Use by/sell by dates - will we die?

Do you have a funeral plan?
I expect you will be ok.

If it looks ok and tastes ok then probably .......?
Or not

Drink lots of ...water...or maybe red wine. Should flush out any unwanted guests.
Check in tomorrow to tell us all is well.

I m terrible if it looks ok and smells ok then it is ok A while back I rummaged in the first aid drawer for my clove oil as I had toothache my daughter took it out my hand and said ' how old's that ' ' not very' I told her, she looked and it was 16 years out of date Well it was still ok as far as I was concerned

What did we do before sell-by dates I wonder? Have every antibody known to man?

Whether you pay attention to "sell by" and use "by dates", whatever you eat, you can still guarantee that, along with everyone else who is living or has ever lived on this planet, you will die.

My father poisoned himself with sausages before the days of use by dates. They had gone off but he had no sense of taste and couldn't tell.

I do stick to use by dates especially on really high risk foods. With stuff you keep in the fridge once it's open I find that the length of time varies with the manufacturer. So if one says something will keep for four weeks+ but someone else tells you their Identical product will keep for two months I use the longer date for both versions.

Having worked in the food industry, I can tell you that sell by dates are hugely conservative - I mean hugely. On some products they can happily be used years after sell by date (the clove oil being a good example, oil really doesn't turn easily - it is used as a preservative for many foods) In most cases it really is a sell by date, to exonerate the supermarket and avoid liability. The only things where I am careful are fresh foods.

The co-op refused to sell me a bag of potatoes as they had gone out of date the day before.When i explained to the young man behind the till that the potatoes wouldnt kill me he replied that ^as they were past their sell by date they would make me seriously ill, he looked very confused when i laughed

I am another who is a bit paranoid about `use by` dates . I have thrown lots of things away because they have gone over . If my son is around when I am about to chuck things he says not to throw them out and that he will eat them !!! he has been OK up to now . If I ate them I would probably worry myself into getting symptoms . I would love to trust my own judgement about whether food is off but just don`t .

grannypiper I bet he did ! I would not be worried about potatoes one day over the sell by date either . You can buy things on the sell by date then keep them at home and eat them . I think it had more to do with him not being allowed to sell them over their date .

A good example of the difference between 'sell by' and 'use by' grannypiper . You could buy those potatoes before their 'sell by' date but might not not use them at home till a week later, quite safely

Just to report that we are both still alive.

X Posts f77ms !!

I was watching a cookery program the other day and they were talking about sell by dates on eggs, and they were saying that its safe to eat eggs well passed the dates on the box! they also advised not to keep eggs in the fridge. Before dates arrived on foods we used our nose and if food smelt funny we threw it away!

i think it's OK for us to eat these out of date foods because we're all Past-Our-Sell-By-Date too

Glad to hear from you todaykitty

I made a birthday cake for DGD yesterday using eggs with a December date! I also scrambled some for my breakfast this morning. I did break each one into a separate cup first to sniff them, and they were fine. I never keep them in the fridge. I am careful with cooked meats etc, but within a few days I rely on the sniff test. As for vegetables, I don't even read the dates. Any old wrinkly ones go into soup. I suppose that means that I would make a good soup too!

Re eggs - put them in a pan of water (in their shells) and if they float they are off.

Anya

It's the preservatives in the food which keep us going
That's DH's theory anyway

shysal I rely on the sniff test even for things within sell by dates.Opened some bacon last year only just bought, and it didn't smell right, so went back to store.

My DC always look at the sell/use by dates in my cupboards and fridge and gently harangue me for leaving 'old' stuff in there. They find it hard to understand that having such dates is relatively new and we've all survived so far - even they have because I never bothered when they were children! Perhaps it's a way of getting us to buy more, but it's an awful waste. That said I admit to being nervous about fresh meat - just in case!

I do try to keep on top of the dates but sometimes things slip through especially cupboard items like spices, flour etc. The worst thing for us was on two occasions DH ate an only slightly gone out of date Activia yogurt and had the most violent stomach ache. We have since noticed that even the in date ones give him stomach ache though.

I always crack eggs into a saucer before doing anything else with them.
Even if they're not the freshest, if they smell OK then to me they're fine.

I use my nose, and rarely have to throw anything out. It really grieves me to have to throw anything out, so I make a lot of what my mother used to call 'dustbin' soups - mostly fresh veg, pearl barley, etc., but also including that one dried up rasher of bacon or bit of ham, leftover mash or boiled spuds, any limp old carrot or bit of celery, a few sprouts or a leek that are past their best but OK once you've peeled the top layer off.
With fresh meat, your nose will soon tell you if it's gone off.

When clearing the flat of dh's old aunt after she died, we found several tins of veg and soup, etc. - some of them years out of date.
But since the tins were all perfectly sound I took them home and we used them all.
We're still here!