Is It Okay To Eat Leftovers?

Once you cook food, the nutrients in the food degrade very quickly, within a matter of hours. Food that sits in the fridge for several days may have very little nutritional value left in it. Kids know this intuitively - that's why they don't like the taste. They complain when they have to eat leftovers. The taste buds of adults are dull, concealing this effect. Reheating food causes further nutritional degradation.

Eating leftovers is better than binging on ice-cream because there's no food in the house. Eating leftovers is better than fast food too. True, classical Ayurveda recommends against eating leftovers. However, there were no refrigerators in ancient India. So even though fresh food is always best, leftovers aren't so bad either, due to modern refridgeration. Three days is probably the absolute limit on leftover food. Here another good rule of thumb: If you can't remember when you cooked it, it's too old.

• A Fresh Look at Leftovers