Buying Beyond Best Befores...official MoneySavingExpert.com discussion

Lexis200

I thought it was just my family who did this stuff!!! So did my OH when we first met, but he's much better now that I've retrained him - and fed him countless out of date meals:D:D

I cut the mould of cheese, scoop it out of jam, have yoghurts that are a couple of months out of date, crisp up stale biccies with a couple of minutes in the oven etc.:rotfl:

I always keep beef for a few days past its sell by as a matter of course before I use it, as it's always so horribly red when you buy it (unless you have the money for the good stuff). Eat it when it's brown, it's much nicer!

Eggs you buy in the supermarket are already likely to be 3 weeks old, so another couple of weeks past the sell by is neither here nor there - as another poster said, they'll float in water if they're really gone. If they lie horizontally they are super fresh; the more vertical they go the older they are. Try it with one from the supermarket - I doubt you'll ever find one that's horizontal!

I'm not silly, and if it smells dodgy I won't be using it, but I'm positive the main reason for sell by's is to bolster the shop coffers by getting you to chuck stuff out early! It works on people though, that's the thing. My brother in law threw out a bag of crisps (a share pack too!) that was about 10 days out of date. He was trounced for that one - even by my hubbie! They may be a bit stale, but other than that they're fine, and quite honestly when you're just having them with a beer who cares??

The one thing I will say is that while I have no issues whatsoever doing this for my family (who I reckon will have a superb immune system by now:D), I wouldn't dream of saying to a guest 'can you just hang on while I scrape the mould off the jam and pick the green bits off your slice of bread - oh, and make sure you sniff that OJ before you drink it'

I'd do all that before they see it:p;)

baldmosher

TO paraphrase Nietzsche: What doesn't kill you, will only make you stronger.... It's probable that strictly following strict H&S guidelines has made us into a less healthy and more allergic nation.

There was an article about this in the Mirror a few years ago that backed up most of my understanding of what was and wasn't safe. For the best example, dried pasta has a best before date on it. You could argue that the big bag of rice in your cupboard could feasibly become contaminated by vermin or cockroaches if left long enough, and depending on how it's processed, you could get weevils in some flours.... but dried pasta?? How could it possibly spoil??

Even meat is less risky than you might imagine. It'll stink before it tastes bad, and it'll taste bad long before it's harmful to you, and as long as you cook it through, it's very very difficult to become ill from eating meat. (I should add that seafood is a much riskier business and even I don't take chances with it, although I'll happily eat smelly fish if it's in a curry....). The French hang their meats in the open air for weeks without becoming ill!

Personally, I ignore all the BBE guidelines, and I'm fit & healthy and rarely become ill. Could be coincidence though. I do take on board H&S training from working in a pub, so I avoid cross-contamination risks, but I also understand that it doesn't really matter if you're about to cook whatever you've contaminated!

Shocking_Blue

baldmosher wrote: »

Even meat is less risky than you might imagine. It'll stink before it tastes bad, and it'll taste bad long before it's harmful to you, and as long as you cook it through, it's very very difficult to become ill from eating meat.

really? so it's okay to eat a heavily discoloured rump steak, as long as it doesn't "stink"? (meat tends to develop a characteristic "meaty" smell, before it goes off anyway.)

baldmosher wrote: »

The French hang their meats in the open air for weeks without becoming ill!

yes, i've always wondered about the 21-day-matured steaks that are served in restaurants and that cost more (and indeed taste better!) than the standard steaks. how can they keep meat 21 days somewhere, and it turns better. yet when you buy it from the butcher and keep it in your fridge, it goes manky?

or do they have special conditions (very low temperature, dark, protected environment)?

Tubbyboy

Shocking_Blue wrote: »

really? so it's okay to eat a heavily discoloured rump steak, as long as it doesn't "stink"? (meat tends to develop a characteristic "meaty" smell, before it goes off anyway.)



yes, i've always wondered about the 21-day-matured steaks that are served in restaurants and that cost more (and indeed taste better!) than the standard steaks. how can they keep meat 21 days somewhere, and it turns better. yet when you buy it from the butcher and keep it in your fridge, it goes manky?

or do they have special conditions (very low temperature, dark, protected environment)?

If your butcher is halfway decent the steak will be a very dark colour rather than bright red anyway. The difference is that it should have been matured on the carcass rather than in a little tray with a sponge underneath.

