Social Do food expiration dates really matter?

I'm selective - things like Steak are generally good for months if wrapped in paper not plastic. Things like Pork or Chicken I'd still eat but to a max of 2 days past the Use By Date. Seafood I'm usually more cautious.

In general its common sense - if it feels sticky, looks funny or smells weird don't eat it.

I recently bought some Dirty Fries from M&S with the same-day Use By Date on them but didn't eat them. Went to cook them the next day and there was a film of blue mouldy fur formed on the top so some things do perish quite quickly based on the Use By Date I guess...
 
ssBaldy said:
My friends dug up German cans with meat from WW 2 and ate it, it was good, noone got diarrhea.
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Canned foods last near forever given it's still sealed and no bacteria making way in through air, unless the seal is compromised
 
I think most countries stopped calling them expiration dates and use words like "best by" dates or "best before" dates.

I worked in a grocery and produce store and can confirm that, for a lot of stuff like meat, seafood, cheese (etc.) the dates are pretty arbitrary and the store just slaps on a new sticker if the food pasts the look and sniff test by the date that's on the first sticker. (In fact, when certain types of cheese or meat gets a bit moldy or discoloured, staff will often just take it out of the packaging, trim the sketchy area away, repackage the food and slap on a new date sticker.)

For most food, look at and smell is the best indicator IMO.
 
Alphaboy said:
Obviously it doesn't go bad when the clock strikes midnight like Cinderella. It's more of a ballpark guide. The people who say to evaluate it yourself are correct, but I wouldn't go past a few days....
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Anaconda99 said:
I can taste the difference especially stuff like eggs, Cheese, Milk Meat and Fish.....
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Jack Reacheround said:
It’s not that the expiration date doesn’t matter. Not everything is just binary, black and white, matters or doesn’t matter. Seeing the world through such an overly simplistic lens is going to hold you back in life.

Does the expiration date being passed automatically mean you should throw out the food? No. But you can bet it will need to be thrown out very soon. If not, have fun shutting your pants and throwing up.

The expiration date is a helpful way of letting you know for approximately how long the food you buy is going to last. It isn’t 100% accurate all the time. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter what the expiration date is.
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People need to understand that Best Before Dates are part Food Science and a bigger part Marketing to make stores and you throw it out and buy more.

They matter more as a guideline for meats and dairy but not so much for drier goods.

With regards to the science the food companies have no way to know within a day or even days an item will do bad. That is not how the science works as everything else matters such as 'how was it shipped' (refrigerated truck or truck that 100 degrees), how was it stored (humid warehouse or refrigerated) and where is it being displayed for sale (humid gas station store or air conditioned grocery), and so if the Manufacturer thinks it will naturally go bad on X date you can bet they build in what they expect to be a lot of cushion, where they can to give some leeway.

So if you are buying from a Grocery store that stored it properly and it was shipped properly it should be perfectly ok, in most instances quite a bit beyond before its BB date.
 
Mark McMichael said:
People need to understand that Best Before Dates are part Food Science and a bigger part Marketing to make stores and you throw it out and buy more.

They matter more as a guideline for meats and dairy but not so much for drier goods.

With regards to the science the food companies have no way to know within a day or even days an item will do bad. That is not how the science works as everything else matters such as 'how was it shipped' (refrigerated truck or truck that 100 degrees), how was it stored (humid warehouse or refrigerated) and where is it being displayed for sale (humid gas station store or air conditioned grocery), and so if the Manufacturer thinks it will naturally go bad on X date you can bet they build in what they expect to be a lot of cushion, where they can to give some leeway.

So if you are buying from a Grocery store that stored it properly and it was shipped properly it should be perfectly ok, in most instances quite a bit beyond before its BB date.
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For me the difference is in taste. I can taste if something has expired its prime. But like i said its not an issue for me i plan my food and it runs out perfectly. Buy once a month and have plenty. I dont like stuff laying around endless in my fridge. Sure its digestible but the quality goes down.
 
