Be Less Strict About Tossing Food Based on Printed Dates

Yeah, there's too much of this 'anti-bacterial' this and 'past it's sell by date' that.
So the salsa has gone a tad fizzy it still tastes good. How do they think booze, yeast, and yoghurt got dicovered?
Some things are bonkers, I've seen salt with a sell by date! And a pack of star anise which I bought reduced aboyt 5 years ago and I'm still using... it's pretty potent stuff if you grind it rather than throwing it in whole.
Make do and mend. Waste not want not. Etc.
I want to slap the "I can't eat that it's not been wrapped in packaging" brigade.
There's kids today who think a Blackberry is some sort of communications device rather than a pie filling
Del
<clam calm...>

I've seen salt with a sell by date!

I own salt with a sell by date that has expired, and not that fancy processed stuff - rock salt in its own packed grinder! Also Vinegar (how does Vinegar go off?)

There's kids today who think a Blackberry is some sort of communications device rather than a pie filling

In years past the only thing you had to worry about with Blackberrys was Bluetooth.

You'll never beat my "Gluten Free" water from Aldi .

Yep, use/sell-by is cobblers. I'm pretty sure waste food % in the UK is much higher than that quoted for America.

Down in ye South of Englande, we are to have some changes to waste collection. This will include a box for nothing other than food scraps. It will be interesting to see how much people complain/adapt etc. Summer coming up as well....

I would agree with the assessment that people in the UK adhere to the sell by date more than Americans, or at least me. When I was there for a semester, my American flatmate and I made it a rule that our British flatmates had to let us check food that had "gone off" before throwing it away. We almost never had to make a Tesco run. Sure did help out a couple of poor college kids though.

Couple of examples;

I guzzle milk to an extent that would horrify my doc (cholesterol etc). In a properly chilled fridge, it is good for several days past 'use by date'.

Bread,will keep for longer in a fridge so long as it doesn't gety moist (well, duh, chilling slows down bacteria growth).

Food that has gone off pongs ! Thoroughly cooked, and you will kill bacteria (I'm not advocating month old chicken here, though in principle it's OK to cook some pretty rancid stuff).

It wasn't that long ago that people lived without all this insane labelling.

A 'use-by' date is nonsense unless the consumer keeps the fridge adequately chilled. More often than not, food poisoninjg is caused because food is not kept cold enough, or it's not cooked well enough. We have unfortunately raised a generation who expect freezer to microwave.

Date on foods is the tip of the iceberg. Youngsters no longer learn how to cook at home. 'Home Economics' (ie cooking) is no longer taught in schools. The 'use by' date is as invalid as the nutritional content listed. UK food labelling is a plethora of misinformation.

Sniff the ***** stuff, feel it's texture etc. Less waste would occur if people had to learn to use their judgement.

The waste of food in the 'first world' is obsene.

How long do you leave stuff on the stove after you cook it?

people go crazy, as if it will go bad almost instantly

do you eat moldy cheese? oh wait that would be blu cheese

my dogs like the fuzzy parts of other kinds

Our dog loves skanky. Got the little so-and-so a new bed, but does he like it ? No ! He waits for my underpants and socks. Not bragging, but to the mutt. this is a heaven. The critter waits until I strip off at night, and then drags it into a comfy corner.

It's not exactly related to the OP, but the dog sure does like skanky. If I take my sweaty trainers off, it loves to lick between my toes. Juss sayin', a dawg knows a tasty meal when it has no sell-by date on it.

What's wrong with a little mold? I'll scoop the orange and blue moldy stuff off the top of the sour cream and give what's underneath a little taste test. 9 times out of 10, it's just fine.

I opened a new sour cream that was lost in the back of the fridge for eight months. It was six months past its date. It was perfect.

I've picked off moldy parts of bread and eaten the rest.

Who here hasn't consumed some orange juice with a little extra "zing" to it?

The dates on salad dressings are absolutely ridiculous. There is nothing in them that goes bad as long as it hasn't been contaminated. Same goes for unopened or refrigerated mayonaise.

The nanny state has infiltrated our lives in ways we couldn't imagine. The manufacturers love it. They put dates on everything because they will SELL MORE OF IT.

Many OTC medicines are made from very stable chemicals and as long as they are kept sealed, not exposed to excessive light, moisture or high temperatures, they will keep damn near forever.

It is important to develop your palate to evaluate when foods have "gone South". One thing I am careful about though is uncooked meat. If it's been frozen, no problem. Freezer burn? That's a cosmetic issue. Extreme hikers and campers eat freeze-dried meat. That's a serious case of freezer burn. Plenty of ways to cook freezer burned meat into a delicious dish. However, it is possible to get REALLY sick from meat if not handled and cooked properly. I don't care if properly cooked meat sits out for a few hours. You will rarely get sick from that. However, undercooked meats can go bad quickly. Eat your rare and medium rare cuts soon.

My wife however is the complete opposite. I can't tell you how much I've retrieved and eaten out of the trash bin. She say's it's gonna kill me. So far, so good.

Food manufacturers date code packages to insure proper rotation of stock

you'll notice that most date codes say

best if used by

sell by

not really a definitive throw it out statement(s)

That is true, however people have been conditioned to simply throw out things once it's past its date.

I really began to understand the expiration dating thing when I was on Yongsan back in the early nineties. Since shipping foods from the U.S. or wherever the commissary would buy them, took significant time, many items were past their "date". However, the Army veterinarians would test the products and re-date them for sale. I was surprised how much longer many products could still be sold as safe for consumption.

For hundreds of thousand years, mankind developed and flourished without the use of a fridge, food was not as aboundant as today (my kids never needed to go hunting); beer, wine, bread and cheeses date from pre-biblical times.

I laugh up on expiration dates, but when I start telling the 5000 year old tale of an egipcian maid who had no time to bake the bread and left it for next morning, resulting this on a spongy-fluffy and rich-smell thing; my wife gets bored and continues picking the "old" stuff out of the fridge.

I don't understand why, because she comes from a tropical community down Guerrero Mex. where they still live as centuries ago, (I've found words from her speach, into some codices and the Popol-Vuh, really); the only explanation I can find: Brain wash from our consume society.

Yahlasit