What I have learned in college this year.

Aside from the academic knowledge gained from my sophomore year thus far, I have learned some good practical life lessons.  Mostly about food.  :)  And mostly about what different foods looks like when they go bad.  These are the types of things one doesn't learn in a house of nine people simply because food gets eaten so fast it never has the chance to even think about going bad.  Rotten food makes me sad.  The truth is I wanted to eat it. I was even looking forward to eating it.  I just have so many great options, I can't possibly eat everything before it goes bad.  And you wonder why college kids eat junk.   It's because they can keep junk food forever and it doesn't go bad.  Here is the food I have had to throw away so far this year:

1.  Bread.  Since I somehow never have time to make a sandwich for myself (I'm not as smart as my father who makes them the night before), I sometimes just bring slices of bread to school.  So I broke out my bread slices in my World Music Cultures class and soon noticed they were moldy.  Disgusting.  Mold is seriously one of the grossest things ever.  For some reason I forgot that bread stays good longer when put in the fridge.  You see, this rule does not apply at the Ostler home because we go through about a loaf a day (especially during the school year).  From this experience, I have learned to put bread in the fridge.  And I remembered that you can freeze bread too!  What a concept!  :)

2.  Bagels.  This made me really sad because I splurge and buy the good freshly baked bagels.  I can't stand throwing any food away...especially bagels.

3.  Orange and yellow peppers.  Yep...they got mushy and fuzzy.  So gross.  I figured that since red and green peppers stay good forever, orange and yellow peppers would stay good equally as long.  False.  I have come to the conclusion that orange and yellow peppers go bad faster than red and green peppers because they are genetically altered vegetables...meaning not natural...which would make them weaker than natural colored peppers.  However, you will be pleased to know that I did use the non-mushy/fuzzy parts of the peppers.  :)  And to all of you out there who say I should have just thrown the whole thing away at the first sign of mold, I am still alive and well.  Some feel that as soon as mold appears on food, the entire piece of food is infected.  I beg to differ.  If this was so, that means that food would technically be bad before any mold showed up.  Thus, there would be way more sick people in the world today.  Yes, I'm probably just justifying my salvaging of food, but my explanation works for me.  :)

4.  Refried beans (canned).  I love refried beans on my quesadillas.  And without food storage (I miss food storage) how else am I supposed to get refried beans?  So I bought a fairly large can of refried beans that I kept refrigerated after I opened it.  One day I noticed some white fuzzy mold on a portion of the beans.  Disgusting.  But I couldn't throw away all the beans.  So I threw away the moldy part and then put the rest of the can into ziploc bags and put them in the freezer.  And I am still using them to this day.  :)

5.  Mushrooms (pre-sliced).  They were slimy.  Disgusting.  The slime would not even wash off.  Of course I called my mom to see if she thought they were still edible.  She thought they would be fine as long as I cooked them.  I then checked the internet just to be sure.  And guess what the first source I found said.  Yep you guessed it.  It said the first sign that mushrooms are bad is that they get slimy.  Hahahaha.  But I don't blame my mother.  She's never had mushrooms long enough to experience the slime that appears when they go bad.  :)

6.  Grated cheese.  I've made it through bags of grated cheese before, but unfortunately this time was different.  The cheese didn't get moldy, just sour and gross.  I had to throw it away.  I cried.  Hahahahahaha.  Just kidding.  But I was sad.  I then quickly ate the rest of my block cheese to make sure it didn't go bad too.

7.  Ham (deli sliced lunch meat style).  So I'm not really a fan of meat sandwiches.  (Unless they are from Subway or Quiznos.)  Although, I did eat homemade ones every other day for about 12 years of my life.  Thanks Dad.  :)  But I bought the ham because I was involuntarily going vegetarian up at school.  I love to eat meat and would never purposely be a vegetarian, but I don't like to have to cook it or deal with it.  So lunch meat sounded like a good solution.  I could put it on my grilled cheese sandwiches.  Well, let's just say I didn't eat enough grilled cheeses.  :)  Today, I was going to make one.  Then I noticed pink slime on the slices of meat.  Gross.  Super unnatural looking.  Who knew pink slime was what happened to lunch meat when it goes bad?  So, believe it or not I was still going to use it.  I rinsed off two pieces of the ham and put them on my sandwich.  However, while it was cooking, I looked up how you could tell lunch meat was bad on the internet and lo and behold pink slime was a symptom of  bad lunch meat.  So I took the meat out of my sandwich and threw it away.  Don't worry.  I still ate the sandwich.  :)

A success story.  So one time it was my turn to buy the milk.  I was at the market and called Anna to see if we needed milk.  We had less than half of the plastic jug (I'm thinking jug is the wrong word) left.  So she suggested I buy some more.  I did.  Turns out, we managed to not drink the remaining milk very fast.  In addition, Anna's parents left us a small carton of milk that they didn't finish.  So we had three containers of milk.  The expiration date on the milk I bought was soon approaching.  I was trying to think of every way possible to use milk.  Unfortunately, the expiration date came to pass.  But I wasn't about to throw out that milk.  So every morning I would pour a little bit of milk into my milk-testing glass and sample it to see if it was bad or not.  It surprisingly lasted four days after the expiration date.  We finished it on October 13 and it was supposed to go bad on October 9!  Success!  I had to take pictures to document the miracle that had occurred!  :)

So the bright side of having to see so much mold and throw away so much food?  I will know what to look for in the future.  :)  This is the real reason people have to go to college.  Not to get degrees, but to learn how to tell when food goes bad.  Looks like I'm on the right track.  Haha.  The end.