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

tbourner

Alwaysachoice wrote: »

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.

But what's wrong with eating mould? Especially microscopic mould!

Alwaysachoice

tbourner wrote: »

But what's wrong with eating mould? Especially microscopic mould!

It can make you seriously ill , (unless it's penicillin - ha!).:rotfl:

Hannah_10

Alwaysachoice wrote: »

It can make you seriously ill

If you're refering to mycotoxosis the only documented deaths I have been able to find since the 1940's were in India 23 years ago.

I fancy my chances!

tbourner

Alwaysachoice wrote: »

It can make you seriously ill , (unless it's penicillin - ha!).:rotfl:

As above, I would imagine only if you're eating it all the time on all your food.

Alwaysachoice

The stats shown to me were enough to put me off rather. And anyway, I'm not that frugal that I'll take the chance.

Anyone store their jams in the fridge? That's a way to slow down the growth of undesirables. I make my own and I know there's enough sugar to store them in the cupboard but I guess it would work better with low-sugar preserves.

Alwaysachoice

Hannah_10 wrote: »

If you're refering to mycotoxosis the only documented deaths I have been able to find since the 1940's were in India 23 years ago.

I fancy my chances!

Ok, you might not die, I said 'seriously ill'.

spike7451

Alwaysachoice wrote: »

It can make you seriously ill , (unless it's penicillin - ha!).:rotfl:

I'm highly alergic to penicillin & therefore I cant eat blue cheese or similar products.

Alwaysachoice

spike7451 wrote: »

I'm highly alergic to penicillin & therefore I cant eat blue cheese or similar products.

snap! I'm actually allergic to penicillin too!

Hannah_10

Alwaysachoice I entirely respect that having just taken a course in basic food hygeine you're cup runneth over with new knowledge and inspiration and the solidity of what you recieved. In secondary school I would have sworn to you an animal cell was made of a nucleaus containing DNA, cytoplasm and a couple of membranes and that'd be about all. I had the shock of my life when I had to learn around 100 new words for various cell structures (bits of one) in month one at A Level. The GCSE had totally left them out! Now please don't get me wrong I'm not pulling rank in any way. The point was simply that the further into any subject you get the more there is to know. For the purposes of a one day course aimed at entry level practical food handling advice then I would still teach of mycotoxosis- such is the litigation culture these days.

There are about 79,000 cases of food poisoning a year in the UK, most are an inconvenience, a few are cause for concern, however only 200 die a year from "food poisoning" and that is an incredibly large umbrella of terms. Put that into context with the uncounted but massive numbers of people who deliberately give themselves alcohol poisoning for fun each year (I think 40 million sounds a fair guess). Alcohol poisoning is better known as being drunk, that doesn't just apply to rat-arsed though, it also means very slightly tipsy and everywhere between. Useful to know that alcohol claimed 9,031 lives in 2008.

I'm not worried at all about the risks from drinking a couple of tins of Guinness if I want to and I'm about 45 times less worried about eating jam I have de-fuzzed.

Alwaysachoice

Hannah_10 wrote: »

Alwaysachoice I entirely respect that having just taken a course in basic food hygeine you're cup runneth over with new knowledge and inspiration and the solidity of what you recieved. ...... Now please don't get me wrong I'm not pulling rank in any way. The point was simply that the further into any subject you get the more there is to know.

Hannah_10, I bow to your superior knowledge. I felt sure you would reply with more info as you are obviously better informed than I am. You weren't leading my course, were you?! In the end we all make up our own minds, don't we?