Use by date on food

juno

ScoobieGirl wrote:

A colleague of mine once used a tub of Elmlea cream 6 months (yes months) out of date. I'm not suggesting you try it, but she didn't suffer any side effects.

I misread that as "Emla cream"

piglet6

I am firmly in the camp of using your nose and common sense, rather than sticking to the dates printed on the packaging - as somebody already mentioned, I too have had things which are supposedly "in date" which are quite clearly not edible when opened...:eek: Remember, you are relying totally on other people having transported and stored the product under perfect conditions in order to keep a product at maximum freshness - and how often do you see chilled goods sitting on a trolley in a supermarket waiting to be unpacked (and how long were they sitting on that trolley in the warehouse, not necessarily chilled to "optimum temperature" before they made it out to the shop floor) .

I have a friend who works for George Adams (pork products factory, not only for things produced under their own label, but for the majority of the major supermarkets ) who told me that you can usually add a week to the best before dates on chilled items. In fact, some well known supermarkets at Christmas operate a "sale & return" basis on certain "party" products, and on occasion, they have been taken back to the factory, re-labelled, re-dated and re-sent out to other places... The "better" supermarkets tend to be "more flexible" with their dates, whereas the "cheaper" supermarkets tend to be nearer to the mark with their best before dates.

Not sure if that helps, or whether I have just made things worse!

Piglet