How strictly do you follow Best Before/Expiration Dates on food?

mcewen3

Pretty self-explanatory.  Brought to you by the tzatziki dip in my fridge that is well past the BB date, but looks, smells and tastes just fine.

mcewen3

 Just so you know where I stand, I'm eating it.  The only thing I feel like I'm really careful about is meat.  I don't always feel like I'm a good judge of the freshness of raw meat so I am more careful to bide by the dates with that then anything else.  Expired milk is disgusting, but I don't need a date stamp to tell me when milk goes bad.  Sour cream and plain greek yogurt live in my fridge for months after the "Best Before" date.  They always taste the same so I pretty much only toss if they have mold.  

eatinwatermelonseeds

Anything dairy is pretty much gone within a couple days. I don't even look at the bb date as much for anything else unless it smells bad. Meat I'm similar. Meat is hard because they use chemicals to keep it pink looking, typically once it turns brown it's been bad for a little while. (It can also get brown spots if there's been something on top of the package though I don't remember the science behind that). I wrote a paper on this topic a while back (regarding meat). But I also have a terrible sense of smell and all meat smells disgusting to me. So unless it's just plain rotten, I can't detect it. So, I just toss it after a day or two. 

mcewen3

@eatinwatermelonseeds all raw meat smells gross to me too, which is why I don't mess with it.  We rarely get our meat from the grocery store so it isn't treated with chemicals, but I still struggle with it.  I usually freeze it all (since we buy in bulk from farmers) so its rarely an issue, but occasionally it comes up.

mcewen3

@eatinwatermelonseeds When you say dairy, do you mean even cheeses and fermented things like yogurt?  Or just fresh dairy products?

misskimsue

Best by date on cheese and yogurt is just a suggestion in my mind- that stuff is often good well after. But don't try telling that to my husband, who, if he notices one-day-expired, unopened yogurt, will run away in terror and demand that I throw it out (slight dramatization of actual events).

mcewen3

@misskimsue I totally agree with you, but apparently my brother and your hubby would be best pals on this subject.  My SIL and I always try and feed him "expired" food just to pester him, lol.  I've explained to him a zillion times that yogurt is fermented and hardly ever spoils but he won't consider eating it if he's seen the date first.

anonellis

@misskimsue I’m with your husband.  This is a common fight in my house.  I’m uptight about expiration dates because spoiled food grosses me out and is my #1 pet peeve.  I can’t smell milk to see if it’s still good because the thought that it might NOT be makes me shudder.  I can’t even be the one to pour it down the drain.  It’s totally irrational but it makes me militant about expiration dates. 

eatinwatermelonseeds

@mcewen3 I mean all of it. Yogurt, cheese, milk, sour cream, ice cream (though I've yet to reach the bb date on this 😂). It just skeeves me out. I don't know if it's just in my head but even a day over tastes bad to me. I can't do left overs much either for the same reason. At like day 2 I've got it in my head that it's bad. 

mcewen3

@eatinwatermelonseeds , I find milk spoils within days of being opened doesn't matter about the date.  The clock just starts ticking as soon as it gets a breath of fresh air and I can't use it if I smell the slightest hint of sour.  But I have absolutely zero issue with yogurt or sour cream.  Especially greek yogurt.  For some reason the regular, flavoured yogurts seem to get watery when they get older and that totally grosses me out but we don't really buy them anymore so its a non-issue.  I found an unopened plain greek yogurt in the garage fridge a few days ago with an early October date.  It looked, smelled and tasted totally normal so I served it instead of sour cream with our tacos on Tuesday night because I had forgotten to pick up sour cream and didn't feel like going out again.  

beccaneu

When it comes to meat and dairy (including cheese and yogurt), if it’s past it’s expiration date, I’m throwing it out. It kind of drives my husband crazy cause he’s a lot more lenient when it comes to expiration dates but I just don’t like taking chances.  Dry pantry goods I don’t really worry about much though.   It does kind of bother me throwing food away though so I try to only buy perishable foods in quantities I feel pretty confident we will eat prior to it expiring.  

brie_and_almonds

I am super lenient on yogurt, sour cream, and cheese -- if I can't see mold and it doesn't otherwise look off, I'll still eat it. Heck, hard cheeses even if I can see mold I'll cut off ~1" around the mold to throw out and eat what's left. That's the whole point of these food items -- they were invented because they are long-lasting.

