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

Kevie192

Hannah_10 wrote: »

Nope, why do you ask?

No reason, you seem to be very knowledgeable so I was just wondering! I'm a bit nosey like that

mrbadexample

The milk in the cup of tea I'm drinking is BB 6/6/2010. It was opened, ooh...about last Wednesday I think.

Even I'm surprised it's not cheese yet.

Topher

I'm all for taking sell by dates in my stride, and using my senses and common sense; but today we went to my Mum's and I noticed (after everyone else had helped themselves) that the Salad Cream (by you know who) had a BBE date of August 2007. When I pointed this out, she snorted at me & said "It's only a pickle." She then argued that even the fact that it contained eggs, didn't really make it matter.....

spike7451

The other month when I was at the check out of the Chinese supermarket on the Ormeau Rd,I bought a bottle of chili sauce & the girl behind the checkout was insistant that it was out of date & did I want to buy one in date (It was on offer iirc) but nope,I told her it'd be used the next day at a BBQ.
Bit of a fib on my part as I'm still useing it,especially on a couple fried eggs on toast with beans!

smartandshrewd

I used to be really fussy about eating food past UBD, but the other day I dared to eat a pork pie which was 2 days past it's UBD and suffered no ill effects and it tasted fine. OH was fine too. I remember once hearing that pork pies are one of the dodgiest to eat but I don't believe that now. I'm not going to be quite so fussy from now on.

pinkpanther22

Further to some discussion above as re UBD and BBD, there is also an element of packaging degredation to include, coupled with supermarket volumes.

Some people may have noticed that sometimes supermarket fruit seems to "go-off" much more quickly at some times than others? This is because the supermarkets actually dictate the required dates to the producers based on the current stock levels, nothing to do with actual food product life (I know this as I worked as a food production planner for several years). So in short, the look, smell, taste test is far more reliable!!

I can't speak for other food types, but it wouldn't suprise me much.

Also, BBE etc have only been in constant use for the last 20 years or so and we all seemed to manage just fine before they were invented....

tbourner

Why do pickled items have dates on them!

Filey

Pickled items have use by dates on to keep the relevant gov't department happy and because just possibly the actual quality of the contents (not the safety) might not be so good as the day they left the manufacturer.

Same applies to tinned goods. There are lots of anecdotes about tinned foods which have been discovered years after their manufacture and are still perfectly edible. Some of the stores of Captain Scott's ill fated expedition to discover the North Pole were sampled decades later and pronounced OK, the tasters suffering no ill effects. Throwing away tinned goods past their sell by or use by date is madness.

Dried goods like beans, spaghetti and breakfast cereals should all be OK if they haven't been damp. And if I find the rice crispies or cornflakes have lost their crunch I just tip them onto a baking sheet and let them dry out after I have finished using the oven, then put them back in the packet or container.

Sour milk can be turned into cottage cheese. Pour it into a muslin bag and hang it somewhere to drain, or line a sieve with a bit of muslin. My mother used to do this,and so did I when I lived on a dairy farm. The acidity in the sour milk inhibits any nasty bacteria. It doesn't work quite so well with today's pasteurised and homogenised milk unless you add a spalsh of lemon juice to curdle it. Think of Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey.

Back to the UBD, you have to use your common sense. If it is tinned or dried, forget them. If it is fresh and perishable, put it in the fridge as soon as you get it home and eat it before it goes off. Anything that is cooked and eaten straight away is unlikely to make you ill.

It is cooked and cooled foods, (or insufficiently re-heated), especially those containing eggs, milk, meat and fish that you need to be careful about. And stuff that is inadequately barbecued!

Anyway, a FEW germs are good for us or else we never develop any natural immunities! Trouble is you can't count them.

Hannah_10

Topher wrote: »

I'm all for taking sell by dates in my stride, and using my senses and common sense; but today we went to my Mum's and I noticed (after everyone else had helped themselves) that the Salad Cream (by you know who) had a BBE date of August 2007. When I pointed this out, she snorted at me & said "It's only a pickle." She then argued that even the fact that it contained eggs, didn't really make it matter.....

I use a salad cream by a certain Mr H too, I had a look to see if mine's got a BBD or a UBD but I couldn't tell because it's rubbed off. What I did see though was where it says use within 8 weeks, which means any eggs used in it have been industrially nuked to within an inch of thier existance and no longer have to be thought of as real eggs.

8 weeks though? That's such a long time that I wonder on what grounds it could possibly be a food safety thing, or is it another of those food quality/marketting things? Dunno, will look into it.

Given that the dates on that famous salad cream from Mr H are usually so very long I'd be betting that the one at your mothers has been open well over three years, four years wouldn't surprise me at all. :eek: Technically it probably is still safe, but I have definately got to side with you on the yuk factor! I would chuck that too.

Alwaysachoice

Apologies if this has been said before.

I have recently completed a food hygiene course. Apart from causing me to go home and clean my fridge and sink, it gave me lots of sound, reliable facts.

Regarding mould on food: some of you have said that you just scape off the mould (eg from the top of jam, etc). I would suggest you spoon it off along with a large dollop of the jam that look ok. The reason for this is that microscopic threads of mould (invisible to the naked eye) spread out from the mould you can see, through the food that looks ok. Obviously you can't tell how far they've reached... It's up to you how much you reject as dodgy.