Anaconda99 said:
For me the difference is in taste. I can taste if something has expired its prime. But like i said its not an issue for me i plan my food and it runs out perfectly. Buy once a month and have plenty. I dont like stuff laying around endless in my fridge. Sure its digestible but the quality goes down.
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I'm the same which is why I get no value from Costco. I prefer buying small quantities frequently then a month or weeks of some items to store.

My first career job was as a Quality Assurance manager so it was my job to inspect all incoming food for signs of spoilage. So i've trained my nose to slight signs and if i notice them then I don't need to taste.

The above again speaks to the idea of people thinking Best Before is some iron clad science. They don't know there is a big difference in the quality and freshness that arrive at the manufacturer before it is even packaged for sale. They don't know some manufacturers might blow thru inventory in a week, while for others it might sit in their warehouse for a month first. And they are not all re-adjusting BB dates based on that. Each item typically just gets a X months standard date put on from manufacturing. It is set.
 
Processed food, no issues. Dairy and Meat that is not frozen, bye felicia. Fruits will let you know. I read that the oldest thing in peoples fridges are salad dressings and condinments like Ketchup, mustard, mayo, BBQ sauces. They truly last a long time.
 
As long as there are no molds and the taste is still good, then everything is eatable.
 
I use the smell and color approach with food.

With most other things it really depends. For example, my bear spray seemed to have expired over a year ago. I never had to use it thankfully but didnt even notice it was expired till just recently. Now ill start hiking again soon so I figured i should get a new can. Why? Cause if for whatever reason it loses its potency over time, im not willing to test the theory and get fucked if by chance i need it. Lol
 
Fungilicious82 said:
That’s awesome.‘sure don’t make ‘em like they used to. That’s when planned obsolescence wasn’t a thing I guess
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All I've ever done to it was put a defrost timer in it. I also have a refrigerator from the 1950s in my basement. The way they got people to get rid of old appliances was to claim that they use more energy. I had the older one connected to a Kill A Watt meter for a couple of years and it barely uses more electricity than the new efficient ones claim to. If they really wanted to make efficient refrigerators they would make them so they use air from outside the house when cooling. Why put the hot air into the house in the summer? In the winter, in my area, the outside air could be used to cool the heat exchanger although warming the air in the house isn't a bad thing in the winter.
 
The Big Yin said:
Bad rice and seafood can kill you (or make you wish you were dead) so I dont risk that at all

Dairy just smells and tastes bad, good luck to anyone wanting to eat and drink that. Meat should be fine as long as it's cooked thoroughly. I went to a food market in rural Thailand, I almost had the Tom Tits just looking at how long they keep and how they store meat.
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Sometimes the problems with the meat start at the manufacturer. A truck driver told me about picking up a load of chicken at a Tyson's food plant. The refer trailer is supposed to be at 0 degrees before they get to the facility. The trailer is loaded and some temperature monitors are attached that change color if the temperature is exceeded during transit. They hadn't fully cooled the chicken so they laid a liquid nitrogen hose on top of the load and filled the trailer to cool it down before attaching the temperature monitor stickers, pulling the hose out and sealing the doors. Of course the product in the center of the pallets wasn't cold but they expected it would cool down during the two day trip in the refer trailer.
 
It's just an estimation. "Good through" doesn't mean it's ACTUALLY BAD after that.
 
Two years past best by date Pringles ok. I suppose because it's already dry and cannister sealed.
 
Most of them are 'best before' dates

I've kept milk way past its BB date and been fine. Take a whiff, take a taste, you'll know if it's gone bad.
 
Fresh fish is the one thing I’ve gambled on and last when it comes to eating past the best before , and I’ve made the mistake more than once .
 
ajwbjj87 said:
Fresh fish is the one thing I’ve gambled on and last when it comes to eating past the best before , and I’ve made the mistake more than once .
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I cooked some frozen cod fillets last night and I was surprised to see that the best by date was December of 2023.
 
I'm a teacher, and one of my students that works in a grocery store found a box of pop tarts that expired almost ten years ago.
He opened them up, smelled them, and ate one, said it tasted normal, and so far he's still kicking.

Let's just say he isn't at the top of my class.
 
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