Last updated: 28 August 2026
This page sets out how Kitchenouse decides what to publish, where our information comes from, and what happens when we get something wrong. We publish it because a lot of what we write concerns food safety, and on that subject you are entitled to know how the advice was arrived at rather than being asked to take it on trust.
Who writes and reviews this site
Content is written and reviewed by Karen Nouse, who trained in Culinary Arts through Delaware Technical Community College and has completed baking and pastry education alongside professional food safety and food-handling training, with more than twenty years of hands-on experience in food preparation, cooking and storage. More detail is on our About page.
Nothing is published anonymously. Every article carries an author and a date, so you can see who wrote it and how current it is.
How we choose what to write about
Most articles here exist because somebody asked the question first. We pay close attention to what readers search for and cannot find a straight answer to, and to the questions that arrive by email. If a question comes up repeatedly and the existing answers online are vague, contradictory or wrong, that is a strong signal we should write about it.
We do not publish articles simply because a topic is commercially attractive, and we do not build content around products we want to sell. A great many of our articles conclude that you should throw something out or that you already own what you need.
Where our information comes from
Not all claims are equal, so not all sources are treated equally. We work down a hierarchy, and the more consequential the claim, the higher up that hierarchy the source has to be.
- Official food safety authorities for anything involving safety: storage times, safe temperatures, spoilage, cross-contamination and pathogens. This means FoodSafety.gov, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, the FDA, and the CDC.
- University extension services and published food science research for questions about why food behaves as it does, where the mechanism matters to the answer.
- Manufacturer and producer guidance for questions specific to a particular product, appliance or packaging format, where the maker is the authority on their own item.
- Hands-on kitchen experience for technique, texture, taste, timing and the practical business of getting a dish to work.
We do not treat other content websites, recipe aggregators, forum posts or social media as sources of fact. They are useful for understanding what people are confused about. They are not evidence, and a claim repeated across fifty food blogs is still one unverified claim.
The line between safety and preference
This distinction runs through everything we publish, and we try to make it visible rather than blurring the two.
Safety claims are sourced. When we say a cooked dish should not sit at room temperature beyond a certain point, or that poultry needs to reach a specific internal temperature, that comes from published food safety guidance and is not negotiable on the basis of anyone’s habits, including ours.
Quality and preference claims are experience. When we say a particular resting time gives better texture, or that a sauce is more reliable if you do one step before another, that is a judgment formed from cooking, and we present it as such. You may reasonably disagree with us about texture. You should not have to guess which kind of claim you are reading, so where the difference matters we say which it is.
Fact-checking before publication
Every article is checked for accuracy before it goes live. Safety-related figures such as temperatures, refrigerator and freezer times and reheating guidance are verified against current official guidance at the time of writing rather than carried over from an older article or from memory. Where guidance from different authorities differs, we follow the more conservative position and say so.
Where we have not tested something ourselves, we say so plainly rather than implying hands-on experience we do not have.
Updating and reviewing published articles
An article is not finished the day it is published. We review content periodically and update it when official recommendations change, when new research shifts the picture, when a product or its packaging changes, or when we simply find a better way to explain something.
Food safety guidance genuinely does move. Recommendations that were standard practice a decade ago have since been revised, which is why an undated article on this subject is close to worthless. Where an article has been substantially updated, the date shown reflects that.
Corrections
We will get things wrong from time to time. When we do, we want to hear about it and fix it rather than quietly leave it there.
If you believe something on this site is inaccurate, out of date, or no longer matches current guidance, tell us. Send the link and a short note on what looks wrong. You do not need to prove your case, though a source helps.
We investigate every report. Where we find a genuine error, we correct the article and update its date. Where a correction is material, meaning it changes the practical advice rather than fixing a typo, we note within the article that it has been corrected and what changed, because silently rewriting an article that people may have already acted on is not a correction, it is a cover-up. Corrections that affect safety advice are treated as urgent.
Editorial independence
Advertisers, affiliate partners and product manufacturers have no input into our content. They do not see articles before publication, they cannot request changes, and they cannot buy a mention, a ranking or a favorable assessment. We do not accept guest posts, we do not sell links, and we do not publish sponsored content that is not clearly labeled as sponsored.
The site is funded by display advertising and affiliate links, set out in full in our Advertising and Affiliate Disclosure. Given how much of this site is about spoilage and storage, our honest answer is frequently that you should throw something away or buy nothing at all. If that costs us a commission, the advice is working correctly.
Product recommendations
Where we recommend equipment, we assess it on practical everyday use in a home kitchen rather than a professional one: whether it does the job it claims to, how it holds up over time, and how easy it is to clean. We do not rank products by commission rate, and we are willing to say that the cheap option is fine or that you do not need the item at all.
The limits of what we can tell you
No article can inspect the food in front of you. Our storage times assume ordinary conditions and sound handling, and they are estimates for planning rather than guarantees about a specific item in your kitchen. Our standing position is the simple one: when in doubt, throw it out. Full details are in our Food Safety and Health Disclaimer.
Questions about this policy
If you want to know how we arrived at a particular claim, ask and we will tell you. Contact us here.