Every Sunday night, my sister Dana meal-preps for the entire week.
Her favorite lunch is tuna salad, so she makes a huge container with tuna, mayonnaise, celery, pickles, onions, and chopped hard-boiled eggs.
Then she eats from the same batch Monday through Friday.
Sometimes even Saturday.
I never did.
By Wednesday or Thursday, I was already suspicious.
One afternoon, she offered me a sandwich and I asked when she had made it.
“Sunday,” she said casually.
It was Friday.
I put the sandwich down.
Dana laughed.
“It’s refrigerated. It’s fine.”
She said she had been doing it for years and had never gotten sick.
Still, I wanted to know the actual recommendation, so I checked food-safety guidance.
Prepared tuna salad is generally best kept refrigerated for only about 3 to 4 days.
That surprised her.
The bigger issue is that you can’t always tell whether food is unsafe just by smelling it or looking at it.
Once tuna is mixed with other perishable ingredients, especially eggs or mayonnaise-based dressing, keeping it cold matters—but refrigeration doesn’t make it last forever.
Dana looked at her container.
Then at me.
Then back at the container.
“So Friday tuna is probably not my best idea?”
“Probably not.”
She threw the rest away.
Now she makes two smaller batches each week instead of one enormous one.
And every time she offers me tuna salad, she tells me exactly what day she made it.
