How much notice do you take of best before/use by dates?

[Nugg]

I love a yellow label bargain.

It makes me try things I wouldn't normally and I'm one of those people that lives life on the edge and even uses it the day after the use by date.😱

How about you? Are there certain things that you would not use beyond the use by date? Personally chicken is one of my things. But today's bargain was a pork dish, and I feel like I could eat the second one tomorrow and not DIE...!

I would be wary of out of date meat. You can tell by the smell if it’s off or not though.

Best before dates - safe to eat after the date as long as it looks and smells OK
Use by - I'm more wary of these and wouldn't eat meat if it was out of date

Chicken for me too, only because dh once had campylobacter even though that's from undercooked chicken rather than out of date. I would probably eat pork out of date if I knew it had been stored correctly. Beef mince as long as it's not grey, cheese I'll scrape the mould off, veg if it's not mouldy/slimy. Salad that has gone slightly limp is fine in a stir fry. Milk and yogurt if it smells ok. It's unbelievable how much food is thrown away just because of a date printed on the packaging.

Chicken I will eat on the day of the use by date or throw it out. Anything else I’ll pretty much take use by / best before dates as a serving suggestion. If it looks alright and smells alright, chances are it’s alright. Never had food poisoning (unlike my friend who won’t eat anything within a few days of it’s use by date)

Same as PPs really; I go on smell/colour/texture for most things but chicken gets thrown if not eaten by the used by. I probably wouldn’t risk the pork personally. Can you not cook it tonight?

Best before, I don't really care that much, because it's normally non perishable things.
Use by, I am wary of it. And definitely use it before the date comes.

About regarding your pork dish, if it was uncooked pork and you cooked it today, I would eat it tomorrow if it taste and smells ok. But if it's a cooked dish that need to be consumed by today, no, I would eat it today, and not leave it until tomorrow.

We have found several products on ASDA shelves that have been 3 months past the best before date, and not marked down or had any sticker to inform the buyer. Not sure how I feel about that.

I have only ever had food poisoning once, I’d bought a prawn noodle ready meal from the supermarket and came home to cook and eat it. I woke that night and was so ill which carried on for a week.
DH had food poisoning from a reheated cheese and onion pasty, so I use the sniff test for food mostly.

I use it as a guide, I've eaten meat that is over the date and it's absolutely fine, it's really, really obvious when meat is off. You sometimes find it goes off before the date. Meat I've eaten a good 4-5 days after and it's been OK, I probably wouldn't bother to open it and check if it was much more than that. Eggs you can go a couple of weeks over, I do the floating test with those. Yoghurt usually fine for a couple of weeks as well. Milk is a weird one - in the UK I never went over more than a couple of days as it would smell, but here in Germany not only are the dates about 3 weeks in the first place, you can also go over by weeks and nothing happens to it. Not UHT - fresh milk you buy from the chiller. Totally weird.

I use best before and use by as a guide to what should be eaten next.
I use smell and looks to guide if it's fit to eat or not.
When living abroad, most fresh stuff had a "packed on" or "produced on" date, which I quite liked.

I'm very relaxed about besf before and use by dates. I use my common sense and my nose. Those two things haven't let me down yet.

I’m pretty relaxed too. Take absolutely no notice of best before dates and just look/sniff it. The potatoes we had tonight were a week past their best before and they were totally fine. They had been stored in the garage though. Use by, I’ve gone past by a couple of days and I haven’t poisoned anyone be yet. You can usually tell if something has gone off. Plus I can’t see how something can go from perfectly fine to completely poisonous in the space of 24 hours.

Very very rarely. If it looks, smells, feels OK then I'll cook it. If I'm suspicious I'll give eggs the water test but they are always fine way after their use buy.
Only things I'm iffy on are fermented foods and jars of spice pastes and such because I'm just not sure I'd be able to tell, unless they were growing fur 😅

Likewise.

Best before, don't take much notice just go by how it appears/tastes etc.

Use by- would go a day over for meat/fish if it looked & smelt okay, maybe a couple of days for dairy with the same criteria.
But only for me and DH- wouldn't serve our girls (5&11mths) anything that was past its use by date.

Very rarely, I go more by sight/smell than dates, it’s pretty impossible not to notice if meat has gone off.

If I buy meat that’s been reduced and I wasn’t going to cook it that day I’d freeze it anyway so it’s irrelevant.

I go by look and smell. It's ridiculous throwing out food based on a date I'd cook that pork tomorrow.
And I use chicken over its use by. Never had an issue.

I don't pay any attention at all. If there is dairy and it's been opened and then is more than a couple of days past it's date I'll chuck it. Our meat comes from a butcher with no date. It goes in the freezer on the day of purchase and comes out on the day or the day before we are cooking it.

Never acknowledge them for potatoes, veg or fruit, grew up in a house where the majority of our potatoes & veg came direct from the farm so didn't have best before dates.

Everything else I do the sniff test whether the date has passed or not - I once threw out a pack of chicken breasts still 3 days within date because they didn't smell right.

I thought everyone just sliced the mouldy bit off cheese until I moved in with ex-h & he was horrified at the thought!

Mince, chicken, fish and pork are the only ones I’m careful of.

Just eaten a yogurt that’s 6 weeks past its date.

I'm only really wary of dates on raw chicken and prawns but you can often tell by the smell of raw meat and fish.

Bread products, I'll check for mould and may cut it off if it's just a tiny bit on a slice or two. Bagels last forever!

Dairy products, milk will go a few days over and cream well over a week. Yoghurts don't seem to go off at all and I've eaten them well over a month out of date.

Eggs, fruit and veg didn't used to have dates on so I'll ignore them full stop.

I completely ignore Best Before dates. They are a marketing ploy to persuade people to bin perfectly good food because of an arbitrary date printed on the packaging then buy more to replace it.

With Use By dates, it depends on the food. Cheeses such as Camembert or Stilton often aren’t ripe by the date, so I ignore it. With fish & shellfish, I take the date seriously because I don’t want food poisoning.