New lifestyle- no use-by dates!

Eliza252 wrote:

Look at The Food Standards Agency website, they give good guidelines with respect to storage

Good point! Heres the link: Keeping Food Safe, Storage

Bargain_Rzl wrote:

The thing to remember is that a lot of the evil E numbers that shop-bought/processed food is full of, are preservatives. So good wholesome home-made food is bound to go off a lot quicker than what you're used to.

hhmmmm...... not so sure I agree. With home-made it's only as old as the day you made it. With shop-bought processed food, it could be weeks old already by the time you put it in the trolley. Remember, it was made, packaged, stored, delivered to the supermarket bulk warehouse, stored, delivered to the store and then finally on the shelf. The chain could have been much longer.

The ONLY reason processed food needs all the junk is to preserve it through the horrendously long chain involved in getting it to the shop.

I have to say that my experience is that home-made stuff lasts much longer than shop-bought.

Personally, I ignore use-by & sell-by dates and trust my eyes, nose & mouth. Look at it ... does it look OK? Soup, for example will start to ferment as an indication of bacterial infection. If it looks OK, smell it. If there is no odd smell then taste it - just a little. If it's infected, then it will taste sour or rancid.

I have 2 year old preserves here - home-made, of course. I opened some yesterday for an impromtu lunch and they were absolutely scrummy. And I'm still here, but I do feel odd .... oh-no, this post might be my last ever!

Seriously, don't place too much in the dates used by the manufacturers. Remember that they will err on the side of caution for fear of being sued!

Look, smell & taste will not let you down

Curry_Queen wrote:

Hehehehe I use nose and eyes too, even on stuff that does have a use by label, and will often ignore it

If something is really pushing it's safety margin though I'll risk eating it myself but wouldn't give it to my son, but otherwise I tend to use the 3 day rule for HM food in the fridge. If I know I won't use it by then it goes straight into the freezer.

My mums lentil soup tasted even better on the second day....no side effects yet. Use by dates are for safety to protect the suppliers.. se your eyes & nose as well as reading the label.

Queenie wrote:

When I was a kid, I opened the jam to find it had grown a furry jacket, told my Mum who promptly took it out of my hands ...... she scraped the furry jacket off handed it back and said: "Waste not, want not! It'll be fine now." :eek:

:rotfl:

I'm still here too - unless I've become a figment of my own imagination!?

Good on you, Queenie!!!! I was too shy to mention that one. I do it (with cheese) all the time and nobody has died yet.

Once I caught the cat licking the butter :eek: but just scraped the 'lick marks' off and nobody knew any better. I bet I've shocked everyone who doesn't like cats now!!!!!

:rotfl: @ jay bee - our furbaby did that a few days after we adopted him into the family. I scrapped off the offending bits which fed it to the CAT!!! The family got the rest hidden in some Dundee Cake - should have burned off any bacteria methought

Another of my Mother's fav adages: "What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over!" (This after some par boiled spuds leapt out the pan onto the floor in a determined effort to avoid a good roasting!)

God, I miss her!!!

As for the cheese, yeppers, I admitted to that on the cheese thread too LOL Bread doesn't last long enough to grow a jacket.