" Sell by" dates. What do you think?

If it smells off, a funny colour, growing mould or tastes fizzy it goes out. It's wicked to waste food. Sell by dates are just a ruse to get you to by more. Common sense should prevail.

I ignore the dates, even if it's in the fridge I smell, check and if it's yogurts I taste.
If the bacon looks a bit greyishgreen I smell it first.

Ignore dates on veg but nothing else , wish I could

AuntieFlo. ...Camp Coffee, I was thinking about that yesterday. My mum used to buy it. I haven't had it for years.

The industry tends to put very short "shelf life" on many foods. This encourages folk who believe in the sell-by date to toss the absolutely edible food in the trash and go out and buy new food. What a clever way of ensuring extra turnover. Sadly, the younger generations have difficulties in judging whether food is still OK to eat or not. My young neighbour would not even feed food 2 days before the sell-by-date to her cat

On the whole, I ignore sell-by dates. Wheat products do go stale due to the oils in them, but personally I would give the spag a try before binning it...

If food looks and smells OK, I eat it. Like another poster, I do hide the dates from DH who is extremely fussy!

I despair of my DD where dates are concerned, good job she doesn't look in my cupboards.

I very much go by smell, looks & taste. I am very sensitive to milk going off, I can taste it starting to "turn" a day or two before anybody else. I hate yogurt as that just tastes sour to me. Cheese with a touch of mould (except blue cheese which can develop a dangerous mould) is trimmed, grated & frozen.

Veg is used, trimmed if necessary, in stir fry/casserole etc. Fruit doesn't last long enough so that it never goes off in my home

I was recently tidying my cupboards, I found a box of lasagne sheets, Exp 2009, they went only because I no longer make lasagne.

Gillybob, I have to hide dates as well. I'm a bit more fussy than I used to be about things from years back but dried pasta seems OK. The 'eat within 4 days' things irritate me.

I'm notoriously 'tight' regarding throwing things away that might still be edible. My family always regard anything I cook with suspicion.

When little my DD was v concerned when I cooked fresh veg in packets where 'sell by' date had gone by; I pointed out to her that vegetables don't come out of the ground with a sell-by date, and you look/smell to check - she was happy with that

Just had a good clear out of the fridge this morning. Found two jars of opened curry paste with best before dates of 2014, and an instruction to use within a fortnight of opening. I did bin those but on the whole don't take a lot of notice of dates for dried or canned food. MIL isn't a drinker and one Christmas she offered us a glass of wine from an opened bottle of Lambrusco. She said she was sure it would be OK having been opened the Christmas before. Apart from being flat it tasted fine!

I have to do food hygiene training for my job, and the word is that whilst at home, our senses are enough to tell us if something needs throwing away.

Count me in, Appears we are all singing from the same 'hymn sheet'

We recently had a problem with the freezer and a lot of meat and seafood partially/ completely defrosted. Some of it was getting on a bit datewise. I got rid of the soggy veg but cooked the rest, refroze and we are making our way through it.
No ill effects so far.....

I should say the freezer was outside so the breakdown wasnt immediately apparent.....not sure how long it had been merrily defrosting....but we are ok!

From NHS - Food labelling terms

Retailers often use "sell by" and "display until" dates on their shelves, mainly for stock control purposes. These aren't required by law and are instructions for shop staff, not for shoppers.

So just ignore it.

The only thing I'm wary of are the little lap of paste. My friend once got terrible food poisoning from merrily eating some that had been open a few days. The doctor told her it was the main food to cause poisoning and to just discard what wasn't eaten in one sitting. I dont know if its true, but better safe than sorry.

Not lap - Jars!

Don't know why , but tins of rice pudding and evaporated milk even only slightly past their use-by dates are quite revolting when opened, brownish in colour and curdled. I also had a tin of condensed milk that was out of date, and it perforated and dripped goo over every single tin in the store cupboard. I couldn't have done a more thorough job of it if I'd tried! Apart from those, if it smells OK and looks OK then it is OK as far as I'm concerned.

I always say to anyone who is being daft over dates - "what would you do if you they didn't have dates on them? What would you do if you had to use common sense and/or your five senses"

This is something that drives me to distraction. My son's friend will literally (yes, literally) not eat something one minute past midnight of the date on the item and will throw it away.

As if the food item knows that it's gone past it's date and instantly turns poisonous.

Well, sometimes they are a good idea. I searched in my chest freezer for a packet of lamb mince which I knew I had.
It was dated 2008.

You have a good memory!

What a coincidence that I sorted a cupboard today and found several packets of savoury rice and pasta cheese sauce that were up to 10 years out of date! I used to buy one now and again as an emergency standby quick meal. Obviously that emergency didn't occur, so I wondered if they would be safe to eat. I hate being wasteful, so I had decided to try one this week. After reading all these posts, I shall not feel quite so silly, as I'm obviously not the only one who stockpiles! I dare not tell my sons and daughter as they would probably dump the lot and give me a good lecture on housekeeping!

The sniff test is what passes for stock control in my kitchen. I often use soured cream and vinegary wine in cooking and packs and tins last for ages beyond best before dates.
What I do find quite sad is that my local food bank has just had to send a letter to the local newspaper asking people not to put packets of out of date/opened/half-eaten food into the collection baskets!!

I was helping a friend clear her aunts house, and we found a tin of Brussels Sprouts, with no date on at all. Wish I'd have kept it as a souvenir now - I could threaten the grandchildren with it at Christmas!