" Sell by" dates. What do you think?

I can't see what could go wrong with dried pasta, so why not? I would!

Dried pasta, beans, peas, flour, sugars, rice, oats, farro are all fine to me, no matter the date. Tins I use 2-3 yrs beyond the date. Frozen I cook and test for a nice flavour, not that is could go off frozen, that the flavour is pleasant and enough like just bought. Dairy I smell. Mold I bin

I agree, not a lot can go wrong with dry pasta. The company is just covering their back.

Nothing wrong with the dates I think as long as it is dried foods or tinned,when I was little my Grandpa gave my mum some really large tins of peaches and jam which he had found in the stores at a military base they where clearing from the 2nd WW it was about 1952 at the time and they where fine according to my mum and nana,goodness knows how long they where stored there,all the neighbours shared without any complaints.

I'm the same as Norah and use all sorts of stuff way after the sell by date. DH is a bit fussier and I would have to hide the date from him or he wouldn't eat it.

I'm the same as most others, if it looks and smells OK, I use it. This morning I fancied a milky cup of coffee, Camp coffee, so made one, then saw the date of 2015. I drank it, felt fine and am still here.

My Dad reckoned that during WWII, as a soldier, he was fed canned corned beef from WWI.

Ignore all sell by dates. Pay attention only to eat by dates on meat and dairy products.

I pay no attention to any of the dates if it smells and looks ok I ll eat it I think the younger generations are the ones to watch the dates We have eaten too much crxx over the yesrs to worry

I ignore sell by dates, even on dairy, as yogurt can be eaten safely a month or more past its eat by date. Milk and cream smell when they are off, as does raw meat. I would be a bit more circumspect with processed meat like paté though.

I threw pate away only last week but everything is smelled and mostly eaten . Veg is often out of date but never a problem, if it is wizened it is binned other wise cooked or made into soup.
Fruit never lasts in our house and meat is frozen if not to be used in the next couple of days.
Very little is thrown away.
Fish is eaten the same day or frozen that day.

When I visit my mother I occasionally go through her kitchen cupboards. There was a jar of Marmite with a sell-by date of over 20 years ago. The Marmite was fine, although a bit hard. I softened it in the microwave and had it on my toast. I am still here to tell the tale.

Lots of other things we gave her neighbour, as she wouldn't be using them again - e.g. jars of spices. Can't imagine they would go off, get a little less pungent perhaps, but still be usable.

However, there were a couple of bottles and cans of beer in her drinks cabinet which must have been got in for when my DS or other odd men visited. They were about a year over the sell-by date and tasted awful. I used a little to cook a casserole, but the rest went down the sink. Shame. Her male visitors will have to stick to whisky now.

Best before dates just warn you that the food may begin to taste stale if you keep it longer. Sell by dates only matter to the shop itself. Use by are more important. I am very strict about them because of DH's compromised immune system, the last thing he needs is food poisoning. Any EHO will tell you that food containing dangerous toxins may taste and smell perfectly fine.

gillybob are you living with my old boy??

They are seriously overrated in general but I think I might throw out pasta that old .
Pasta is a flour product and it does stale.
(As I looked at my open two yr old pack of lasagne.)
I decided that if used it and it was stale it would waste the other ingredients. Tins and jars are a different matter. As for vegetables etc you use your judgement.

JackyB Re the old jar of Marmite . I have left odd jars of that with water in to wash them out and forgotten them.

The smell of gone off Marmite is really foul as is that artificial "cream" Elmlea.

JackyB Re the old jar of Marmite . I have left odd jars of that with water in to wash them out and forgotten them.

The smell of gone off Marmite is really foul as is that artificial "cream" Elmlea.

Whether or not to eat food past its date very much depends on your state of health. Some people have stomachs of iron!

When a friend helped clear her grandparents' rambling old farmhouse house, about 15 years ago, they found a car hidden in a sort of underground garage, a Morris Minor. Even more astonishing, the boot was filled with tinned whole chickens, in those vaguely chicken-shaped tins you used to get.

The tins still had the price on, 19/6, and when they took a chance and opened one, it looked and smelled perfectly fine. No one was willing to actually eat any, though, and they dumped the whole lot, which I thought was a shame as possibly a museum might have wanted one or two.

As the UK went decimal around 1970, I think, those chickens had remained pretty well preserved for more than 30 years!

I was always much taken with the Groomkirby family in N F Simpson's 'One-way Pendulum' - Mrs Groomkirby paid their charwoman, Myra Gantry, to eat all their left-over food.

Morning all! I wouldn't give it a second thought. I'd eat it without hesitation and many other things as well. However...I wouldn't serve it to anyone else until I had confirmed no adverse effects on myself. Practise this regularly. Give little credence to dates but, of course, common sense trips in with appearance and smell of the better known offenders. Never suffered so far into this ripe old age but I do realise.....it only takes once!

DH's grandfather was a "horder" and when he died we found a tin of rice pud already well past its use by date; the family refused to touch it, so I scoffed it and very delicious it was too. Tins and dried foods no problem and normally prepared to take eggs, cheese and veg as potentially OK, depending . . . Dairy normally not except unopened cream carton within a day or so. Meat never. Reduced late expiry ready meals if there is room in the freezer. I remember a story about a stock of corned beef tins found years after their sell by date and seem to recall that they were reported as fine.

Last week, I found a can of spicy parsnip soup at the back of a cupboard, . It was marked BBE Nov 2011 but we ate it anyway. It was delicious.

I understand that older rye flour can be dangerous, stale nuts or dried fruit are not really pleasant, and flour in general can get "musty" but otherwise I eat anything that is not obviously off. Once they've been opened I think that the quality falls more quickly if they are older, especially if they have been frozen for a long time.