How long do you keep your meat in the fridge?

ladymarmalade

Hi all

Well after the thread on eating healthily for £50, I decided I could find nice meat for cheaper than I was paying at the butchers I go (or should I say went to). I have found another one not far from where I work, so can go on way home which is ideal but my question is this:

How long does meat from the butchers last? I am rubbish with things like this, and probably throw things away I shouldn't because I've had salmonella before and I don't want it again.

Obviously meat from supermarket has guide dates on it as did the stuff from my previous butchers. If I wanted a joint for Sunday, when is the earliest I could buy it? And what about chicken...my biggest fear. I got some on way home tonight but they are for today, I would use them tomorrow but probably not after that.

Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance

CH27

The farm shop I use has use by dates printed on the lables.

Ask the butcher how long things will keep in the fridge or if he recommends freezing asap.

Auntie-Dolly

My butcher says 'the day you buy it, plus 3 days'.

Auntie-Dolly

I wonder why he doesn't just say 4 days?

spike7451

My butcher has a guide up showing where the animal was slaughtered ect.Any good butcher should,imo,have this.

foxgloves

If it isn't labelled, my rule for meat is keep it in the fridge 3 days or if I want to use it later than that, to freeze it. There's a butcher near us who does discounted meat if it's bought in bulk....think minimum is 5lbs of whatever it is, so I'd have to freeze most of that, for instance.

Rainy-Days

Hands up I don't know because we bulk buy our meat from our butcher and then freeze it and take out what we need the day before to thaw through.

The point I have always taken is that supermarket meat seems to last longer because I am convinced it has been adulterated in some way, whether by injecting it with water or some kind of preservative to make it last longer and keep it looking redder. Just my thoughts on it. If they can add 20% water to ham and chicken then they can do it to other things!

VJsmum

YOu could ask him how long to keep it.

YOu could ask him to vacuum pack it, it will last a good while then
Or you could freeze it.

ladymarmalade

Rainy-Days wrote: »

Hands up I don't know because we bulk buy our meat from our butcher and then freeze it and take out what we need the day before to thaw through.

The point I have always taken is that supermarket meat seems to last longer because I am convinced it has been adulterated in some way, whether by injecting it with water or some kind of preservative to make it last longer and keep it looking redder. Just my thoughts on it. If they can add 20% water to ham and chicken then they can do it to other things!

Me and my OH share this opinion...hence why we have been buying meat from the butchers for the past year or so. I saw a programme about this on bbc3 and the chicken from a wholesalers was literally more water than chicken!!!!

I guess I should just ask when I next go in..its just chicken, it scare me lol:eek::eek:

meritaten

I would say that a good rule of thumb is three days. before the days of refrigerators a housewife would buy her meat in the morning or the day before and leave it in the coolest place in the house. Not hard in the winter but come the summer and it got a lot more difficult! the old rule was 'no pork if there was no R in the month'! too hard to find a cool enough place and pork tends to go 'off' faster than beef or lamb. chickens were often kept in tiny back yards and were killed, plucked and in the oven on the day they were required!