Do you eat food past its sell by,best before or use by date to save money?

ladymarmalade

I am so slow at eating chocolate that I am still working my way though my Christmas chocolate...tucked into a nice milka santa the other day...best before March 2012....still got half of it in the fridge for tonight. I ate the othr half last weekend, I am still alive!

Weemac

I have found two Sainsburys pasta ready meals in the freezer which I froze on the day of purchase in April and their use by dates are 11th April 2012. It says on the packet that if they are frozen they should be used within a month but I was wondering that as they have been frozen all this time would it be safe to defrost and cook them today? Seems such a shame to throw them out.

Any thoughts?

ses6jwg

Meat and fish I will usually eat it if its 1 or 2 days past the use-by date and smells/ looks OK but after that I don't risk it.

I bought some mince from Aldi once and it actually went off BEFORE the use by date, I opened it up and it was all brown and stunk like it was rotting so I chucked it. Just goes to show how you can't trust these dates.

With eggs I do what another posted has said and put them in a bowl of water, if they float I chuck them. I've eaten eggs up to 2 weeks past their BBE date with this method and been fine.

lizzyb1812

Weemac wrote: »

I have found two Sainsburys pasta ready meals in the freezer which I froze on the day of purchase in April and their use by dates are 11th April 2012. It says on the packet that if they are frozen they should be used within a month but I was wondering that as they have been frozen all this time would it be safe to defrost and cook them today? Seems such a shame to throw them out.

Any thoughts?

They'll be fine - just ignore the freeze and use within a month thing, it's rubbish.

BitterAndTwisted

If foods were unsafe to eat after their "best-before" dates most of my cupboards would be empty because firms like Approved Food wouldn't be able to sell them to me.

I found a large piece of Roquefort cheese in the reduced section yesterday with no price-reduction sticker on it with a "sell-by" date of last Tuesday. When I asked whether they could offer me a deal on it the answer was "no" because they couldn't sell it to me at all. That's just bonkers.

YORKSHIRELASS

I also agree that if it smells and tastes OK then I will eat it. I am slightly more careful around meat, all my meat goes straight in the freezer as soon as I get home from the supermarket then I just take out what I need.

My Mum used to be a cook for a posh estate and tells stories about cooking Pheasants and Partridges that had been hung for so long they were green. They were kept in a cool game larder too, not even refrigerated. Although it made Mum feel ill they were considered a delicacy. She always taught me that the important thing with meat is cooking it thoroughly.

MandM90

We don't have sell by dates on most of our food. We get an organic fruit and veg box delivered, and most of the rest of our food are brown rice, pasta, beans etc which get eaten well before BBE.

When we ate cheese and packaged foods we just sniffed and judged ourselves but would really buy as we needed rather than stocking up and desperately trying to use it up. The one thing I could never get my head round was reduced fish/meat. I don't eat animal products anymore, but when we did eat fish I couldn't think of anything worse than fish that had been sitting in the supermarket for days...ugh! We'd buy some fresh from the fishmonger and eat it that day.

thriftwizard

There's one thing I'd be wary of that hasn't been mentioned & that's cooked rice; if it hasn't been cooled & refrigerated quickly, please don't risk it! Rice can grow some real nasties really fast - see this article - a vegetarian friend of mine ended up in hospital, not realising that non-meat/dairy products could still be dangerous.

hulda

I happily eat things after 'best before' date (I have cornbread made with after best before' polenta in the oven now -and I BOUGHT it after that date...nicely reduced too, thankyouverymuch!), but NEVER use by, at least, not meats. Eggs though tend to be good for at least a month after date, in my experience. There's an entire shop in my city dedicated solely to selling 'expired'(best before only, not-use-by) groceries at hugely reduced prices. Only trouble is, they always have a large selection of my downfall -Lollies:) So I try not to go there too often.

ammonite

Our fridge is super, the milk is regularly a week over its use by date and still smells and tastes fresh as a daisy. Won't eat meat or fish past the use by date but pretty much most things go for everything else as long as they look and smell OK.