Why It’s Safe To Eat This 79-Year-Old Soup

I don’t know about you, but I feel like playing fast and loose with food safety rules is one of those things that will eventually come back to get you.

And the thought of spending 12-24 hours hugging a toilet is enough to make most of us err on the side of caution.

Apparently people who study these types of things, though, say that old doesn’t always equal spoiled.

In fact, there’s an award-winning restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand, Wattana Panich, where you can enjoy a beef and goat soup that might be older than you are.

The 49-year-old soul is described as “delicious and aromatic,” with a “real depth of flavor that’s hard to explain.”

Three generations of chefs have kept it up over the years, storing leftovers at the end of the day and adding new ingredients in the morning.

In the Asakusa district of Tokyo, Japan, there’s a restaurant called Otafuku that serves a stew called oden.

It has been replenished constantly since 1945 – and if it hadn’t been for WWII, it would have been going since 1916.

Obviously, they don’t have a lot of sick or expired customers or bad reviews, the soup is safe to eat – but why?

The soups are heated and kept on a rolling simmer day in and day out, at temperatures hot enough to kill any bacteria introduced on a daily basis.

As long as those safe cold and hot temperatures are maintained, the soup remains good to eat for as long as it lasts.

Even so…I’m not sure I’d want to try it for myself.