How long doesSour creamlast?
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
The USDA fills 1 of its nine slots for this item, and every one of them says not recommended rather than giving a time. The refrigerator slot is not blank either: the source answers it in words rather than in days, and that answer is set out below.
- In the freezernot recommended
- In the fridgePackage use-by date
Where the USDA answers in words instead of days
1 of the nine slots the USDA keeps for this item holds an answer that is not a number, and an answer in words is still an answer: in the fridge it answers with the package date rather than a number, and the use-by date printed on that particular package is the figure to go by.
Items that behave the same way
The USDA gives this item no window of its own to compare, so these 6 are simply what it does rate on the same shelf, shortest first: Pudding at 2 days through Soy milk at 10 days.
- Puddingkeeps 2 days in the fridge once opened
- Egg disheskeeps 3 days in the fridge
- Egg substituteskeeps 3 days in the fridge
- Eggnog, commercialkeeps 3 days sealed in the fridge
- Kefir, fermented milkkeeps 1 day in the fridge once openedup to 1 week sealed in the fridge
- Soy milkkeeps 7 days in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 29 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 0 of the nine storage slots with a time, and it gives this item no storage time at all: what the source answers here it answers in words, above. 1 slot is marked not recommended, which is an answer rather than a gap. 1 slot is answered in words instead of days, and printed as the source wrote it.
Where these numbers come from
Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.
Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.
Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.
Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.
USDA index terms: cream, sour
KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.