New lifestyle- no use-by dates!

student100

I generally think there's a sort of percentage margin of error in best before dates. If it's fresh food like meat or milk or whatever that has a best before date say 5 days after you bought it, it will probably be OK say 20% longer...like 1 day extra.

If it's something that will keep for 5 weeks, then an extra week will probably do no harm.
If it's tinned food that will keep 5 years, then an extra year will be fine.

Or something. Of course this assumes that the food has been stored properly and looks, smells, feels and tastes OK.

squeaky

In the areas of the food industry where I've worked the Use By Date has always been set from the production date and not the expected time of arrival on the shelf date.

Different things have different shelf lives true, but if you think there might some benefit when buying "short lived" items - having a good look at how much time is left before expiry is most likely to get you the fresher product.

student100

Yeah, I meant the time between the date when you bought the item if it's as fresh into the store as it can be, and the use by date. If you buy shortdated stuff then it's a bit different.

Obviously some things like fresh bread will have very short dates - bread won't normally do you any harm a few days after the date, just it might be stale and hard and not be very nice to eat...

Curry_Queen

I recently ate some yoghurt that was almost a month out of date and it was absolutely fine

apprentice_tycoon

student100 wrote:

Yeah, I meant the time between the date when you bought the item if it's as fresh into the store as it can be, and the use by date. If you buy shortdated stuff then it's a bit different.

Obviously some things like fresh bread will have very short dates - bread won't normally do you any harm a few days after the date, just it might be stale and hard and not be very nice to eat...

If you heat slightly stale bread in the microwave for a few seconds it revives long enough for you to eat it...my 18 year old daughter told me this!

Queenie

Curry_Queen wrote:

I recently ate some yoghurt that was almost a month out of date and it was absolutely fine

No squits??? :eek:

Debt_Free_Chick

Curry_Queen wrote:

I recently ate some yoghurt that was almost a month out of date and it was absolutely fine

LOL! I've eaten some that was 3 months old and it tasted just fine. AFAIK, yoghurt is pasteurised so that deals with a lot of nasties. Unless it's Bio-yoghurt, of course

Curry_Queen

Queenie wrote:

No squits??? :eek:

Nope, not even so much as a tummy ache :dance:

It honestly did look, smell and taste ok, so no way was I going to waste it by throwing it away :rotfl:

Queenie

student100 wrote:

..........Obviously some things like fresh bread will have very short dates - bread won't normally do you any harm a few days after the date, just it might be stale and hard and not be very nice to eat...

Will be if you make it into French Toast, Bread n Butter Pud, Bread Pud, make into breadcrumbs and turn all your veggies into "au gratin" dishes with addition of a quick white sauce
And if it's an unsliced loaf - it can be revived, sprinkle a little bit of water on it, stick it in the oven for a few minutes and the crust will crisp up and the inside will be fresh-like again

Curry_Queen

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

LOL! I've eaten some that was 3 months old and it tasted just fine. AFAIK, yoghurt is pasteurised so that deals with a lot of nasties. Unless it's Bio-yoghurt, of course

It was a large pot of Tesco's HL Greek yoghurt