Meat always grosses me out and seems like it could make you much sicker, so that gets tossed.

Other items -- like canned/dry goods -- I have such mixed feelings about and don't know what to do with, but it's pretty rare that we would have any past expiration.

jarethinafrock

Like the majority here, it really depends on what it is. I definitely let yoghurt go a few weeks past expiration, but stuff like meat needs to be eaten or frozen by the expiration date.

eatinwatermelonseeds

@brie_and_almonds I do that with bread sometimes. But I don't think I could do it with cheese, I don't know why. 

DressageDarling

I am super strict about it since finding 10+ yr expired things in my grandma’s pantry after she passed. I go through our fridge at least once a month to check all the expiration dates. It drives my DH absolutely insane since he is pretty lax about it 😂

k2k2tog

I have a mental thing about yogurt. I KNOW that best before dates don't actually mean that it immediately goes off, but I can't get past them. DH will eat expired yogurt though, so we don't toss it right away.

Raw meat, I go by look and smell, but I also follow the dates pretty strictly. If it's off by one day, but it smells ok, we'll probably still eat it. I'm pretty sensitive to the smell of meat going off. Mostly, we freeze our meat because half the time I forget about it in the fridge.

Cooked food... again, look and smell. And I definitely go over recommended amounts of time for leftovers as long as they still look appetizing.

eatinwatermelonseeds

I just tossed some miracle whip that expired October 10 🙈 I just couldn't.

k2k2tog

@eatinwatermelonseeds I don't even know what the expiry date of my miracle whip is!

eatinwatermelonseeds

@k2k2tog I was using it for DH's sandwich and I just thought if on the off chance it does make him sick and kill him, I really don't want that on my conscience. 😂

wishiwaspreggo

I grew up on expired food. My parents would shave mold off cheese and bread for us. We'd leave our Pizza Hut pizza in the oven overnight and eat it the next day. Now I have an iron gut! The only time I ever contracted food poisoning was from open turkey bacon 3 weeks past its expiration date. That sticky coating on the bacon was, in fact, NOT honey glaze.

My wife is much more stringent than me and I've grown used to her ways so things that used to not gross me out do now. My parents haven't changed, though, so I always check the expiration date on their food (they go above and beyond when hanging on to stuff). I grabbed a bottle of ketchup from their fridge and it was *brown.* I thought to myself "Is this some kind of fancy flavor? What's going on?" Checked the expiration date. It expired in 2016. This happened a few months ago. I threw it away and bought them new ketchup.

ETA: we were poor growing up (3 young kids, 1 income) but my parents are far from poor now. It baffles me that they still hang on to this behavior now that they have enough money to toss and buy as much as they want.

DuchessOfCambridge

When not pregnant, I am more lenient. Depending on the food and what it looks like, I may have it. When pregnant, I am strict and will not consume anything beyond expiration date. Might be silly of me, but it makes me less anxious, so.

sleepy33

Ok but eggs like never go bad. I've cracked those suckers open when the expiration date was a month gone and they're totally fine. 

eatinwatermelonseeds

@sleepy33 eggs are the only things I don't even really look at the expiration 😂

k2k2tog

@sleepy33 We get our eggs from one of DH's cousins who have a coop, except they deliver to his office and he forgets them there. So, often, when he brings them home, they've already been sitting at his office for 3 weeks. Which means I still have another good 3 weeks on them, but when there are 4 boxes in your fridge...? I cracked one the other day and the white was like water. The yolk was coated in a weird, white film. It didn't smell but it looked disgusting. You can tell if eggs are bad by putting them in a bowl of cold water. If they float, they've started to accumulate gas in them. I throw them out once they float right at the top.

kvh22

DuchessOfCambridge said:

When not pregnant, I am more lenient. Depending on the food and what it looks like, I may have it. When pregnant, I am strict and will not consume anything beyond expiration date. Might be silly of me, but it makes me less anxious, so.

This!

And @sleepy33 my mom is all up on the rules of how many days after opening, cooking, etc., things are okay in the fridge (she also eats her burgers well done) but I called her once in college about eggs past their date and she's like "oh yea, that's fine." I have literally never had this issue while living with DH, though.

Also, I buy DD cheese sticks for her snack. I stock up since the dates are out so far (just bought them and they're good until March. I didn't realize one was still in the bag (I went after daycare drop off, then was working from home so didn't finish unloading more than the perishables). I have it separated from the others in the fridge since it was out for about 8 hours. Normally I'd eat it but I won't since I'm pregnant. Can I give this to DD or should I toss them? DH is legit allergic (throat closes up) to dairy so won't eat it, but that's usually my solution for these types of things.

sleepy33

@kvh22 I'd probably give my kid one and see how it goes, but I am very laid back about that kind of thing. 

DuchessOfCambridge

Oh, eggs are the one I don't care about. If it looks weird when I crack it open, I'll toss it. I think that's only happened to me once, though.

@kvh22 I'd give it to her

DuchessOfCambridge

@kvh22 oh wait. I just reread. I would toss it if it was out for that long.

megsb615

I put somewhat strict, but maybe I’m more strict when it comes to expiration dates than I thought. 😂 With leftovers I’m pretty lenient, but if milk, cheese, deli meat/meat, yogurt, are past the expiration or sell by date, they get tossed. I second guess too much with smelling it because I already have in my head it’s “expired”. It drives my husband crazy because he’ll eat anything if it doesn’t have mold on it. I just can’t. I get way too worried about getting sick. 🤢 

misskimsue

@brie_and_almonds @wishiwaspreggo I also grew up in a "cut the mold off cheese and carry on" household. Will second that I never got food poisoning growing up... only time I ever have was last year from a restaurant salad. But I do also double check expiration on my parents' food sometimes, especially when I'm pregnant or they're feeding my kids!

sleepy33

I also buy organic milk only because the expiration date on it is always like 6 weeks out. I love it. Our milk consumption is so erratic, it saves me a ton. Some weeks we breeze through a half gallon, sometimes it lasts 2 weeks. 

misskimsue

@sleepy33 I believe the reason for the extended expiration date for organic milk in the US is because it is usually UHT milk (treated at an ultra-high temperature). Most regular milk is not and has a shorter shelf life. I actually am really sensitive to the taste difference (almost all milk in France, where DH is from, is UHT milk and I don't care for the taste), so I only buy non-organic milk haha.

sleepy33

misskimsue said:

@sleepy33 I believe the reason for the extended expiration date for organic milk in the US is because it is usually UHT milk (treated at an ultra-high temperature). Most regular milk is not and has a shorter shelf life. I actually am really sensitive to the taste difference (almost all milk in France, where DH is from, is UHT milk and I don't care for the taste), so I only buy non-organic milk haha.

misskimsue

Will add that my family goes through almost 2 gallons of milk a week, so expiration date is never a concern of mine!

k2k2tog

@misskimsue same. We've learned to always buy two bags or else we're running to the convenience store two days after grocery day.

lovelybabybumpz

I'm pretty lenient on a case by case basis. DH will not eat something if it's even approaching its best by date  

mcewen3

@k2k2tog I do the floating egg test too.  If they are past the date I will just drop them in water and use the ones that don't float.  
@kvh22 If DD1 doesn't eat her cheese stick at school I stick it back in the fridge at the end of the day.  Cheese is a pretty stable food and it takes a lot to make it go bad.

mcewen3

k2k2tog said:

@misskimsue same. We've learned to always buy two bags or else we're running to the convenience store two days after grocery day.

I love that you guys have bags!  My parents are both from Quebec and I always remember having milk bags at my Oma's (it stopped being a thing out west way before I was born).  Never at my dad's parents though, because they were still actively farming and had dairy cows so our milk there was always fresh from the barn.  Oma doesn't get bags of milk anymore because she's the only one in the house so she just buys a small carton, and it makes me sad every time I open the fridge.  Silly I know.

kvh22

@mcewen3 @misskimsue lol I assumed "bags" was a typo.

eatinwatermelonseeds

@kvh22 me too 😂

k2k2tog

@kvh22 @eatinwatermelonseeds hahaha! Not a typo! We buy our milk in 4L, split up over 3 bags, which you buy in one larger bag. You need a jug to put the individual bag in, and then you cut the corner of the bag to pour. I like them a lot better than jugs (though you literally can't get jugs of milk here) and they're apparently a little more environmentally friendly?

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