How long can cooked food stay in the fridge? A question most people answer with smell and intuition - and intuition, nutritionists point out, more often errs on the side of "this is still fine" than "this is gone." Here is the definitive guide.

Cooked food: 3-4 days. That goes for prepared meals, vegetables, pasta, meat and fish. The exception is cooked rice - it only lasts 24 hours, because it's an ideal medium for bacterial growth. Cooked fish and seafood? Same 3-4 days, but don't push the limits.

Raw meat: Poultry, ground meat and raw fish - only 1-2 days in the fridge. Whole cuts of fresh meat last 3-5 days. Eggs in the shell: 3-5 weeks. Hard-boiled eggs: 1 week. Dishes with undercooked egg: 24 hours max.

Three rules that matter as much as the numbers: first, cool food quickly before putting it in the fridge - don't wait for it to cool down all by itself. Second, raw and cooked must never come into contact. Third - the freezer doesn't fix anything. If the food is on the edge of spoiling, freezing pauses it; it doesn't reset it. A defrosted dish lasts as long as it had before being frozen.

Smelling is the last warning - by then the bacteria have probably already done their work. The fridge has to be below 4°C, food in sealed containers, and anything suspicious goes in the bin. Life's short - don't risk it on three-day-old soup.