Best Before date...

[Zak33]

....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16852830

made me lol...

[tiggerai]

Exactly... Best before dates are exactly that... "best" before... meaning that they will be perfectly edible if stored properly for days, weeks even months (and in this case, years) before being unfit to eat.

gone are the days of food common sense and it makes me sad.

[Hoonigan]

Everytime anyone mentions expiry dates, I'm reminded of my grandma's TCP under her stairs..

I cut my hand while painting her fence so she put some TCP on it and I went back to work.. I later found out that the TCP had went out of date before I was even born.

If ANYTHING shouldn't have a "best before" date, it's anti-septic.

[stevie lee]

my dad loves best before dates. asda regulary sell stuff off cheap thats 'on the date'. get loads of bread for 2p a loaf, used to be 1p, but due to inflation we all have to suffer

40 loaves for less than a quid, not bad really

and the best bit, they have cakes too.


not done me any harm so far.

[spoon_]

I think quality of food was much better back in the day... Nowadays you can "almost" guarantee that when used by date kicks in food is pretty much on the edge.

[petercook7]

Exactly... Best before dates are exactly that... "best" before... meaning that they will be perfectly edible if stored properly for days, weeks even months (and in this case, years) before being unfit to eat.

gone are the days of food common sense and it makes me sad.

Some foods not all, meat will last maybe a day after.

[peterb]

Some foods not all, meat will last maybe a day after.

Are you sure it isn't just a conspiracy to persuade the poor to buy more food unnecessarily so that the rich corporations can get richer in their offshore tax-havens?

[finlay666]

gone are the days of food common sense and it makes me sad.

I thought Asda removed them from the veg for this reason

[jackobyte]

never had any probs eating best before out of date stuff
even eggs as long as they are british stamped you can eat them a few days after the date but must me well cooked (yolk and white) as high heat will kill the salmonella virus during cooking.
use by dates are a bit more dodgy but yoghurts i have eaten a few days past, and still alive (i think) to tell the tale.
Pork and fish i tend to eat in date and even chicken i'm a bit wary off unless its been deep frozen on day of purchase.
i say eat what you want and die happy, instead off a paranoid jibbering wreck because of the focus on out of date food,look at your gran and grandad most of them live to their 80/90's they never had the type of food choice or "dates" when they were young.

[GoNz0]

i found some stilton left from xmas, went down a treat, how the hell can mouldy cheese go out of date it just gets better if stored right.

[Hoonigan]

how the hell can mouldy cheese go out of date

The "best before" date on mouldy cheese is the day it comes out of a cow. Yack

[scaryjim]

Nowadays you can "almost" guarantee that when used by date kicks in food is pretty much on the edge.

Not true - I used to work in a pie factory and most of our products were dated two or three days short of their shelf life. Problem is you can never be sure how far in advance each batch is coded - we quite frequently packed the same batch of products with two or three different use-by dates. But often you'll have three days before the food even reaches its guaranteed shelf life, and possibly a couple of days after that as the guaranteed dates are necessarily conservative...

Upshot? Many pork pies will be good for as much as 5 days after the use by. Mind you, that will generally make it 2 weeks since the pie was baked...

[peterb]

The other variable is how perishable (especially chilled) food is going to be stored after it has left the retailer. While it is in the retailers fridges (and in transit) the temperatures will be logged and tightly controlled. but individual consumers may not keep food at the optimum storage temperature. That is also the reason why fresh food suitable for home freezing always says "freeze on day of purchase" so even if the home fridge is too warm, if the food goes straight into the freezer from the shop, there is less chance for food to deteriorate before freezing.

[HSK]

We as a nation, waste / throw away so much perfectly fine food. Something really should be done about it!

[Butcher]

I eat everything out of date - if it smells ok, I eat it. I've eaten meat eggs and fish a week or so out of date, not poisoned myself yet!
I always cook things that are that far out of date mind you.

[ik9000]

I eat everything out of date - if it smells ok, I eat it. I've eaten meat eggs and fish a week or so out of date, not poisoned myself yet!
I always cook things that are that far out of date mind you.

If it's curdled it's probably not good anymore
If it's gone a little furry unless it's a jar maybe think twice
If it smells bad it probably is
If it tastes bad you know it is
If unsure cook it. Gone off meat really stinks when it gets in the pan.
If it crawls out the fridge of its own accord, run.