Use by dates for food

[Fab Foodie]

I use my professional judgement...

'Use-by' dates should really be adhered to, there is some seafety margin built-in, but you shouldn't bank on it. Best-Before gives more latitude, for products where deterioration is in terms of quality rather than microbial/safety. Canned foods keep for yonks if intact.

Smell is not always a good indicator and cooking will not always remove the toxins that cause poisoning.
Removing vivsible mould does not remove it all which may run invisibly throughout the product and also produce toxins. Mould toxin is very potent.

Good eating!

 

[jonesy]

Here's an example of where I think it is silly: I've just come from the local shop with two large bags of apples bought dirt cheap off the reduced pile because they were past their sell by date. Presumably they'd have been thrown away if I hadn't bought them. Meanwhile, the loose apples in the next shelf, without a sell-by date, will only be thrown away if they've gone bad. What a waste of perfectly good apples. Why can't they just be sold as loose apples?

 

[Haitch]

I never knew that fruit and veg had sell-by, best-before or use-by dates.

Should I get out more?

 

[Arch]

Yeah, I'm in the 'if it looks and smells ok, it probably is' camp. If it kills me, it kills me.

Recently I had a tinned sponge pudding that was a year past its date, and some liver that had been in the freezer for about a year I reckon. Cheese never gets to its date, and milk is ok until it smells dodgy or splits when you put it in tea. Meat generally is bought and used straightaway anyway. I'd certainly buy something reduced and use it the day after it's date - or I'd freeze it...

 

[tyred]

If it looks and smells okay, it is okay in my book.

The human race has survived thousands of years without best before date and they are probably just a waste of food and an insult to our intelligence in most cases. I can decide if an apple is fit for consumption or not.

 

[summerdays]

It depends what it is ... for example eggs .. my grandparents kept them in a cool dark room and did,t refridgerate them. Now they come with a date... however they are perfectly fine long after that date ... once they are several weeks past it I will do a float test before cracking them. Chicken I adhere to the dates more strictly, ham not so much. Its part common sense and smell etc.

I've a brother in law who works in thr food micro biological side and he is very very strict about dates.

 

[Scoosh]

Heard a food programme t'other day, where they were talking to the makers of Lea & Perrins sos, which is, of course, required to have a 'Use By' date. Daft really, as it matures the longer it is kept and doesn't go 'off' .............................. apparently.

Does wine have a Use By date ??
If not, why not - surely the food safety/hygiene police shouldn't be ducking that one

 

[papercorn2000]

If it's that bad, it may be good for an out of body experience - or food poisoning in the case of those prawns that I should have binned!

 

[Apeman]

Supermarkets waste so much food sticking to date codes instead of a common sense approach as in if it looks good enough to eat keep it on the shelf. I should know as I work for the big Green and White one!

 

[Arch]

I'm sure I've heard of schemes by which charities distribute out of date food from supermarkets to the poor or homeless (only just out of date obviously, they're not giving away mouldy stuff) - might be worth seeing if there's something local to you that does the same.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Supermarkets waste so much food sticking to date codes instead of a common sense approach as in if it looks good enough to eat keep it on the shelf. I should know as I work for the big Green and White one!

The problem is though...

Firstly particularly with chilled foods the manufacturer can never legislate fr what the consumer does with the product once it leaves the supermarket, i.e storage conditions, thus some latitude needs to be built into a product to deal with that.
Secondly, some serious food poisoning such as Listeriosis will not be spotted by look or smell. Listeriosis, Camphylobacter E.coli 0157are at worst fatal or can lead to very serious illness, particularly the very young, old or pregnant.
Thirdly, If somebody does get sick... who's gonna be liable? You can bet it's not the consumer.
Finally, we have a nation that are not as clued-up as they should be about food... thus products need to be as fool-proof as possible.

 

[Landslide]

I heard a rumour once that whisky goes "off" after it's been open for more than a year. Not that I'll ever need to risk testing the theory!

 

[Fab Foodie]

I heard a rumour once that whisky goes "off" after it's been open for more than a year. Not that I'll ever need to risk testing the theory!

Everything is in a constant state of decay... you cannot change the laws of physics but sometimes you can slow them down....

All food undergoes constant chemical change, whisky and other foods containing volatile flavours for example will rapidly oxidise if exposed to air, coffee flavour degrades really quickly for example, fat goes rancid, starch retrogrades etc etc. Not all change is due to microbes.

 

[jonesy]

Everything is in a constant state of decay... you cannot change the laws of physics but sometimes you can slow them down....

All food undergoes constant chemical change, whisky and other foods containing volatile flavours for example will rapidly oxidise if exposed to air, coffee flavour degrades really quickly for example, fat goes rancid, starch retrogrades etc etc. Not all change is due to microbes.

FF- I'm curious as to how long, in principle, food can remain edible if stored correctly? e..g if tinned food is stored somewhere dry and cool, how long could it last? Years? Decades? Longer?

 

[Fab Foodie]

FF- I'm curious as to how long, in principle, food can remain edible if stored correctly? e..g if tinned food is stored somewhere dry and cool, how long could it last? Years? Decades? Longer?

Decades for tinned foods, though even in a hermetically sealed vacuum can there will be some slow chemical degredation occuring, textures will soften, volatiles will break-down or polymerise etc, physical sedimentation will occur as gel-structures slowly degrade. But the process will be very very slow.