Use by dates.

[Finial]

As the bacteria that spoil food aren't necessarily the same ones that cause food poisoning, if you rely on smell and taste to override the maker's use by date, you are taking a chance. The idea is that if the product is stored properly, any initially low levels of bacteria won't grow dangerously or produce toxins before the use by date. The maker will be cautious when setting the date, so there's usually a safety margin, but there's no way to know how long it is. Usually food will be safe after the use by date, but no guarantee, and quite likely no redress.

But some makers are confused about use by and best before dates, some cheat, some don't know how to set the date and guess, and some just copy what the others do. Then there are caterers who ignore the dates, retailers who conceal them, and consumers who take a chance, like with the cream, and all of them might store the product incorrectly. So the dates aren't totally reliable. And not many people who keep left-overs put use by dates on them.

 

[monkeybiter]

IMHO a nice cheese isn't at it's best until well out of date. It's SWMBO's nose I have to watch out for!

 

[MARK.B.]

How on earth did we manage to survive for thousands of years before we had sell by/use by dates. ahh yes we used common sense - sadly lacking these days.

 

[Jonzjob]

What I want to know is how a supermarket can know that a bottle of water that the contents ahve been around for the last 3 or so billion years is going to go out of date a year next Feb? They realy are smartasses init!

If it smells/tastes/looks good, apart from cheap supermarket meats and general processed food then I will try it, but it's a fight against SWMBO and I have survived the past 72 years?

I used to tell my neighbour in Stroud that if he didn't wash his hands after prepairing raw chicken on his kitchen table and didn't wash it down carefully before he made up his jam sarni for his tea. If he didn't stop smoking the roll ups that he used tobacco that you could tarr the road with and didn't stop putting 4 heaped spoons of sugar in his tea cup then it would kill him! It did and he was only 93! He just wouldn't listen.

It deplend what it is. Some stuff I don't touch unless it's fresh, but after seeng a few programmes on how the supermarkets repackage stuff and cut the mould off ???

Cheese? The older the better for me and the more runny the soft French cheeses are the more I like them. The French do a boat load of raw milk cheese and it is so much nicer and better than the processed c r a p. Raw milk butter and plain old raw milk. It's the processing that is the main problem!

 

[Cinimod]

I hardly ever take any notice of either dates on food, just use the smell and eyeball test and if those fail me I get the wife to taste it first. :lol: :lol: :lol: Who said chivalry was dead............Dom