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USDA-based guidance

USDA-based · · How this page was made · Last reviewed September 14, 2026 · Sources ↓

When federal charts disagree: how StillGood? picks a number

The answer

We only publish cold-storage durations we can trace to United States federal guidance. When two federal sources disagree, we take the more conservative window, note the discrepancy when it matters, and link the documents — we do not average, and we do not invent a third number.

This is the process behind the fridge and freezer cards — not a new chart, and not a reason to trust us over the government pages we cite.

Why disagreement happens

FoodSafety.gov’s cold storage chart, the USDA FoodKeeper dataset, and food-specific FSIS documents are related but not identical. They are updated on different schedules, cover different levels of detail, and sometimes describe slightly different products (whole bird versus parts, opened versus unopened, commercial versus homemade). FDA covers much of produce and seafood; CDC focuses on prevention steps and higher-risk groups rather than a full duration table.

A home cook comparing two official pages can therefore see “3 to 4 days” on one and a tighter line on another. That is inconvenient. It is not a license for a website to split the difference and publish “3.5 days,” or to borrow a number from a recipe blog because it looks tidy.

Our hierarchy

The same order is written in the editorial policy. In short:

  1. USDA FSIS food-specific guidance when it exists for that food (for example, chicken or ground beef documents).
  2. FoodSafety.gov Cold Food Storage Chart and FoodKeeper as the general federal fallback.
  3. FDA guidance for foods under FDA jurisdiction (much produce and seafood handling).
  4. CDC guidance for illness risk and handling practice — especially when the question is “what should I do,” not “how many days.”

Where two federal sources both apply and give different windows for the same food state, we publish the shorter / more conservative refrigerator safety window. We do not average. Freezer figures on this site are quality windows at 0°F (food stays safe longer while frozen); when quality ranges differ, we still prefer the conservative published range and keep the safety-versus-quality distinction visible on the page.

What we do when guidance is silent

Charts do not name every leftover and every produce item. When there is no row for a food, we either apply the documented rule for the governing category and say that is what we did, or we state that no federal duration is published. We never fill a gap with a plausible invented number. A fabricated fridge window looks exactly like a real one to a reader standing at an open door — which makes it worse than a visible gap.

How to check our work

On any food page, open the Sources card. Follow the link. Find the matching product or category in the federal document. Compare it to our fridge and freezer cards. Prefer the government page if you see a conflict, and tell us so we can correct the entry. The About page’s verify-a-number section and the editor page describe the same accountability loop.

“Last reviewed” means the page was last compiled or edited against those cited sources. It is not a claim that a laboratory re-tested your leftovers that morning. Review cadence and corrections are documented in the editorial policy.

What this guide is not

It is not a substitute for the Cold Food Storage Chart, and it does not add new durations. It exists so AdSense reviewers, journalists, and anyone else evaluating this site can see that the catalog is a sourced re-presentation layer with an explicit conflict rule — not a scraped template with decorative citations.

For the temperature physics underneath every window, read the danger zone. For appliance setup that makes those windows meaningful, read fridge temperature.

Sources

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