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Eating Old Food

Jeffrey Cohen
2 min readJul 17, 2020

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I had an interesting experience the other day. For me, not for you. I was in the refrigerator (“in” in the sense that I was looking at food) and discovered a dish of something indescribable. That is to say that I will not waste my time going into detail over this item which, at one point in its existence, was probably edible.

What’s in your refrigerator?

This incident started me thinking. What qualifies a leftover as “old food”? When a meal sits in tin foil for six days, and its color has not been substantially altered, is it still food? Or has it evolved into something new, like Starchild from 2001 A Space Odyssey?

As an experiment, I left various plates in the refrigerator for lengths of time. Of course, some of them were eaten by my thoughtless family, thereby eradicating parts of my conclusion. But the majority were untouched after a month, some even for months!

I concluded that most people lie when they say they’ll eat something later, and then leave it in the fridge. The main reason for this is familial niceties. Who wants to tell Mom that they don’t want to eat any more of her chocolate lasagna? When it gets down to brass tacks, most people would rather let good food rot that hurt somebody’s feelings. Except in my family.

Getting back to my conclusions, I found out that red things dull very fast in the cold. They become pink, then look pale, and finally appear…

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Jeffrey Cohen
Jeffrey Cohen

Written by Jeffrey Cohen

Longtime writer and crank. Articles come from more than 30 years in journalism and corporate communications. Follow my podcast at MrJeff2000.podbean.com.

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