Unfortunately, most people now consider supermarket meat counters to be butchers and there are now chains of "Family Butchers" springing up (J CRooks spring to mind) who are little more than retail outlets of a meat packing plant. Try asking them for a complicated cut of meat...

For good quality meat, you need a good butcher.

As to BBE dates, I've finally got my wife to ignore them and just use her eyes and nose. The trick with eggs in water is a good one and if you're really suspicious you can always crack them into bowl to check them first.

Mistymaid

The shame about having to have discussions like this one, is that yet again, it's us, the consumer, that brought it about in the first place.
We've whined and whinged our way through the shopping cart, threatened to sue for every little blemish or potential risk, until retailers and producers have had to cover their backs until we are practically wasting more food than we are eating.

I think you'll find that the reason we end up getting sold red meat is because of health scare issues meaning that animals are now killed younger and meat sold before it's properly hung. Although the killing age was extended a little a couple of years back.

Also, and I could be wrong on this, but meat tends to cure better if it's hung in a draft rather than sealed in a fridge - which is why it goes off quicker in the fridge - just an old farmer who told me that.

Anyway, my small tip - I buy blocks of Mozzerella (sp?) cheese when it's cheap and cut it into smaller pieces and freeze it for pizzas. It only takes about 15 minutes to defrost (don't put it in the microwave - it goes very runny, very quickly:D ) and you can use how ever much you need.

Ballymackeonan

I've been buying and eating supermarket short dated food for a long time, still here and no side effects yet! I always check what's reduced in the supermarket, particularly on the deli counter at my local Sainsbury's. Best yet - the end of a Wiltshire ham at 90% off, chopped, bagged and kept in the freezer to use for omelettes, pasta sauces etc.

Most cheeses are only properly matured at least a couple of weeks after sell-by date! I was given a big hunk of Fontina cheese last year as it had reached best-before, kept it loosely wrapped in the fridge and it improved over several months! And a lot of supermarket fruit is still under-ripe at the sell-by date: pears that are still rock-hard, green-tinged pineapples etc. Since I prefer bread toasted, there's no point in buying it fresh...

Best before dates are largely a marketing ploy, simply to encourage the consumer to throw out food and replace it!

emujuice

I'm happy to use things past the use by and shop at approved foods. All I will say about meat is be most careful with mince and burgers etc... as the processing takes and bugs that are on the surface of the meat and puts them all over, so that if the middle isn't cooked at as high a temperature as the outside you might get ill (as the bugs survive) this is not such an issue with steaks etc...as you can cook the outside (where the bugs are) to a high temp. The inside should be fairly bug free!
enjoy

BB78

I've used Approved Food a few times recently & can highly recommend them!! :T
A post said earlier you have to register & that the link didn't work, I didn't have to register to use Approved Food unless the person was refering to Google Checkout?
It is Crags Cash & Carry & the guy who runs it is called Dan & he is REALLY friendly & helpful. Delivery is quick & if you order enough weight wise its value for money.
The first order I placed was delivered 8am the next morning despite the fact that there had been a problem with Google checkout & my payment hadn't gone through!!

I'm not associated with Approved Food in any way other than as a customer & would definitely recommend you check them out!! :j

Shocking_Blue

Ballymackeonan wrote: »

I've been buying and eating supermarket short dated food for a long time, still here and no side effects yet! I always check what's reduced in the supermarket, particularly on the deli counter at my local Sainsbury's.

same with me. i was lucky at ASDA today, as lots of fruit and veg were reduced to 10 p.

Ballymackeonan wrote: »

And a lot of supermarket fruit is still under-ripe at the sell-by date: pears that are still rock-hard, green-tinged pineapples etc.

yep, and in the worst case they never reach the "ripe" stage, but go bad before, e.g. bananas going from green straight to black.

frogglet

It is reassuring to read these posts, as I have always used out of date stuff. Although I found a tin of anchovies that were 6 months out of date in the cupboard and the texture had changed completely, so didn't eat them.I just don't tell the family, as my hubby is paranoid about sell by dates.
However, unknowingly my husband ate a two week out of date prawn sandwich filler he found at the back of the fridge , late one night after a few beers, I saw it in the bin but didn't say anything, just kept a close eye on him and he was fine. so I told him two days later.