Check your cupboards!

angelatgraceland

I must admit Im a bit obsessed about dates! Its my JOB! The daftest one is with fruit in supermarkets though. We had to chuck a box of bananas the other day as they were 2 days out of date but absolutely perfect. What waste!

Queenie

tee_pee wrote:

right sweet n sour for tea tomorrow. If I don't post tomorrow night I am in casualty. lol :rotfl:

Use your senses: smell, sight, taste and common!! That way, the only time you'll see casualty is on BBC1 on a Saturday night

(confession: today I ate some lamb which was 2 days out of date - I'm still here).

angel - yes, throwing away those bananas would make my toes curl because I'd be thinking about all the banana muffins they are really throwing out (or banana breads :drool: :drool: :drool: )

oops_a_daisy

oooo we prefer bananas a bit black :j my daughter even eats the bruises because I told her they were good for her when she was younger LOL

amosworks

I think Queenie totally hit in on the head, your body is extremely good at knowing what is or isn't ok to eat - so smell, taste, prod and play with to see if you're happy it's ok.

In this ever-litigous society manufactures will set their best before dates well before there was any chance anything nasty could happen to avoid legal problems from bad products. Of course, the chances of something being bad a day after best before date are infitessimally small and grow more probable with time.

Some fresh foods though, like meat, you must observe more closely and prepare correctly, but for tinned and jarred and packet food I think there's a wave of unnecessary panic when a date is reached.

For things reaching their date, I tend to bring them close to the front of the cupboard and/or top of the pile, I check every time I replenish with new shopping.

And at the end of the day, if you do eat something your body isn't totally happy with, you've got an in-built mechanism to get rid of it rather quickly anyway

mirakl

I'll risk eating anything that looks and smells ok. I admit I pay entirely no attention to dates on things. It's usually nonsense and I'm completely convinced supermarkets put short dates on things so you have to go to them more often. Dates on fruit and veg make me furious, telling that fruit and veg is off is common sense! You don't need a date stamped on a bananna to see if it's ok to eat. Greengrocers don't do it and it infuriates me that supermarkets treat us like children.

Bargain_Rzl

angelatgraceland wrote:

I must admit Im a bit obsessed about dates! Its my JOB! The daftest one is with fruit in supermarkets though. We had to chuck a box of bananas the other day as they were 2 days out of date but absolutely perfect. What waste!

Depends what you get to do with the waste, angel - when I was a student I worked p/t at the greengrocery concession in my local Kwiksave in York. Anything like that, we registered in a logbook and had the option to take it home. The same went for anything that was a bit funny at one end/on the outside, where the rest of the fruit/veg was perfectly edible.

I didn't half eat well that year!

(If I'd been an MSEer at the time, perhaps I'd have stayed there another year - but I wanted my weekends back )

amosworks

Bargain_Rzl wrote:

I didn't half eat well that year!

Wow lol, I'm now wondering whether I can get a P/T (weekend job maybe) at my local store so I don't have to pay for food any more lol

tee_pee_2

:j Hello there I ate my sweet n sour and I am still alive . :rotfl: :rotfl:

aimeelister

We had friends round for tea on Saturday and I cooked a jam swiss roll to have with custard, I did have to open a new jar of custard much to my dismay (theres still half a jar left BBF 2004) as one of our friends is pregnant and as much as I dont care I did feel she waranted something in date!

Now every pudding is having to have custard to use the old one up!

Glad to hear your still alive tee pee

chickadee

Did more people get food poisoning before we had best before dates? I don't think so. Like Queenie said, we used our eyes and nose to check and our common sense to make a decision. OK I know we can't see bacteria, but how many will have crept into the jar in the last two weeks? Nanny State and companies protecting themselves from litigation if you ask me!

Have any of you heard Terry Wogan talking about this? I once heard him tell the story of a woman who neede some glace cherries for a recipe. Her elderly mother said not to buy some as she had some in her cupboard at home. When they arrived at the mother's house the cherries were decidedly old and shrivelled up. When the daughter (who was about 35) asked how long she had had them she said that she bought them to make the cake for her 21st birthday but didn't need both tubs!! :eek: