Larry Jaques wrote:

On Fri, 03 Jun 2005 11:13:42 -0400, the inscrutable Jeff Wisnia
spake:


I still believe it's not necessary to refrigerate Hellman's mayo after
opening for safety reasons, but only to keep it's taste longer.

Jeff

P.S. I just scanned the label on a bottle of Heinz 57 Ketchup (Which we
also keep in the fridge.) and unless my eyes are really shot, I can't
find anything about "Refrigerate after opening" on it either.


Trust me, having had bad catsup before, you do NOT want to take a
chance with it. Date it going into the fridge if you don't use it
very often. I think the one which got me was over 2 years old, and
since I'm single and didn't use it often, I didn't keep close enough
track of it. Damnear kilt me, it did. Projectilely and from both ends
at once. Oy vay!

--
"Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein
-=-=-
http://www.diversify.com Wondrous Website Design
We DO keep both the mayo and ketchup in our fridge (But not the Skippy
peanut butter or the marshmallow fluff.)

An extra degree of protection can't hurt. I wasn't advising anyone to
keep opened mayo unrefrigerated, but the health risks of room
temperature mayo storage have been grossly overstated, to the point of
creating the myth that opened unrefrigerated mayo becomes poisonous in a
few hours.

I'd advise always removing whatever amount of mayo you're going to use
from the jar with a clean utensil, to avoid transferring in particles of
other food which could "go bad" even under refrigeration.

Though, the second Q&A on this page is pretty definite about it being
allright to keep opened mayo unrefrigerated, so I don't think I blew it
too badly by incliding mayo in my short list of some foods which "keep"
without refrigeration:

http://www.dressings-sauces.org/mayonnaise.html

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia

(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented."