Use By Dates

[beorhthelm]

Inventor of the use by date for milk (the original use by date) was mobster Al Capone.

http://www.tnonline.com/2011/jun/18/milk-expiration-dates-courtesy-al-capone

because milk didnt go off before Capone?

 

[Albion my Albion]

What exactly is common about sense these days?

 

[Albion my Albion]

because milk didnt go off before Capone?

Indeed it did. I think it is interesting that it took a mobster to come up with a solution to the issue. Apparently one of his relatives got very ill from old milk.

 

[Yoda]

If it says use by: stick to it. If it says best before: look/smell it as can last longer. Sell by: Pah! Can last weeks/months longer.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

Sir Walter Raleigh (no relation) seemed to manage ok with a hold full of perishables as he set off for years around the globe.
Ok so they got a touch of scurvey and they had to pull a few weavels out of their buiscuits and drink their own piss but they managed to get home.
We are far too fussy these days.

 

[Mo Gosfield]

One piece of advise, never ever eat cooked rice that could be 'iffy'

It can be a killer.


I used to have to pluck a brace of pheasant , every Monday, for about 8 months of the year. We would hang them for 3 weeks before plucking, and I would often, in warmer weather, have to clean maggots from round their bums.
Not a pleasant job, but, no one who ate them ever got food poisoning.

Think of all the pheasants and other game birds, all killed with lead shot from guns and all happily consumed.

 

[Mo Gosfield]

Currently eating marmalade that was dated May 2006 and using sugar ( brown ) that was dated August 2011. So far, so good.

 

[Worried Man Blues]

Currently eating marmalade that was dated May 2006 and using sugar ( brown ) that was dated August 2011. So far, so good.

Is that white sugar that's turned brown?

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

Currently eating marmalade that was dated May 2006 and using sugar ( brown ) that was dated August 2011. So far, so good.

Currently on the Khazi after a shish last night.
So far not so good.
Looks like I will have plenty of paperwork to catch up on.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

Use your own senses and make a judgement. Although I am weighing up chucking some vac.packed dry food that is dated before 2013......

 

[pearl]

Expensive higgidy steak sussex ale and stilton pie was in the fridge, use by date was two days ago and I have cooked it and eaten it, waste not etc Pretty sure I'll be OK. Got me to thinking what's your hard and fast rules on use by dates? What are your rules? Smells OK, get it down ya?

stilton's mouldy anyway so what's the problem?

 

[GT49er]

I used to have to pluck a brace of pheasant , every Monday, for about 8 months of the year. We would hang them for 3 weeks before plucking, and I would often, in warmer weather, have to clean maggots from round their bums.
Not a pleasant job, but, no one who ate them ever got food poisoning.

Yes, but what about the people who ate the pheasants?

 

[Falmer Flutter ©]

My grand daughter was given some things she could have and some very taboo. Included in the taboo was bought bottled water of any make or description, ice unless it was made at home from tap water and KFC. The biggest surprise she was told that of the fast food McDonalds was the best as it was kept heated for less time than anything else and in many cases it was cooked while you wait if you asked. Then again what would the countries leading hospital for cancer know about what is or is not good for you. I was prepared to accept their view.

I'm confused, is this cancer hospital giving advice on how best to avoid food poisoning or what is better to prevent cancer? Because if it's the latter:

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/abo...-controversies/plastic-bottles-and-cling-film

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/abo...20.1212497648.1495533509-383196148.1495533055

 

[BensGrandad]

They just gave her mum and dad a list of do s and donts presumably tio aid her recovery. Anyway it all worked as she got the 3 year all clear from her bone marrow transplant, last week.

 

[Official Old Man]

Steak, Ale & Stilton pie would never reach its best before date in my fridge.
EDIT would never reach the fridge.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

I've bought chicken, that when unwrapped, smells of rotten eggs, even before the use by date.

 

[Falmer Flutter ©]

They just gave her mum and dad a list of do s and donts presumably tio aid her recovery. Anyway it all worked as she got the 3 year all clear from her bone marrow transplant, last week.

I'm very pleased it all worked out, but also I'm intrigued as to why a hospital is giving out such spurious advice as don't ever drink bottled water, yet actively recommending eating McDonald's.

 

[Rowdey]

Volvic Mineral Water.
Filtered down through The Alps over millions of years to produce this fine tasting water.

Use by Sept 2018

The water itself is fine, it's the plastic bottle than is the problem - Water is very absorbent, and takes in the plastic.

My wife has just found a a loaf of Hovis Granary bread that didn't make the freezer, and was hidden from view in the utility room. It has a date of 6th May, but feels soft and fresh, and looks ok unopened...

