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Daisysp8

Full Member
That you`ll eat out of date food ? ?

Reason i ask is i`ve just inadvertantly eaten some cottage cheese that went out of date on the 20th of Dec :eek: .... But it smelt fine, tasted fine, and had i not noticed the date on the lid, i`d be none the wiser that i`d done it. It was a freshly opened pot today too btw ... not like it had been open in the fridge for 3 weeks :jelous:


I have in the past eaten eggs a couple of days over their BB date ... and also yogurts after their use by date.

I also know there is a difference between the Best Before dates (will still normally be ok for a whlie) and the Use by dates, which it normally goes "off" pretty quickly after these and is in-edible.


So i just wondered who, would eat what, after what elapsed time period of "BBE" and "Use By" dates and the reasoning behind it :D
 
I'm really fussy about Use By dates and consequently end up throwing food away which winds my OH up no end. He always says to me "Would you eat it at 11.59pm but not at 12.01am?". I know there should be leeway, but I once ate a ready meal at uni that was 3 days over date (only veghie pasta) and was ill for days!

I reckon with cottage cheese you'll be fine though :) My dad found some cheese from last christmas, cut the mould off and ate the middle!!!
 
That you`ll eat out of date food ? ?

Reason i ask is i`ve just inadvertantly eaten some cottage cheese that went out of date on the 20th of Dec :eek: .... But it smelt fine, tasted fine, and had i not noticed the date on the lid, i`d be none the wiser that i`d done it. It was a freshly opened pot today too btw ... not like it had been open in the fridge for 3 weeks :jelous:


I have in the past eaten eggs a couple of days over their BB date ... and also yogurts after their use by date.

I also know there is a difference between the Best Before dates (will still normally be ok for a whlie) and the Use by dates, which it normally goes "off" pretty quickly after these and is in-edible.


So i just wondered who, would eat what, after what elapsed time period of "BBE" and "Use By" dates and the reasoning behind it :D

Haha that is well funny. If it was unopened then im sure it would be okay.
Personally I am funny about stuff like milk, yogurts, cottage cheese.

Eggs I have eaten weeks out of date and never had a problem with them.

Crisps I have eaten out of date without realising too and they were fine.

I'd never do it with meat or fish though. Straight in the bin that would have to go lol xxx
 
I use to work in the food industry so have some insider tips.......... first of all "best before" means nothing and I always eat food after their BB date, this is because it is a guide for the "taste" not micro quality.

Use by dates are put on "high risk" products - e.g, those that could make you poorly if you ate them after the date.

However *important bit*... all manufactures have to give an extra 10% of the products life.. so for example if a product is microbiologically safe for 100 days it would be given a 90 day shelf life, therefore even though the date says it has gone past its "use by" day, it is still safe - however, the risk is that the consumers do not know the shelf life of products so is hard to guess how much over you can eat it.

As a guide I'd not eat really short shelf life products such as cream past a day over the UB date, but I'm fine eating steak over UB date etc.

Think I've gone on a bit with this one, but hope it's understandable x
 
I think you'll be fine - I think you'd know if it were off by the taste and smell - unless like my hubby who hasn't any taste or smell really to speak of so he has to be careful and get's me to sniff things - in the nicest possible way - of course !

I must admit that things like tomato sauce (DD eats not me) - I didn;'t realise until recently that you should keep in the fridge and use up within (3 weeks - I think) and sauces for DD like jars of pasta sauce she has one week and then has it after being open in the fridge a week or so later as she only eats half of a small jar.
 
I completely ignore the dates on everything. If it looks ok I'll smell it, if it smells ok I taste it, if first taste is ok I eat it. I'm lucky (touches wood) I've never yet been ill from eating anything past it date. I've eaten meat, eggs, dairy, etc out of date. So yeah, if it looks, smells, and tastes ok I'll happily eat it. Beef is actually better for being 'hung' for a few months. Have family in the food business. The only thing I don't take chances with is shellfish.
 
the only thing that's ever made me really ill was really fresh milk..
to be fair it was more or less straight from the cow and hadn't been chilled and bottled yet..
we were camping at a dairy farm for a scout thing and the 4 of us had hiked 30 miles that day so we forgot to stop and get milk for breakfast.
the farmer offered us some when we asked if there was a store nearby and we accepted..
all 4 of us had food poisoning for a couple of weeks afterwards because we hadn't been brought up on it so had no tollerance for the bugs in it.
 
I think for dairy stuff if it smells ok, it should be fine.

I used to throw everything out as soon as it went past it's date but now I'm a bit less fussy. For eggs as long as they don't float, I think they are ok. They last often for weeks after their 'use by'.

So I think you'll live !!!

Gail x
 
I wonder if you can freeze an egg?
or at least freeze a hardboiled one?

in fact I'm pretty sure you can freeze fresh ones if you take them out of the shell, I think marjella freezes her spare egg whites etc when she seperates them..
 
If it looks OK, smells OK and isn't moving it's probably OK to eat it - this is the rule in our house and I can honestly say that none of us ever has a dicky tummy (apart from DD's brush with flu at the end of last term).

 
I'd eat anything - best before and use by dates are merely a guide!!

Meat smells when it's off, milk curdles, other things like cottage cheese go fizzy, yoghurts separate - It's usually fairly easy to tell.

The only thing I don't take a chance on is seafood, because i find it harder to tell if it's off, and anything where the pack has 'blown' outwards and the pack is still sealed but full of air.

Coljack - I would suspect with the milk that it hadn't been pasturised properly, as that's the process to remove bacteria from fresh milk, and the only thing that happens to milk in shops before going in a bottle, which is also done to any milk wherever it's destination. Country 'fresh' milk isn't like foreign water that you have to get used to!
 
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I am from the generation that didn't have sell by or best by dates and have survived to be a bouncing babe !!!

Just use your common sense.

My sister has a business selling on their sell by dates products and sells out on a regular basis.

She has a good client base and hasn't lost a one !!!

Coljack .... have a go at experimenting. After all one egg does not represent a great financial outlay.
 
lol fillymum !!
 
i had a weird one though i have some muller lights that are use by tomorrow, i had one today and it looked separated. tasted ok (tbh i have crohns so would not know if i was ill anyway) but wonder why it had separated, fridge is not too cold
 
it was a toffee one but i did have a vanilla and choc sprinkle one that did the same thing
 
I must admit that things like tomato sauce (DD eats not me) - I didn;'t realise until recently that you should keep in the fridge and use up within (3 weeks - I think)

That really shocked me! Tomato sauce lives in the cupboard at my house for about 6 months - OH has it once a week! I checked my heinz bottle and it says 8 weeks but have to admit it's something I've never ever thought about and I know it was the same when I lived at home with my mum and dad :confused:
 
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we regularly eat out of date things.
bit funny about fish and chicken but most things if it smells ok will try it! if try it and ok eat it!
eggs for example done come out of a chickens bum with a date on.....what would you do if you owned one? not eat them?
ive eaten eggs a month or more out of date and they are fine.....there is a simple test though.
fill a bowl/jug with water....gently pop an egg in.if it stays rooted to bottom its prefect and ok to eat.if it floats up or to top its bad-bin it.
if it stands up but doesnt float up its on its way but prob ok to reat that day.that method hasnt failed us yet.

i think everything is pretty much common sense....years ago there wasnt all this health and safety stuff and people had to rely on their senses.
 
ooooh im funny about dates i wont even eat on the day of bbd, drives my oh and family insane but i always think the dates r there for a reason, so if summit best before today and the date is today i wont eat it, hope this helps xxxx
 
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