Do you follow Use by and Sell by Dates, and other food safety issues

ljhhuk

heavenleigh wrote: »

Obviously prawns, fresh fish, eggs, chicken etc are a no no.


No so. Prawns and fresh fish/meat - yes but eggs are ok provided you buy good quality eggs, ie British.
I have eaten 4 eggs this week that were a month over their use by date.
Marks & Spencers free range eggs. Nothing wrong with them and I am still here to tell the tale!

[Deleted User]

Well when I was but a young chicken back in the 1940s we wern't quite so fussy as today .If it was in the least edible we would eat it and be jolly grateful. My mum used to say that sailors risked their lives to get food to our shores and to throw food away was a sin. Nothing ever was thrown out in our house ,but then we only had a cold larder and a cold meat safe with a mesh on the door at the front to keep out any maurauding flies. I am still here to tell the tale .A bit of cheese if a bit gone over would have the furry bit cut off and grated on your toast if you didn't eat it you went hungry. I can remember jam sometimes getting a wee bit hairy as well. But we rarely were ever ill as there was scarce enough food to go around anyway.

kazmeister

cali2794 wrote: »

I think use by dates can be irrelevant sometimes. I've bought yoghurts and milk before that have gone off long before their best before date and same again that have lasted long past - though I've never eaten a yoghurt a week over it's date just in case.

I wouldnt either and as I dont eat many yoghurts I wouldnt give them to the kids so I bung them in the breakfast muffins. The heat'll kill any bugs - hopefully

Ruseph

Gosh loads of stuff on here. Well this has been one of my gripes with loads of people I know that are very wasteful.
Some of you have said quite rightly that there never used to be dates on things and that we used to rely on our instincts to tell us whether something was off.

The whole thing with dates has been brought into protect mainly the manufacturer from lawsuit and for those consumers who have no idea how to tell if something is still edible.

Different storage conditions drastically change the life of a product.
Example: Milk last less than a day in a warm room or out in the sun where it can last well in excess of a week in a cold fridge.

Products such as apples and potatoes are stored for months before they reach the supermarket shelves, and than all of a sudden expire in a week or less. It's crazy!

These dates also deliberately encourage us to waste, and hence buy more products!

Obviously if you have no sense of smell and poor eye sight then the dates are all that you have to go on.

I always eat stuff well past it's date maybe I'm too tight or disorganised to throw out, but have never given myself or anyone else food poisoning or the slightest of an upset stomach. So as long as you have high standards of general hygiene in the preparation and adequate cooking of foods, (unless the food has produced toxic by-products from any unseen microbes) and as long as the food has been properly cooked the worst that could happen is that it may not taste as good.

If you are unsure about foods like yogurts and soft cheeses - these can be cooked into other foods such as curries and cakes rather than risk eating from the fridge.

I definitely think old eggs make better cakes and meringues, and the older ones with whites that go runny are best, although I do warm from the fridge first as it's not wise to keep local farm free range eggs at warm room temperature for long periods as they may have been fertilised.

Anyhow this is far too long of a rant!


PS If you have to throw stuff out at least try to compost it so some use comes from all the effort of producing it, rather than just landfill!

Cheers!

animal-lover_2

my dad used to work at a dairy factory and would regularly bring home yogurts past their sell-by dates. When you remove the lid and the yogurt is foamy, THROW IT AWAY! This doesn't happen for a few days after the sell-by date.
Last year I drank some soya milk that tasted fine, but had blue mould on the spout. I had a stomach ache for days (cured by fresh thyme tea)

yorkshire_girl_4

:rotfl: if you fill a jug of water then put egg in, if it sinks it is fine to eat, if it floats it is off(when egg goes off it starts to biuld up gas and that is why it floats);)

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

You can test if eggs are off by doing the float test Just wish I could remember which way round it is - sink/off or float/off :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Years ago when storing apples we were always told never to remove the stalks and my Mum used to put a tiny blob of ceiling wax on the end of the stalks and apples used to last for ages

Penelope_Penguin

JackieO wrote: »

Well when I was but a young chicken back in the 1940s we wern't quite so fussy as today .If it was in the least edible we would eat it and be jolly grateful. My mum used to say that sailors risked their lives to get food to our shores and to throw food away was a sin. Nothing ever was thrown out in our house ,but then we only had a cold larder and a cold meat safe with a mesh on the door at the front to keep out any maurauding flies. I am still here to tell the tale .A bit of cheese if a bit gone over would have the furry bit cut off and grated on your toast if you didn't eat it you went hungry. I can remember jam sometimes getting a wee bit hairy as well. But we rarely were ever ill as there was scarce enough food to go around anyway.

I seem to remember (and was reminded of it in the Wartime Ration Diet thread) that it was against the law during WW II to throw away food that was fit for human consumption. Even feeding it to animals was an offence.

Penny. x

Laine49

There really is no need to throw away stuff that is past its use by date. Unless you have impared senses then your eyes and nose will tell you if something is past using. As someone else said - previous generations didn't have sell by dates they used their own senses and common sense. Correctly storing things helps to prolong their useful life - put the milk back in the fridge immediately and it will keep for much longer. As for eggs... Healthy chickens running around the garden that were hatched from eggs (obviously not supermarket ones!!!) that had been stored in the fridge for several weeks prove that nothing untoward had happened to them!!! Most foods that are past their date won't harm you although the vitamin content of fresh foods drops with storage and self-raising flour may not "raise" properly. We have all become scared of our food and scared of trusting our own judgement.

Come on MONEYSAVERS... Let's not increase the supermarkets' profits anymore than necessary!!!

Elaine (still here after 50 years of trusting my senses!!!):j

Georgiabay

I also don't throw anything out just because it's past it's use by date. I can generally tell by the smell if it's OK.

My aunty used to work in a shop years ago before fridges and use by dates, and it was her job every morning to cut the mould off the cheese and scrape the maggots off the bacon before she put it on display!

Concerning eggs; I've found that hard boiled ones peel a lot easier if the eggs aren't really fresh (but not neccessarily out of date).