Seafood: How Long Fish & Shellfish Keep

Seafood is the most perishable counter in the store, and the dataset doesn’t soften it: raw fish and live shellfish get 1–2 days from purchase, and cooking buys 3–4 days, not a week. The freezer is where fish separate from each other — lean white fish hold far longer frozen than oily fish like salmon and mackerel, whose fat is the part that goes off first. Below is every fish, shellfish, and smoked or cured product USDA’s FoodKeeper covers, fresh through frozen. Live shellfish get their own rule, and FoodKeeper’s note on whole lobster is blunt about it: it isn’t safe to cook and eat one that was already dead.