Metropol

It's all romance at Hellire HQ today.

Been going through my non perishables cupboard, a kind of clear out. I wanna use some of the tins
to come up with an odd concoction that will taste rather fab. Some of the tins are a year or 5 out of
date. Tinned food is supposed to be able survive a nuclear holocaust. Now i'm thinking of just using
my sight and smell senses.If it smells and looks ok(ish) i'll probably use it.

What are your thoughts on using out of date tinned goods. I don't wanna end up poisoning Mr Hellfire.

For me, if it's out of date, it's in the bin. I don't use it, whether it's in a tin, or a loaf of bread. In fact, defiantly not if it's bread, it goes mouldy. But back to tins, I wouldn't.

GMTV2009 wrote:For me, if it's out of date, it's in the bin. I don't use it, whether it's in a tin, or a loaf of bread. In fact, defiantly not if it's bread, it goes mouldy. But back to tins, I wouldn't.

I think 5 years is probably pushing it just a little, though as a rule I only use product dates as a guide.

Bread that's out of date(as long as it's not mouldy) is perfectly ok for toast and will do you no harm.

Remember the supermarkets and producers will have built in a reasonable amount of leeway into the date they print.

And Best Before is advice, whereas Use By is supposedly an instruction.

i suspect opening a 5 year old can of chicken soup is much akin to opening a gents cubical door in your local weatherspoons: don't do it unless you have to.

i don't mind eating some things which are out of date (dried items like biscuits or crisps) but i'd chuck dairy and meat (unless it was cured like ham)

that said i actually have trouble getting some items to even last until their sell by date, especially tesco stuff.

i've had quite a few bottles of milk go rancid several days before the sell by date as well as bread having a healthy blue hue only a day or two after buying it. i have eaten bread with mould on in error and it tastes quite metallic but i check each slice more carefully now.

i think the most unpleasant thing that was off was a chicken from sainsbury's which was purchased for sunday so was several days "in date", we stuck it in the oven (it didn't smell bad) and after about 30 minutes the whole house smelt vomit inducingly awful - it really was an indescribable smell. they did give us a fiver "compensation" and apologised profusely for selling us the "damaged" chicken. i suppose it's possible some stuff got left inside and that was the cause of the smell.

Dr Lobster* wrote:i've had quite a few bottles of milk go rancid several days before the sell by date as well as bread having a healthy blue hue only a day or two after buying it. i have eaten bread with mould on in error and it tastes quite metallic but i check each slice more carefully now.

That's surely because you've opened them.

Bread lasts no time at all these days. I've started buying the half-loaf, full size slice that Warburton's do, as I can't get through a loaf quick enough.

I had porridge oats recently that were 6 months past date. I figured dried goods would be fine, but it had a curious taste and texture, so I binned it.

I almost never buy canned goods. Soup, I suppose, but that's it. I think you're pushing it when you're years past a date.

I struggle a bit with frozen things - 3 months is supposed to be the limit but that's pretty tricky to keep in mind.

Gavin Scott wrote:I struggle a bit with frozen things - 3 months is supposed to be the limit but that's pretty tricky to keep in mind.

i defrosted our freezer over christmas and threw out some stuff that had been lurking in the bottom for a couple of years. it is so easy to chuck something you've brought in the freezer and forget about it.

we now tend to use the freezer for 'emergency supplies' only (ie run out of stuff for tea but can't be arsed to go to the shop) so there are wedges, chips, a chicken pie, bread, frozen fruit + veg, milk and thats about it.

instead of doing one 'big' shop we go a couple of times a week so there is less waste and i do find myself checking use by dates more now so the stuff i do buy has a good chance to last until i want to eat it.

now i always thought potatoes lasted ages, my mum and dad have a great big bag in the garage from the farm shop which lasts for weeks, yet in tesco you buy a big-ish bag and you get less than a week. they seem to last a good while longer than this but i think it does encourage people to throw things away unnecessarily. also, i really should try to use the local farm shop more. tescos are shite.

Until recently, my mom had a tin of sardines in the cupboard with a Key Markets price label on it. Needless to say, it did go in the bin!

Jovis wrote:

Dr Lobster* wrote:i've had quite a few bottles of milk go rancid several days before the sell by date as well as bread having a healthy blue hue only a day or two after buying it. i have eaten bread with mould on in error and it tastes quite metallic but i check each slice more carefully now.

That's surely because you've opened them.

More often than not, it's because it has sat too long outside a refrigerator. I wouldn't dare to comment on Tesco's standards in particular but when I was trained at Sainsbury's it was expressed that safe-times are (one of many things) holy and to be observed at all costs and implied that "inferior" competitors do not feel the same.

I've seen a branch of 'Nisa Todays' which had milk outside of refrigeration for at least 2 hours before being sold to customers, one of whom I know bought a bottle and found it went off a number of days before even its sell-by.

We were told 20 minute rule in Sainsburys. You have 20 minutes to get your chilled products (in my case, creamcakes etc) from storage chiller to refrigirated shelf. Any longer and you were flogged.

Alexia wrote:We were told 20 minute rule in Sainsburys. You have 20 minutes to get your chilled products (in my case, creamcakes etc) from storage chiller to refrigirated shelf. Any longer and you were flogged.

what happened if the cakes were out of refrigeration for longer than 20 minutes ? did they get put out anyway or did they get chucked in the bin ?