Cost of living: One in five eating food beyond use-by date

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Me too.
Nothing to do with cost of living, just preventing waste of perfectly edible food for the want of a bit of common sense and personal judgement.
 
The amount of people who seem to think that food instantly goes off at the stroke of midnight on the use by date is quite amusing. Basically, if it looks alright, smells alright and tastes alright then it probably is. If it’s got green fur on it or stinks to high heaven then throw it away!

We once cleaned the fridge out and found a sealed pack of what were originally beansprouts at the back which had obviously been forgotten about, don’t know how long past their use by date they were but the entire contents of the bag was liquid 😳 That went straight in the bin without being opened! But I once ate a tin of soup which was 10 years out of date, apart from being slightly separated, which was easily remedied with a good stir, it was fineo_O
 
I am at the end of a nasty cold. After a day off work yesterday, I needed to return today despite feeling very bunged up. I usually work from home but had a 4 hour face to face workshop scheduled this morning. We agreed I would attend Remotely rather than infecting the room. But that didn't help my bungedupedness.
I found some decongestant in the cupboard that my boyfriend had bought. He struggles to swallow tablets so it was liquid medicine.
I regretted taking it because
1. it tasted disgusting
2. after taking it, I read the use before date: October 2020.

I am all for sniffing food and checking for green mould but not so sure about 2 year old drugs.
Thankfully, the decongestant did not appear to have any nasty effects. Actually, it had no affects - the bungedupedness remains but I survived the workshop.
 
Never had use-by dates or fridges when I was growing up, so it was a case of, if it smelt okay we would eat it and no harm ever came to us as a result of eating it. As @rebrascora said " common sense and personal judgement" is the answer, why waste good food?
 
As someone who would scrape the green mould off cheese and happily wolf it down I won't comment. :rofl:
 
use-by IIRC is "best before" and not "if you use this you'll be sick" and is guaranteed to be what you'd expect provided that it's been handled properly up to and including that date. After that date, there's no guarantee, and it's on you if either you eat it or someone you care for and have fed it to and gets ill. There are secondary and tertiary implications of best-before and risk that a significant proportion of the population won't or cannot account for, which is why this rule is there.

for example, I'd have cheese past (sometimes way past) it's best-before date provided it still smells good. But I'd not apply that rule to liver pate. Not everyone would have the knowledge to make that distinction or to understand why.
 
I ignore "use by" dates as well..... or to be more correct, I simply don't look at the dates on food at all unless the product looks or smells bad and then I look at it to see if it has gone off before expected.....Oh and I look at the use by date on lettuce before I buy it, so that I get the longest use by date as that is probably the only thing that sometimes goes off before I manage to eat it, but I don't look at the date once I have bought it, I look at the lettuce and if it is still edible or there are some slimy bits that need fishing out but the rest is OK, then that is what I do. If I have anything that has gone a long way over (I mean a week or more for "use by" or months/years for "best before") but that still looks/smells OK and can reasonably be heated/cooked through thoroughly, then that is what I do rather than eat it in it's current state. I have had lamb that has started going green and slimy, washed it thoroughly in vinegar to cut the slime and then in water to remove it, then salted and roasted thoroughly and it has been absolutely gorgeous. I have eaten sealed yoghurts that were literally months out of date that got lost in the back of the fridge. I certainly cut or scrape mould off cheese and jam and I have eaten home produced eggs that have been laid a couple of months and not refrigerated.... I never refrigerate eggs!
 
@rebrascora I don't refrigerate eggs either, it's bad for them.
I'll look at the dates when I buy stuff cos unless it's well within date i won't pay full price.

My point is that not everyone is like you or me in terms of knowledgeability and consequences of the decisions they make... and they rely on best-before and use-by to make an assessment.
 
rebrascora said:
I ignore "use by" dates as well..... or to be more correct, I simply don't look at the dates on food at all unless the product looks or smells bad and then I look at it to see if it has gone off before expected.....Oh and I look at the use by date on lettuce before I buy it, so that I get the longest use by date as that is probably the only thing that sometimes goes off before I manage to eat it, but I don't look at the date once I have bought it, I look at the lettuce and if it is still edible or there are some slimy bits that need fishing out but the rest is OK, then that is what I do. If I have anything that has gone a long way over (I mean a week or more for "use by" or months/years for "best before") but that still looks/smells OK and can reasonably be heated/cooked through thoroughly, then that is what I do rather than eat it in it's current state. I have had lamb that has started going green and slimy, washed it thoroughly in vinegar to cut the slime and then in water to remove it, then salted and roasted thoroughly and it has been absolutely gorgeous. I have eaten sealed yoghurts that were literally months out of date that got lost in the back of the fridge. I certainly cut or scrape mould off cheese and jam and I have eaten home produced eggs that have been laid a couple of months and not refrigerated.... I never refrigerate eggs!
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The yoghurt rings a bell.
When I was younger we came back to a boat in Hull harbour after a pub crawl, and obviously needed to raid the galley.
I found yoghurts that were about 6 months out of date!

(I have just beaten that, I just found and used a tub of Kefir that had a sell by date of Feb 2022 in my coleslaw recipe, not even a blown lid!)
 
Look at dates on fresh meat & salad leaves, other than that don't bother.

We have big chest freezer in garage so buy reduced price foods & bang then in there if its freezable, things like bread just take slices out as needed.

Can't say like in article that food portions have got smaller, always liked me food but do shop around more to find best bargains.
 
nonethewiser said:
Look at dates on fresh meat & salad leaves, other than that don't bother.

We have big chest freezer in garage so buy reduced price foods & bang then in there if its freezable, things like bread just take slices out as needed.

Can't say like in article that food portions have got smaller, always liked me food but do shop around more to find best bargains.
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I freeze anything but lettuce.
 
Our local supermarket (Asda) seems to have stopped putting dates on various things.

The confusion between best before (guidance) and use by (potential risk) has long been a concern for food waste campaigners - isn’t it something like 20% of food bought in supermarkets goes straight in the bin. Much of it perfectly edible :(
 
void said:
really? which things? I thought food couldn't be sold without it.
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Asda reported last summer that they were scrapping 'Best Before' dates off some fresh foods such as fruit and veg, because customers were treating it as a 'use by' and chucking it. Other supermarkets have also done this, after all, if you buy loose stuff, it doesn’t have a date on it. ' Best before' just means it might have gone a bit limp, or discoloured, but is still perfectly safe to eat. It’s the 'Use by' that are compulsory, and more important.
 
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