Do you use things past "best by" "use by" and "sell by"

[Diznygrl]

Meat, dairy, eggs I tend to pay more attention to the date...but even then with milk I will use past the date as long as it doesn't smell or taste sour.

Canned and boxed goods, eh. I have my limits (like a five year expired box of mac n cheese would probably go in the trash!), but for the most part I have no problem using past the date as long as it doesn't look weird or smell funky.

 

[PaulaSB12]

This is inspired by a thread I saw on the budget board. I'm curious if about how people feel about these dates.

Do you use things past their date? If so how far?

Any fun stories
!?

As long as it smells good I will eat it. Example thursday before last I nipped in to my local Tesco they had a couple of pies 34p each instead of the usual £2.50 and two soups for the same 34p instead of nearly £3. and 3 ready meals which in all cost 86p I ate the ready meals that weekend and the soups the following wednesday and thursday nightshift they where all fine and tasted good. Just because its reached its sell by date doesn't mean it cant be eaten a few days later especially if its been kept in the fridge. Eggs don't have a use by date in my home as I get them fresh from the girls in the morning (I am the evil egg pincher according to my hens)

 

[Stitchfans]

I am like many here. I check it out and if it seems okay I'll cook it. Dairy is the only product I am very concerned over. Only a few days past and that is it. Meat like said, if frozen and no freezer burn.

So funny though. I found some candy I had bought for our trip to Disney World back in 2009. We were handing it out to the characters and other CMs. Didn't realize there was any left until just now. No expiration date on the bags but when I opened them up and checked them out, man were they nasty.

 

[dawnhaze]

I'll use canned and jarred stuff pretty much forever if the packaging isn't damaged. Same with boxed pantry items. We won't die from a stale-tasting box of Kraft Dinner.

Dairy I'll keep for 2-3 days after the date, as long as it smells OK. Eggs I'll keep 2-3 weeks after the carton date, and then hard boil them and put them in packed lunches until they're gone.

Meat I try to do SOMETHING with by the date on the package - either cook it or freeze it. I'll keep frozen meat for 6+ months as long as it doesn't have freezer burn, but my freezer is too small for anything to stay in there that long!

 

[kidshop]

I've also been known to cook meat for my family that's been in the freezer for 2-3 years. Without telling them, of course.

As long as the can's not damaged, I don't pay any attention to the dates. I figure they're just posted on the food so that the companies can sell more of it.

We eat leftovers up to a week old in the fridge. DS (who has a sensitive stomach) recently ate some old stroganoff and jambalaya that were in there for 3 weeks with no ill effects (kinda makes you wonder). "But, Mom, I was hungry!" Sigh.

I also keep leftovers for 7 days, on day 8 throw out. I think some of the quality issues depend on refrigerator temps, I keep mine 36-37 degrees. My old fridge had the deli drawer and lunchmeats lasted forever!

I don't even look at expirations on dry/canned goods and I've never had a problem. We'll, execept that really old can of evaporated skim milk I opened a few months ago. The liquid had shrunk by half and was it supposed to be brown? I think it was from 2004.

 

[JanaDee]

It depends on the item. Canned (vegetables, soup, fruit, etc.) or boxed (macaroni, rice, etc.) items I will use up to 6 months or so past the "best if used by" date. Some of those items have an "old" taste to them if you use them long past the expiration date.

Milk I will use 2-3 days past the date on the carton, after sniffing to make sure it's still good.

I won't use fresh meat after the expiration date. Frozen meat has to have no freezer burn otherwise it has an "off" taste and I won't use it.

I'll use eggs 2-3 weeks past the date stamped on the carton, but longer than that and they get thrown out.

As far as leftovers in the frig, we'll eat them up to a week later but longer than that and they get tossed out to the barn cats.

This is pretty much what I do. But our leftovers go in the garbage, since we don't have barn cats.

 

[kacaju]

Lunch lady at a school, the milk we were trying to use up one day *expired* THAT day.. meaning the date on the milk was that days date. We had a Mother call and complain.. kid came home and whined. Mom called my boss...Boss told her it was still good

 

[Sadie22]

Today I bought meat at the Safeway that had been marked down 75% because its "best by" date is four days from now. It's all going in the freezer.

 

[ashley0139]

I'll use anything as long as it still smells/looks okay.

 

[JennaTX]

I just saw a news article about this. I guess the former CEO of Trader Joe's is opening up a shop in Boston called The Daily Table. They will sell only items that are past their date for really cheap. The news article reported that 40% of food in America is thrown away

I feel like that with milk, meat, other fresh products you can smell or feel and see if they are okay...it doesn't really matter what the date is. It's not like if my milk said good by Feb 12 and I smelt it on Feb 10 and you could tell it went bad I would still drink it because of that date, right? So why not the other way around!

 

[akcire]

So I grew up in a house with a parent who has nearly no sense of smell. I can't tell you how many times as a kid I was asked to smell or taste something completely nasty. I'm pretty good at the sell by date usage. Every once in a while I will find a product in my pantry that has been forgotten-my willingness to try it hedges on how long, how much it costs, and if I have another identical item in date.

Here's my funny story. So my now deceased FIL took a job with the federal government at a VA facility. They needed someone who could code mainframes as that is how their payment systems operated. He had done that type of work 25 years earlier and had since gone on to work in advanced telephone systems coding and also teaching computer programming. Basically as he described it on Monday they gave him his work or the changes for the week. By Monday at 10 am he was done. The rest of the week he had to sit there. Nice job right!

