Out of date food, what's your limit?

[unknowndomain]

Its an impulse thing for me, I won't eat shall we say 'furry' food but if it looks unmoulded then I may or may not eat it.

Like today I spent an age waiting for a crumpet then spread some butter on from the back of the fridge and then my mum told me it was over a year old and to throw it in the bin and make another. I just ate it and was fine.

 

[Kristoph]

i see.... and what does that have to do with what i said?

I asked if he had more details on the figures because:

If this is per store over a year thats only £191/day , the average store has revenues of £44,878/day thats a 0.4% waste hardly that bad not even half a %.

(admitedly i dont know how much of the revenue is made up of selling food )

Well the store I work in (small-average size supermarket) we're taking around £650,000 a week at the moment. Although the larger one I worked in while I was at uni was taking around £1million a week around xmas.

About £1000-3000 a week is wasted.

So I'd guess at £70,000 probably being an average stores yearly wasting.

 

[marley82]

Depends what it is, If its dairy products then 2 days tops, anything else ~a week.

 

[Beansprout]

Generally I use common sense but sometimes I eat it anyway.

And sometimes I grab stuff out the fridge in the dark without looking - lesson to all, grated cheese can go from "edible" to "what the **** did I just eat"-all-green-mouldyness in a few days! I'd been away and didn't check it before I grabbed some...

 

[Ziggy]

The only thing I can't stand is old oranges, especially if they are left in the fridge. If I ever see them I will just go spare and start crying and cutting myself and **** for several hours. Can't stand them.

 

[Beansprout]

LOL

 

[^TANK^]

Depends what it is, If its dairy products then 2 days tops, anything else ~a week.

 

[theNude]

Depends what product..

Milk - until it smells bad, which can be up to a week
meat - until smells bad
fish - chuck on date if smells funny
cheese - never
wine - only if corked or lost its charm
pickles - never
frozen stuff - never
bread - when its moudly all over, i.e. cant cut the mould off to eat
vegetables - when they go all soggy or furry usually you can cut the good bits off still.

dried pasta - never
eggs -when they float!

 

[CBJ]

I want a canned whole chicken!

I really don't think you do.

 

[wozencl]

Anybody who throws food away simply because it's passed it's "Use By" date is a moron. It's a guess and a conservative one at that...

Food will spoil way before it's use by date if it's stored incorrectly and will last a good while after it if stored properly.

Surely you guys who throw food out as soon as it's date is up have bought chicken/fish that has smelt off before it's use by date? The appearance/smell and taste are far better indicators than a catch all date will ever be.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

I really don't think you do.

That is vile.

 

[FTM]

if you can spread it on bread then the milk is off..thats my rule

 

[Kristoph]

Well, slightly off topic, but today was a prime example of how wasteful certain supermarkets can be.

Policies like this are the cause, for example;

A customer returned 4 cartons of baby milk powder (£8 each) because she'd picked up the wrong ones. Now it then becomes the managers discretion as to whether or not we should give them the exchange/refund. This is because all four cartons of milk powder will now need to be thrown away, even though they are unopened (for 'health and safety' incase someone has contaminated the cartons).

So £32 thrown away and there was probably nothing wrong with them.

 

[Freefaller]

I find it horrific how we waste so much food these days.

 

[uvarvu]

I bought some plain set yoghurt from a newsagents yesterday, was really surprised by how sharp it tasted (I love sharp yoghurt). Usually the yoghurt tastes too creamy and you have to leave it for a few days.
I checked the label and it had gone off the day before, still finished the pot though instead of taking it back though.

 

[Mark0]

I'll eat anything that's visibly okay and doesn't smell like ****.

Same here!

 

[Squark]

If it looks and smells ok then usually I'll eat it

Yea

 

[vincent1989]

if it looks good and tastes good then i'm not too picky.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Looks like you all missed the Tonight programme where they ate food well over it's sell by date.
Nobody got ill and died.

 

[SiriusB]

It does my nut in when people get anal over something being out of date. The way some people carry on you would think food is automatically going to kill you 1 second after midnight!

In my house we routinely go for canned food that is "out of date" over newer stuff. The joke being "You can't eat that... it's far to young!". There are tins of beans lurking on shelves that are a good 5 years out of date, I'm sure. They will be 100% OK when we eventually get around to eating them.

Bread rarely has a chance to go out of date in our house - we tend to demolish at least one loaf a day. On the off chance some bread does go a bit south, we just throw it in the toaster. Everyone knows stale bread makes the best toast!

Milk is fine as long as it doesn't taste foul. Again, in our house milk doesn't get much of a chance to go off, but even if it was on the turn we'd use that bottle for brews. I can understand being wary of dairy products if you have IBS. My mum suffers from it and if she has certain foods that aren't completely fresh it can really kick it off.

The only foods I refuse to eat when they're a bit out of date are foods I refuse to eat when they are in date

Generally speaking people need to follow the "if in doubt, throw it out" rule and not what some number say on the box. If that fish finger smells funny - chuck it. If it doesn't, cook it and the 5 days ago useby can be damned!