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

Millie2008_2

I had forgotten how yummy cake mix was until the other day when I made fairy cakes and scraped the bowl clean
I didn't give it a second thought though re. food poisoning.
I also scrape the mould off jam, etc and cut mould off cheese

Bean13

Great thread and the only thing I dont do is reheat rice, After 20 years im slowly wearing my other half down to my point of view re the date thing as we had a chicken from the supermarket that was well within the dates yet was VERY smelly and I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole but as my OH used to stick to the dates I told her to cook it which of course she sensibly refused to do, That was the moment the penny dropped and she could no longer argue with me lol.

I am training my kids to trust their nose, eyes and ultimately taste to check food they also check dates and use common sense on food which it seems is a forgotten art. My mum who is now 77 always goes on about the meat they used to put in the pantry for Sunday dinner that used to get a wash and rub down in the height of summer before cooking to get rid of any smell or maggots.

charlies-aunt

A trip down memory lane . . . .

I'm a child of the 50's - we had a pantry with a perforated zinc window and a 'cold' shelf, milk and butter was kept fresh through summer by being stood in a bucket of water with a wet teatowel draped across it. Didn't eat much meat except the odd gift of game (pigeons, partridges, pheasants, rabbits and hares) fresh from the gamekeeper and cooked & scoffed within 24 hours and all our potatoes, veg and fruit came out the garden - apples carefully wrapped in newspaper and laid between the rafters in the loft to last through the winter, Mum bottled pears, plums, damsons, tomatoes etc, salted beans into big earthernware crocks, a glut of our hens eggs were put into a bucket of isinglass (which preserved them for months and months), carrots were kept through the winter layered in buckets of sand, herbs were cut and hung to dry in the shed, potatoes were kept in a straw and earth 'pie' in the garden and Mum (like every other housewife down our little lane) prided herself on a store of homemade chutneys, jam and pickles as well as vast fruitcakes, parkin and plum bread kept for months in old Quality Street tins to 'mature', Dad did his bit making homemade ginger beer, wine and cordials.

Everything that was prepared and preserved through summer and autumn for the winter months lasted into spring/summer of the following year and I can't honestly remember anyone having upset stomachs through eating "out-of-date" food

Our kitchen was very simple by todays standards and washing soda, washing powder, a tin of Vim and a bottle of Dettol were Mum's defences against 'bacteria', 'germs' and the other invisible cooties.... which modern detergent manufacturers insist we need anti-bacterial sprays and the like to wage war against. :rotfl:

I think that part of the problem is that the food manufacturers use second rate food stuffs, heavily enhanced with chemicals to extend its shelf life and held in cold store for a long time before it ever hits the supermarket shelf

Emuchops

I eat ANYTHING, roadkill included, as long as its not stinking/slimey. I am bemused by my colleagues/family who make sandwiches at 7 am, put them in a "coolbag" , take them to work at 8am, put them in the work fridge, and eat them at 12pm-whats that all about-we dont live in the tropics. They feel they are dicing with death if something is unrefridgerated for 10 mins???

Cold sandwiches taste of nowt.

The only thing I will not do, and this is from terrible personal experience-DON'T EAT RICE THATS BEEN LEFT OUT ALL NIGHT IN THE SUMMER (unelss you want to lose weight quickly and want to feel like youre going to die).

Penelope_Penguin

Justamum wrote: »

I may be wrong, but I think this is just an old wive's tale. I've had cut onions in the fridge for days before I finally get round to using them. Sometimes the inside bit starts sprouting from the middle again as if it's just been planted, so it's obviously still 'alive' (unlike your dead animal which starts to decay as soon as it's killed :cool:).

........... and allows the meat to mature and become tender - that's why meat is best when it's "well-hung"

sillyvixen

Kevie192 wrote: »

However, please please please don't risk it when it comes to rice! Rice contains spores of Bacillus cereus bacteria which won't be destroyed by the initial cooking. So, if you cook the rice and then leave it laying around at room temp you'll end up with bacterial growth on the rice and toxins created which won't be destroyed when reheating and will cause food poisoning.

So, it's really important to make sure you cool rice down as quickly as possible after cooking and then re-heat until it is piping hot throughout.

I don't want this to be a lecture but I have seen so many people falling very very ill from no knowledge about how to cool and reheat rice.

Kevin x

once i thought i got C Bacillius food poisoning from an indian meal - i did not eat it all and had them package up the leftovers as we were going drinking i left the leftovers on the seat of my friends car who was the designated driver. on getting home later i was peckish and drunk so heated up curry and rice in the microwave and ate it (warm not hot) a couple of hours later i was throwing up as if it was a new fashion and was in so much pain - i was ill for 4 days - in the sober light of day i blamed the warmed up curry and my stupidity for a curry in a hurry!! the following week i could still not face alcohol and put this down to overindulging and the curry incident!

a few months later i found my self in the same situation - following a freshly purchased jacket spud and cheese - both bought that day and kept in the fridge till i was ready for to use, the spud had been well washed and cooked in the oven and the cheese was greated fresh over the spud before eating. i got exactly the same symptoms only this time i went yellow - turns out Gallstones were the problem all along!!!

roddycam

I ordered some stuff from a site that has been featured on MSE which specialises in food that is past its sell-by date but is "approved" for use,

The biscuits and crisps were stale and stodgy, and while they weren't harmful, they basically tasted crap.

I bought a bacon storer from Wilkinsons because bacon was going off in the fridge, and since I have IBS it was upsetting me even if it was within the use-by date, and it has definitely made a difference.

Steel_2

With most stuff I don't tend to bother use by dates. I have stuff in my fridge that i had no idea could last so long or cost so few farthings

But with meat I am very careful.

I was in Tesco two days ago and there was a chicken on the cut price counter that was green. Actually physically green on one of the wings and the parson's nose. I took it off display and took it across the meat and deli counter for them to dispose of it. This is not the first time I've found something green there either.

And that was supposedly 'within' date.

I believe to maximise profits supermarkets are pushing the limits on the length of time they assign use-by dates for meat.

katieowl_2

I was looking at some reduced stuff in Tesco a few months back, and all the beef was very, very dark and frankly quite unpleasant looking. One of the other customers and I were remarking on how 'off' it looked and another said that her grandfather was a butcher and that he wouldn't touch beef unless it WAS that colour! (mind you she didn't buy any!)

I'll pretty much trust my judgement on anything in the fridge, I'LL eat bacon thats gone 'rainbow' or cheese with mouldy bits cut off goes in a cheese sauce... sell by dates don't seem to affect youghurt at all, and we've eaten chorizo that was way past it's date, on the basis that making a sausage (also loaded with preservatives) was the way of MAKING meat last a long time! We are still here LOL!

I can't bring myself to waste food, but between DS being a leftovers hoover, the dogs and the compost bin, very little actually gets wasted.

Kate

tbourner

Dogs are very helpful when it comes to clearing up waste food!
You have to be careful to make sure they don't eat too much onion though, and puddings with currants/raisins in are a huge no-no for dogs.
We feed the BARF diet to our dog anyway, so scraps with nasties taken out are a part of his diet, along with the chicken carcasses, pork ribs, lamb hearts and livers and whole rabbits we keep for him in the freezer in the shed! He eats better than us!!!