Frozen/Thawed/Refrozen Meat: How Much Is Safety, And How Much Is Taste?

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Home freezing of meat is mostly very safe. At normal household freezer temperatures, meat can indeed be kept for some months to a year or so, depending on what it is.

  • It can’t be kept indefinitely though (unless you have a liquid nitrogen vat instead of a normal home freezer); the biochemical processes aren’t truly “paused” by freezing, they’re just slowed down to an almost imperceptible level.

  • It is safe to refreeze thawed meat though! With some caveats (see our main feature for explanation and details)

• There’s more to yoga than getting in a few stretches (wonderful as those are).

  • Today’s sponsor, Breathe and Flow, will teach you (for free!) about such diverse areas as skill training, optimal recovery, structural integration, complementary practices and more

Read on to learn about these things and more…

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

TED | Why healthy bones are about so much more than milk (3:35)

Dr. Jen Gunter busts some myths:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Prefer text? You might like our previous article:

Vit D + Calcium: Too Much Of A Good Thing?

Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖

🫛 RECIPES WORTH SHARING

High-Protein Smashed Edamame Toast!

Nisha Vora, of Rainbow Plant Life fame, has this delicious high-protein recipe that packs in the nutrients for breakfast and beyond!

_{For all those who asked for more text-based recipes… Enjoy!}

❄️ MAIN FEATURE

What You Can (And Can't) Safely Do With Frozen Meat

Yesterday, we asked you: “You have meat in the freezer. How long is it really safe to keep it?” and got the above-depicted, below-described set of responses:

• About 33% said “some months to a year or so, depending on the meat/guidelines”

• About 42% said “as above, but if it gets defrosted, it is not safe to refreeze”

• About 16% said “indefinitely, for all intents and purposes; it just might get tougher”

• About 9% said “weeks or less; bad things start happening after that”

So, what does the science say?

Meat can be kept indefinitely (for all intents and purposes) in a freezer; it just might get tougher: True or False?

False, assuming we are talking about a normal household electrical freezer that bottoms out at about -18℃ / 0℉.

If you remember back to your physics or perhaps chemistry classes at school, you’ll know that molecules move more quickly at higher temperatures, and more slowly at lower ones, only approaching true stillness as they near absolute zero (-273℃ / -459℉ / 0K ← we’re not saying it’s ok, although it is; rather, that is zero kelvin; no degree sign is used with kelvins)

That means that when food is frozen, the internal processes aren’t truly paused; it’s just slowed to a point of near imperceptibility.

So, all the way up at the relatively warm temperatures of a household freezer, a lot of processes are still going on.

What this means in practical terms: those guidelines saying “keep in the freezer for up to 4 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 9 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 12 months” etc are being honest with you.

More or less, anyway! They’ll usually underestimate a little to be on the safe side—but so should you.

Bad things start happening within weeks at most: True or False?

False, for all practical purposes. Again, assuming a normal and properly-working household freezer as described above.

(True, technically but misleadingly: the bad things never stopped; they just slowed down to a near imperceptible pace—again, as described above)

By “bad” here we should clarify we mean “dangerous”. One subscriber wrote:

…and as a matter of taste, that’s fair enough!

It is unsafe to refreeze meat that has been thawed: True or False?

False! Assuming it has otherwise been kept chilled, just the same as for fresh meat.

Food poisoning comes from bacteria, and there is nothing about the meat previously having been frozen that will make it now have more bacteria.

That means, for example…

• if it was thawed (but chilled) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been chilled for that period of time (so probably: use it or freeze it, unless it’s been more than a few days)

• if it was thawed (and at room temperature) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been at room temperature for that period of time (so probably: throw it out, unless the period of time is very small indeed)

The USDA gives for 2 hours max at room temperature before considering it unsalvageable, by the way.

However! Whenever you freeze meat (or almost anything with cells, really), ice crystals will form in and between cells. How much ice crystallization occurs depends on several variables, with how much water there is present in the food is usually the biggest factor (remember that animal cells are—just like us—mostly water).

Those ice crystals will damage the cell walls, causing the food to lose structural integrity. When you thaw it out, the ice crystals will disappear but the damage will be left behind (this is what “freezer burn” is).

So if your food seems a little “squishy” after having been frozen and thawed, that’s why. It’s not rotten; it’s just been stabbed countless times on a microscopic level.

The more times you freeze and thaw and refreeze food, the more this will happen. Your food will degrade in structural integrity each time, but the safety of it won’t have changed meaningfully.

Want to know more?

Further reading:

You can thaw and refreeze meat: five food safety myths busted

Take care!

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

Yoga Beyond Asana

There’s more to yoga than getting in a few stretches. Those are great, of course, but if you would like to deepen your practice, this free newsletter will take you there.

Here you can learn, for free, about such diverse areas as skill training, optimal recovery, structural integration, complementary practices and more:

Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

🤫 A WORD TO THE WISE

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

How to Eat (And Still Lose Weight): A Science-backed Guide to Nutrition and Health – by Dr. Andrew Jenkinson

You may be wondering: what diet is he recommending?

The answer is: some guiding principles aside.... He's not recommending a diet, per se.

What this book does instead is outline why we eat too much ← link is to where we previously had this author as a spotlight featured expert on this topic! Check it out!

He goes into a lot more detail than we ever could have in our little article, though, and this book is one of those where the reader may feel as though we have had a few classes at medical school. The style, however, is very comprehensible and accessible; there’s no obfuscating jargon here.

Once we understand the signalling that goes on in terms of hunger/satiety, and the signalling that goes on in terms of fat storage/metabolism, we can simply choose to not give our bodies the wrong signals. Yes, it's really that simple. It feels quite like a cheat code!

Bottom line: if you'd like a better understanding of what regulates our body's "set point" in weight/adiposity, and what can change it (for better or for worse), then this is the book for you.

Click here to check out How To Eat (And Still Lose Weight), and enjoy eating (while still losing weight)!

May all that you consume do good things for you,

The 10almonds Team