How Can You Know If Your Pork Is Bad?

If you’re looking through the fridge, assessing the durability of the components, you could be wondering how to tell whether pig has gone bad, and whether this kind of meat displays evident indications of decay or not.

How can you know if your pork has gone bad? Pork that has gone bad may exhibit a range of symptoms, such as becoming slimy or gray, or acquiring a putrid odor that makes you sick. Any of these will signal that the pork is no longer safe to consume, regardless of whether it is cooked or raw, and they may apply to both cooked and raw pork.

How Can You Tell If Raw Pork Has Gone Bad?

If raw pork has gone bad, you should use your senses of smell, sight, and touch to determine if it is safe to eat. Remove the pork from the refrigerator and thoroughly check it. If the meat has become gray, slimy, or stinks, it is no longer safe to consume. Throw it aside if you detect mold flakes.

Gray meat is a sure sign that it has gone rotten. This happens as a result of the flesh being exposed to oxygen for a lengthy period of time. The oxygen interacts with the iron in the meat, causing it to oxidize. This produces metmyoglobin, which is brown and causes the meat to seem gray.

Yet, not all gray meat has gone bad; this shift may occur before the flesh has spoiled. Gray meat does not necessary need to be discarded, but it does suggest that the meat has passed its prime.

As a result, you should also look for the other two indications. To begin, carefully touch the meat to assess its texture. If it is solid and wet to the touch, it is most likely safe to eat. If it has become mushy and slimy, the cells have started to degrade owing to germs, and you cannot consume it safely.

Similarly, if there is a terrible odor, it is a dead giveaway that the pork is no longer edible. Humans, like many other animals, are put off by the stench of decaying flesh because it makes us sick, thus we’ve evolved to dislike it.

You should be careful if any of these indicators appear. Gray meat is okay to eat on its alone, but slimy or stinky meat (or meat that is a mix of the aforementioned) should be avoided.

How Can You Tell If Cooked Pork Has Gone Bad?

The same three clues may be used to determine whether cooked pork has gone rotten. Gray flesh or mold specks, a terrible odor, or a slimy texture all indicate the same issue as with raw meat, and you should avoid eating any pork with these signs.

It’s worth mentioning that it might be difficult to smell chilled pork, so if you’ve been preserving leftovers, let them warm up on the counter for 10 minutes before doing the smell test. Even rotting meat may not have a strong odor when chilled.

As with raw pork, sliminess or a strong odor are more obvious signs of degradation than gray color, but mold patches are a dead giveaway that the pork should be discarded.

Does Cooking Make Bad Pork Safe to Eat?

Cooking rotting pork will not make it safe to consume. Toxins produced by bacteria in meat contribute to the hazard. Heat kills germs but does not eliminate poisons, so rotten pork may make you sick no matter how much you cook it.

If you believe that any pork has gone bad, you should discard it rather than consume it. This is critical since eating rotting pork may make you extremely sick. Food poisoning may be lethal in severe situations, so don’t risk it by cooking meat that you know has gone bad.

How Long Can You Store Pork For?

Raw pork may be stored in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days. If the meat has been ground, reduce the time to around 2 days. Cooked pork may be kept for approximately 3 days if it was prepared fresh and chilled shortly.

Note that pork must be kept continually cold throughout storage or it can acquire pathogenic bacteria, which are undetectable but can cause severe illness.

Even though the pork looks, smells, and feels OK, it should be discarded if it has been at room temperature for more than 2 hours. If the temperature in the room exceeds 90 degrees Fahrenheit, you cannot keep pork at room temperature for more than one hour before it becomes dangerous to consume.

To keep oneself safe while eating meat, you must follow these instructions.

Can You Put Pork in the Freezer?

If you are not going to utilize the pork within the specified time frame, you may want to freeze it. This is possible, but it is advisable to do it several days before the pork expires. Do not freeze meat that is turning or exhibiting the above-mentioned symptoms.

This is due to the fact that the freezing and thawing operations take time, and the pork may spoil in the meanwhile. If you are not planning to utilize the pork right away, it is advisable to freeze it. If necessary, cut it into sections so you may defrost just what you need, lowering the danger of spoiling even more.

Ground pork can stay in the freezer for around 4 months, while pig roasts and chops may be stored in an airtight container for up to a year.

Final Thoughts

As pork goes bad, it generally loses its color and texture and develops a putrid odor. Always check pig thoroughly before cooking and eating it, particularly if it has been refrigerated for a few days. This will lower your chances of getting food poisoning.