Now, I'm not sure wether to be worried about the chemicals added to make it last this long, or be happy and celebrate with a cheese and ham toasty.. this might be my last post..

 

[Audax]

If it looks good and smells good, no problem for me. I'm sure it is just a finger in the air type date as they have to put one on it.

Yup, it's heavily regulated. In some cases to the point of absurdity. There's plenty of cheeses out there that, when properly served, aren't even ready to eat until they're passed the Best Before date. Such as stilton (which can easily be recognised as being "not safe to eat" with a smell test. Smells of ammonia? Don't eat it).

Whats the worst that can happen? nothing a bit of imodium cant fix

My better half had a dose of salmonella when she was younger. It put her in hospital; she was so ill for so long that she had to re-learn how to walk after, partly because it triggered a form of reactive arthritis that she's had to (and will always have to) live with ever since (fortunately it doesn't flare up that often). Further, she's been told that if she ever gets (or even suspects she's got) salmonella poisoning ever again to get to a hospital ASAP as the reaction she has to it attacks the eyes and she could lose her sight as a result.

So ... what's the worst that can happen? Quite a lot that immodium can't fix, actually.

Volvic Mineral Water.
Filtered down through The Alps over millions of years to produce this fine tasting water.

Use by Sept 2018

While I agree that a Use by on water is a bit odd (!), there's actually some sense to it. The plastic used to make the bottles can leach chemicals into the water, and it's that process that the use by date is addressing. The water itself would be fine if it was in bottle that didn't leach chemicals.

No 'one-size-fits-all' answer to this - some foods I will disregard the 'use by' date for longer than others. Smell - and appearance of mould - are generally good pointers though.

Spot on. As noted above, some foods I won't even touch until the best before date has already passed. A good stilton needs time to mature properly.

I'm never sure with this. For uncooked food, if you've got a decent sense of smell, you should be ok with the smelling method. For cooked food though, things smell ok well after they're first cooked, but all the recommendations are to use within 3-4 days. Which is annoying.

One piece of advise, never ever eat cooked rice that could be 'iffy'

It can be a killer.

With cooked food the key is in how you treat the food after cooking. Many ingredients (especially rice, but not limited to rice - lots of other foods like cereals [porridge] and pasta have the same issue) can potentially have bacterial spores present. The spores themselves are absolutely harmless, but when you cook the food the spores get activated and you then get bacterial growth in the food. Cooking temperatures *do not* guarantee killing the bacteria. The key is in controlling temperatures: high enough temperature inhibits bacterial population growth, as does low enough temperature (note - it doesn't stop it, unless you freeze the food or take it to such high temp it'd be inedible anyway).

So, once you stop cooking your meal and the temperature starts to drop you start to get bacterial growth. As the population grows, the bacteria produce toxins that get left in the food. The longer the food is left sitting in a temperature range that allows rapid bacterial growth, the more toxic the food gets. General guidance is to make sure you get a cooked meal into the fridge within 2 hours of cooking. With rice especially you've got a potential double-whammy food poisoning effect: you get immediate poisoning from the toxins, and then you can also get a bacterial infection in your gut that then feeds on anything you eat and produces even more toxin in your digestive system.

One thing that's important to note: reheating at high temperature can kill any bacteria present, but it does nothing to the toxins already deposited in the food.

Also, if you're worried about bacteria count on fresh chicken: stick it in your home freezer. Home freezing is slow enough that the water present in bacteria can form crystals and kill the majority of any bacteria present (note that industrial flash freezing doesn't kill the bacteria anywhere near as effectively). Your chicken will then, once thawed for cooking, have a much lower bacteria count for the post-cooking population explosion to start from. Buys you a bit more time to fridge/freeze the cooked food.

There's some other key do's and don't's:

- Mince meat, and anything made from it, should always be cooked through. No pink. Why? Because the mincing process spreads any bacteria present through the meat. Steaks etc are fine to have rare because you cook the outside and that inhibits bacterial growth.
- Melons - they will usually have bacteria on the outside surface. Once you slice into them, you're on a timer. Melons aren't acidic enough to prevent bacterial growth, so once the knife helps transport some bacteria into the fruit from the rind you start to get population growth. So once slice, into the fridge they go and eat within a few days.


Needless to say, given what I said above re: my wife, we're particularly careful in our house. I'll generally happily eat something that's a day or two past "Use By" if it passes a visual and nasal test (unless the first mouthful tastes odd), but the wife won't. She also insists on UK-only chicken / eggs, because in the UK all chickens get salmonella vaccinated (which isn't true throughout the EU).

 

[Falmer Flutter ©]

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/abo...-controversies/plastic-bottles-and-cling-film

Just going to post this Cancer Research link again for anyone else that's going to claim that plastic water bottles are harmful to health.