Sell By Dates?

[Goldstandard]

What do you think of the obsession with sell by dates? On tinned food? It lasts for ever doesn't it? I remember the time when if it smelled OK it was OK. If meat was a bit off you rubbed some vinegar on it. If it was fly blown you scraped the eggs off rubbed some vinegar on it and ate it. I don't know of anyone who got food poisoning. Perhaps our systems were more robust in those days.

[Butterbun]

Bear Grylls and his road kill meals spring to mind.

[Goldstandard]

I agree with Grandpaw folk are far too mamby pamby these days. I believe that the current proliferation of 'allergies' is due to obsessional cleanliness. Our systems do not build up a resistance. In answer to Tilly, vinegar has been used to preserve food for thousands of years.

[Bazile]

what does 'use by ' dates indicate

[razza]

Use by dates safeguard the sellers .

[gollob]

Sell by dates are put there for the supermarkets so they can rotate their stock properly. I take no notice of the dates. We have a competition to see who can eat the oldest. I am in the lead having cooked dried rice with a sell by date of 1997.
Worcester sauce has a 4 year code on it. yet it is better after 4 years.
Water fresh as a mountain stream yet it has a sell by date on it. What's this all about then.

[ClaryS]

A 'Best Before' or 'Use By' date is to inform the consumer of the fact that after this date the product may deteriorate, perhaps in texture or flavour, but not necessarily be hazardous to health.

[woofgang]

Our systems weren't more robust, people died, especially children and the elderly and frail, from eating rotten meat, fly blown meat and so on, and that's why people stopped doing it. I had a friend at school, a fit healthy girl who was hospitalised because she went to stay at her Grandmother's and Granny had your views on food.
I absolutely agree about best before dates, and will push use by dates if the produce still seems to me to be fresh, but I like being healthy, not throwing up or putting my health at risk so will happily leave the rotten food to those who want it. As for Bear Grylls, the man is an idiot, why would anyone want to use him as a good example?

[Bazile]

//As for Bear Grylls, the man is an idiot, why would anyone want to use him as a good example? //

Surely the point about Bear Grylls is that he is showing you survival skills , when it is a matter of life and death out in the wilderness etc - when there isn't a local tesco around the corner .

[Bazile]

Here is the Foods Satandards agency's advice

http://www.food.gov.uk/about-us/about-the-fsa/faqsconsumer/bestbeforeuseby

[woofgang]

Bazile, he's making moolah out of tv and books, that it what he is doing.

[pixie373]

That isn't quite accurate, clarys.
"best before" means what it says and will do no harm after that date.
"Use by" is an instruction for food that can be dangerous afterwards and is government -controlled. You can ignore it, but there is a risk.

[Bazile]

Right Ho - so he is an idiot ( not because of the advice given in the tv programmes ) , but becauise he makes money out of books and tv .

In that case the world is awash with idiots , woulnn't you say ?

[woofgang]

indeed Bazile...indeed. My particular argument with BG is that he killed and cooked a snapping turtle for TV. Turtles (and to a certain extent tortoises) are capable of continued brain life for many minutes after they are killed, even decapitated because their brains can function after their oxygen supply is removed. There is no humane way to kill a snapping turtle that would leave it fit for human consumption. To do that for TV entertainment, for me is unnacceptable. idiot is a kind way to describe him.

[shirleyhick]

I also remember those days. Also remember my nan if cheese had abit of mould on it she would cut it of and say the rest of the cheese is ok. Like you said we never got ill in those days and not alot of food went to waste, I think we are obsessed with sell buy and use by dates and far to much food goes to waste.

[sherrardk]

I am a stickler for use by and best before dates. I am not sniffing anything to see if it's ok. None of my kids has allergies to anything and I waste very little food.

[pastafreak]

I always have /still do that with cheese...and I'm not anyone's nan ... yet.

[sherrardk]

Cheese doesn't hang around long enough to go mouldy in this house - at least 3kg of cheddar a week!