shelf life, how far would you go ?

Queen.Bess

Apparently MIL swears by using old eggs for making yorkshire pudding.

With regards to the sausages, if they were a day over I would probably use them.

There are a lot of products that supermarkets etc advise on as using much quicker than you need to, mainly delicatessen items, but as long as it looks and smells OK I'll eat it!

MIRRY_2

we only eat organic sausages.;)

Smashing

If it hasn't grown legs and wondered off of its own accord, I'll give it a bash.

tawnyowls

In general, best before dates are only a guide, and it's perfectly safe to eat them long past that - stuff canned in the second world war (not by me!) is supposedly still edible. Use by dates are a bit more dodgy, but I always go by smell and taste and haven't every suffered any real ill effects.

Stonk

"Best Before End" means that it will taste better if you eat it by the date, but it won't kill you if you eat it later. For example, crisps might go soggy after the BBE date: you won't enjoy them as much, but you'll live.

Contrastingly, "Use By" means that the stuff can get dangerous after the specified date (plus a tolerance). Eggs, meat, and so on. Leave them too long and you risk a stomach upset ... or worse bwuuu-ha-haaa-haaa ...

V_Chic_Chick

Eggs don't come out of the chicken with a sell by date, and then they sit around for ten or more days before she decides to incubate them (unrefridgerated), and then she sits on them for three weeks straight (4 weeks for a duck!) at a temperature appx. 1C higher than our own.

Then, a healthy little chick hatches out

Just proof to me eggs can keep for ages

newleaf

My Grandad used to say 'You have to eat a peck o' muck afore you die'. I eat anything that still looks and smells OK.

Mr_Proctalgia

I have some Tandoori mix dated 1995! It still works well, and I have a huge stash of Saffron that is at the very least from 1985 and still makes wonderful rice! (and I do mean a large tupperware full) It will probably get left in my will!

That being said - And not being "Fridgeist" in my last home I had a rather large Maytag American Fridge Freezer and apart from using loads of electricity it used to dehydrate food to death and stuff used to curl up and die (but it did wonderful dried mushrooms!) Since I have moved I bought a new LG "French Door" FF and it is superb! Double fridge on top and a freezer on pull out rails below - It s like putting stuff in a time warp, I deliberately kept an apple in it for 6 weeks and it was perfectly fresh and crispy, ditto ham and cheese, nothing seems to go off or dry up, it just sits there and never changes so am changing my views on BBE and
Use By dates a lot just now.

BTW It can hold 140 cans of beer! (as I found out LOL)

Chipps

It wasn't so many years ago that almost nothing had best before dates on. (and no, it wasn't in the days before fridges & freezers, cos neither am I!)
So people had to use their own common sense & decide whether stuff was good or not. I don't remember there being more cases of food poisoning 20 years ago than now.
I often get free range eggs which don't have dates stamped on them, so do the float test if they have been hanging around in the fridge for a while.
On the other hand, I bought some chicken portions once which were well within their use by date, & they were totally rank! I took them back to the shop, & have been wary of supermarket "fresh" chicken since then.
I suspect the dates are fairly arbitrary. My nose is much more reliable!