Things that are "best before"

paulwf

Kavajo wrote: »

I am a food date sceptic, believing that supermarkets put short dates so that people blindly throw food out and buy more to replace it.

Would you care to provide evidence please?

moorhen_2

mirko wrote: »

I do quite a bit of baking (cakes etc.) and thought I was being very clever by buying 7 x 1.5kg bags of both plain and self-raising flour.

All very good.. but I realised today that the BBE date on it is Oct 2010.

Apart from cooking the world's biggest:
:bdaycake:
I wondered what I could do with it all to "get rid of it quickly"? Any ideas?

I often use stuff that's past its BBE date, and I'll probably use this after BBE too. Any risk of doing that with flour? I think there may be an issue with the self-raising not raising? Does that make it self flour?

I made muffins yesterday with self-raising flour dated OCT 2006. I used a tiny bit extra baking powder and they rose just fine. I ate 2 yesterday evening & thus far I feel fine, though I know it can take longer for food poisoning to show up. So fingers crossed...

I'd have eaten more but they were overdone, despite following the recipe exactly

nesssie1702

Moorhen - using flour dated Oct 2006 is unlikely to cause bacterial food poisoning, as there isn't enough water availability to let bacteria grow. If you think of a slice of bread, as it deteriorates, it goes mouldy. It's too dry to let bacteria grow and as a result won't give you bacterial food poisoning.

Enjoy your muffins!!

Paulwf - I was talking only about minced meat, which is most likely to be contaminated with E. coli and spoilage bacteria and not the toxin-forming bacteria (the Clostridia are anaerobic and Bacillus cereus is a facultative anaerobe).

funnyguy

During the second world war soldiers were given tins of corned beef left from the first world war supplies

paulwf

nesssie1702 wrote: »

Paulwf - I was talking only about minced meat, which is most likely to be contaminated with E. coli and spoilage bacteria and not the toxin-forming bacteria (the Clostridia are anaerobic and Bacillus cereus is a facultative anaerobe).

Point taken that different bacteria cause poisoning in different ways

My advice though is never to rely on cooking throughly on its own to prevent food poisoning as unless you know exactly what food attracts what type of bacteria you could become unstuck. I'd hate anybody to have a quick read of this thread and think if they "nuke" any food they'll be safe.

That's the same reason I pointed out the difference between use by and best before dates as in most cases they have a significantly different risk level. Some people genuinely think they mean the same thing.

Food poisoning can't always be detected by touch, taste or smell. Obviously there isn't a magic cut off point where food suddenly becomes dangerous, a use by date is always going to be an educated guess and will depend on how the food has been handled throughout the supply chain and by the customer. It will also allow for a safety margin.

Kavajo

paulwf wrote: »

Would you care to provide evidence please?

Do you think the food knows when it is supposed to go bad? Of course not, and the shop selling it can only make an estimate.

You should be checking your food before you use it regardless of the date. It is easy to tell with most food whether it is ok. If it smells funny or bad, has gone brown, mushy or hard, then don't eat it. Common sense really.

Supermarkets err on the side of caution (though food can go off before the date, seems to happen a lot with Tesco meat for me) so as to reduce the number of items returned and to protect themselves from being sued. I think they also have an ulterior motive to get people to chuck out food and buy more.

clairehi

mirko wrote: »

Yep, I've seen these before. It's a nightmare picking each individual one out before using the flour I can tell you.

/joke

LOL

I once baked a birthday cake for DS age 3 and only afterwards (8pm night b4 bday) realised the !!!!!!! weevils had got at the flour!
had to send DH out for more flour and stay up late baking, not a happy bunny.

Enterprise_1701C

Flour weevils are harmless when cooked so no need to panic if you bake something and then find your flour contains these little blighters.

mirko

moorhen wrote: »

I made muffins yesterday with self-raising flour dated OCT 2006. I used a tiny bit extra baking powder and they rose just fine. I ate 2 yesterday evening & thus far I feel fine, though I know it can take longer for food poisoning to show up. So fingers crossed...

I'd have eaten more but they were overdone, despite following the recipe exactly

Glad to hear you are still alive! Thanks for being a guinea pig

All my baking tends to be underdone because of the oldness of my gas oven!

mutley74

I was in B&M today and saw lots of crisps that were July 10. I told the assistant/manager nearby and they said that they are allowed to sell items for 1 month past the BB date.