Food, best by, use by dates...

uzer

Yea. It's a crap shoot when bread decides to go moldy.  That's what I took from that.

IronGiant

Ok, thanks, I was trying to figure out how you can ever work out when a loaf is starting to go moldy if you always eat it before it does

uzer

I guess that is a valid point.  Didn't even think of that.  The only thing I am aware of spoil wise is that sell by dates are for stores to keep freshness in their stock and use by dates are for best taste not necessarily spoil date.

heathen666

Totally agreed! You are the best judge when it comes to food being good or not.

BAN5HEE

I work by a simple rule, If it doesn't smell and isn't completly covered i mold it can be eaten. If it smells and moves when it shouldn't, it's best avoided.

DrPhil

I'm generally a subscriber to the "smell it and see" school of thought, but if something is around a week past its "best before" I'll think long and hard before scoffing it.

The wife recently confessed that she has been feeding me food for years that was weeks out of date and it didn't kill me.

However yesterday I happened to grab the mayonnaise from the fridge and spotted the grand old age of August 2013 on it...

Binned it. Wouldn't even risk it on the dogs.

chump

I've eaten things weeks and months past their sell by/ use by dates. They are meaningless as a judge of whether something is still consumable. With the exception of meat and dairy products I also ignore use by dates too and use my own judgement.

Chadford

Bacon Butty 1 - Landfill 0



I pretty much agree with all the comments.

In the case of Oscar Mayer bacon, it's seriously, seriously vac packed, I'm sure that along with the curing process probably makes it totally immune to stuff like a global nuclear meltdown, the black death, Phil Collins, Russell Brand, et al.

The bacon generally available at supermarkets in little packets I suspect does not use modified gas packaging i.e. carbon dioxide or nitrogen, it's not vac packed and as such I think would deteriorate pretty quickly over time in the fridge.

blue max

What about kebanos, salami et al. They are just left out in the open. Often with no dates anywhere to be seen. We definitely need to lighten up.
I remember when I was young, my friends parents gave me a blister pack sealed chorizo sausage to give to my dog as it was the day after the use by/sell by date. Needless to say, the dog never got a sniff!

Chadford

Yeah??, I've relatives that consider themselves smallholders (pigs, chickens cutting up meat that sort of thing).

They're the only folk that have given me and the missus food poisoning, and It took an idiot like me on the following trip to point out the scary thing they were doing with food preparation.