So one day, while bored, he gets a hankering for those orange cheese crackers with peanut butter inside. They sell them in the vending machine. He puts in his money and toddles back to his desk with the crackers. He eats the first few and as a de facto expert on the flavor profile of the orange peanut butter cracker decrees these to be a bit stale. Now remember he's a government employee with no work to do. So he looks up the phone number for the manufacturer (hint there was no 800 number on the product) and gets someone in customer service.

He proceeds to tell the lady how the crackers he just bought were stale. She then asked for the date code on the package. There was no date code. Long story short after much research on her part based on package design and bar code he is advised that the crackers were..........14 years old. Yes a 14 year old package of orange peanut butter crackers. Of course upon hearing this story, and he told it with such enthusiasm and indignation, my husband and I were forced to purchase him many many packages of orange peanut butter crackers.

Just thinking about it makes me chuckle. If he were still alive, I'd send him some today; and no the crackers didn't kill him. According to him they had no ill effects, but he did have the constitution of a garbage can.

 

[Sparkly]

Best Before it's fine to eat over the date because it's just a guideline, the food just won't taste its best. Use By..depends on the item. Milk, probably until it smells bad. Cooked lunchmeat..probably fine for a couple of days beyond. Yoghurt, generally the same.

 

[pioneer89]

I've also been known to cook meat for my family that's been in the freezer for 2-3 years. Without telling them, of course.

As long as the can's not damaged, I don't pay any attention to the dates. I figure they're just posted on the food so that the companies can sell more of it.

We eat leftovers up to a week old in the fridge. DS (who has a sensitive stomach) recently ate some old stroganoff and jambalaya that were in there for 3 weeks with no ill effects (kinda makes you wonder). "But, Mom, I was hungry!" Sigh.

Most companies want to be able to have as long of a self life as possible, because the retailers don't like having to pull items from shelves when they get close to 'use-by' because consumers will tend to buy fresher product. (Yes, companies did tend to be over cautious in the past, for many reasons, and one of them was the opportunity to sell a small amount of additional product to replace 'out of date'. But retailers have forced manufacturers to change all that. )

I think it was posted above too, but sell-by dates are usually set using 3 factors:

• Chance of spoilage. (Could be regulatory, could be test-based)
• Chance of noticeable flavor/appearance degradation. (test-based, date depends on the odds the manufacturer wants. "Premium" companies err on the side of caution, store brands might do the same, or might not care quite so much. In any case, you'd be looking at a 99% chance of tasting fresh vs. a 96% chance on the use-by date.)
• Rounding down for ease of code-dating during manufacturing. (Seldom done any more, but 55 weeks would be rounded down to 1 year, so it's easier to figure out the date.)

 

[Jaime4004]

I rarely throw anything out. We tend to use up everything (that could spoil, like milk) long before it would spoil. Meats/veggies, etc are frozen if getting too much past the date (like a few days). Anything canned or boxed is good for years, as far as i'm concerned. I just don't tell DH because he's a bit paranoid about getting sick. I haven't killed him yet.
I just found a 2 yr old package of goldfish hidden. I put in front of the pantry so DS can take that one first.
I did recently through out a mayo jar that was one year past the date. It was unopened, at room temp. A little darker yellow than more fresh mayo. I debated with myself quite a while about that. I did some internet research and a FB poll before ultimately deciding to throw it away. It was a sad day.

 

[ellone]

We eat pretty much by the week - as in my fridge is empty at the end of the week. We buy little processed food. I buy organic bread from Whole Foods and you have to finish by the sell by date-the next day it will have some mold. Without all those bread conditioners and other crap non- organic breaks has it just goes bad.

 

[hlg22]

I am not so concerned by sell/use by dates. If it tastes and smells fine, isn't moldy, etc. I use it, and I've never gotten sick. However, I stick with items that aren't expired if I have guests over, and I am especially careful with friends who are pregnant.

I do think it's funny that some people go so rigidly by the sell/use by dates...during the Chobani yogurt recall last year, I remember reading an article with an interview with one of the women who had gotten sick - she said that she thought the yogurt tasted strange/fizzy but that she checked and since it wasn't expired she KEPT EATING IT and later got sick. There have been times where I've taken a bite of something and known right away that something's not right - in that case I dump it immediately, I don't care what the package says.

 

[Burnedout]

Lots of things are labeled arbitrarily. If there is a big chance for contamination we don't use it. If not, we do.

 

[Burnedout]

We eat pretty much by the week - as in my fridge is empty at the end of the week. We buy little processed food. I buy organic bread from Whole Foods and you have to finish by the sell by date-the next day it will have some mold. Without all those bread conditioners and other crap non- organic breaks has it just goes bad.

I never think of things that obviously mold when people ask questions like this. Organic milk, eggs, yogurt, grains are nooee likely to spoil then their evil processed cousins...

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

If it is meat or something like that I don't use it. If it is something I figure won't hurt me, I will risk it. I used some mustard yesterday that was dated 9/13.

 

[glaserjm]

I can't do milk past the expiration date, even if I sniff and it seems fine. I have a very weird thing about milk though, it has to be extremely cold for me to drink it or put it in/on anything. When arriving home from the store, it has to be the first thing put away.

Funnily enough when my mom was pregnant with me she became obsessed with cold milk and had to add ice to it to get it cold enough for her (this is someone who does not like cold drinks in general)...as soon as I was born it stopped!