To wonder how I'm supposed to handle a mil food sell by date issue....

[MilaMae]

without
a) seriously pissing off said mil
b) making my dfamily ill

Just been for a weekend at mil's.Dp and I were both concerned as a hell of a lot of food out of sell by date kept getting served up-repeatedly. Now I'm no fuss pot and fruit/veg I have no problem with (although 3 day old furry melon is hard to get down) but cream,deli products, baked goods etc 3 or 4 days past concern me, especially as these were the only dates we could see. Very concerned re meat,shellfish and eggs,I had my suspicions but couldn't rifle through bins for packaging.

Also I got halfway through some sausagemeat to find it pink inside,decidedly nervous as to wether it was in date pre-cooking.

I felt queasy the whole time and dp,ds and I had the runs. Dd and the other ds didn't.

As far as I can see I'm in a no win situation.If I say anything there will be one almighty damaging upset, if I don't one of us is going to get really ill.

Interestingly mil used to warn us re the same subject when we used to visit her mother. Money definitely isn't a factor.

Has anybody else had to handle this?

I'm fairly laid back about sell by dates and prefer to use my nose and eyes and common sense, but that said, my MIL is an absolute nightmare for this. I have to frisk her fridge when she's not looking, and it's scary in there.

They are still alive though!

Interestingly I hate waste and use up all leftovers but we hardly have any as I mealplan and try to cook the correct amount. I also freeze al lot eg crusts to make breadcrumbs,cream in cubes,egg whites etc. The Thrifty Cookbook is good for ideas.

Mil likes to always have a table groaning with food(even at breakfast), and cupboards/fridge rammed to bursatings,several different foods in one meal so there are generally a lot of leftovers which will be brought out until they are eaten.

Honestly I'm not wasteful but didn't enjoy clearing up ds's poo pants and running for the loo in the middle of Covent Garden(thank god we weren't on the Tube).

Also I'm concerned about the dc as she likes to prepare little treats eg prawns for dd,smoked salmon etc

Hah haha! OP, you could be talking about my MIL.

Silly cow often says, "this needs eating up", before serving something that actually has mould growing on it.

She always sends us home with piles of old crud from the fridge which we bin immediately.

I am afraid there's nothing you can do about it. It's a mental affliction that grows in old women's minds and can not be fixed.

my DW grandma is terrible for not throwing things out
Dw keeps throwing things out when we visit
Last year we found a packit of turkey casserole mix that was use by April 1992.Instead of throwing it out I kept it and it now sits proudley in my kitchen cupboard

Me! MIL thinks nothing of: defrosting chicken in washing up bowl and using same chopping board for raw meat and salad.

I quietly when no one else was there told her that what she was doing really wasn't safe and as I was 8 months pregnant at the time did not want to take the chance. You need to say it in a sensitive non accusing way.

if you've had real foodpoisoning YANBU. I have only had foodpoisoning once and it was the most horrendus experience of my life (maybe TMI but diarrhea + violent sickness for 48 hours where i couldn't even keep water down). If it wasn't that bad probably just a stomach bug.
If you haven't had foodpoisoning YABU, i normally ignore use by dates as it is normally obvious if food has gone off, and it has never done me any harm (foodpoisoning incident was from shellfish eaten in a pub).

Would you put your children at risk from food poisoning Music? We've been lucky so far, my dc are only 6 and 5. Surely we're given food safety procedures for a reason?

OP are you secretly married to one of my brothers??

My Mum is exactly like this and it drives me insane.

My DD's are 11 and 8 now though and they are obsessive about checking the dates of things they get at grannys house lol

It's not all of them though. My mum tends to have very little food "in" at all - she buys what she needs for that day and then eats it.

Mila: I don't have kids but whenever i cook for my cousins (all younger, youngest 8 months, and cooking for them at least 3 times a week) i just use the food i am cooking for myself. There mothers are all fine with this and i know for a fact at least one of my aunts completely ignores use by dates. I don't see the harm if the food is obviously ok. meat you can smell a mile off if its gone off, ditto dairy stuff. Obviously i wouldn't serve it if it was off but i don't see the point in wasting good food because the label says so when use by dates always air on the side of caution. I just use my own judgement. Then again, my mum always ignored use bys when i was a kid as well so i have never seen them as important (except for maybe as a guide).

I think I said my mil doesn't do the sniff test, she continually serves up food until it's eaten regardless. The fact she continually ignores use by dates concerns me if she's doing it with meat,eggs,shellfish etc.

Food poisoning can be serious with young children.

My job is to protect my children,if I just ignore the situation hope for the best and one ends up in hospital I'd be seen as negligent.

To put it another way if I continually and knowingly took my dc to a restaurant with similar standards and my dc got ill I'd be flamed.

ah didn't see the bit about not doing the sniff test. in that case YANBU. I might not particularly believe in use by dates but i know to always check the food before cooking/eating, and so should she!

Could you say that you have all had a bad bout of food poisoning recently when you next see her (being very unspecific about what sort of food poisoning it was or when - omitting to mention it was at her's last time you visited . Could even get dh/you to prepare her by mentioning it in advance of the next trip by phone... (if feeling very brave!)

Then go on to say that it has left you all with very sensitive stomachs and that at the moment you all have to be hyper careful, the 'medical advice' is that at the moment you need to be extra vigilant about only eating food that has been properly cooked and stored and is well within its dates.

If she starts to say that use by dates are nonsense, etc etc, you can then say that, yes, usually the dates do err on the side of caution and you would agree with her normally but AT THE MOMENT because you have all been ill, you are all extra sensitive and need to be more careful than usual. And that if she doesn't care about you this time, then you will either have to bring your own food with you or not come or whatever you want to use as a sanction...

I think it is campylobacter - but I'm sure medics who know will be quick to point out which if I am wrong - and maybe others - that if you have them, once you have recovered they can leave you more sensitive to getting repeat bouts that you wouldn't normally succumb to.

But at least this way it would put the issue onto you rather than her, and would give you a reason to be really obviously checking the dates and for mould etc, then refusing to eat things that look dodgy. It would just be a shame that (when visiting her onwards into the future anyway!) that you have all had a bad reaction to the food poisoning previously and still have supersensitive stomachs and have to be (in her eyes) ultra cautious about what you eat...

forgot to say, had this with my mother who was happy to serve up stuff that was a day or two older than I would have eaten it, or was not being very careful when dealing with raw chicken and saying that she hadn't ever had a problem.

I had to point out that dh had been seriously ill and whilst in the past I wouldn't have been too worried, things had changed and therefore I had to change too. If my dh had contracted even mild food poisoning it could have had really serious if not fatal consequences and that was something that she was able to see and couldn't really argue against me wanting to err on the side of caution, given the risks to dh were so much greater now than either they used to be to him or than they were then to my mother. However, she was still happy to be less cautious if she was making food for just me , once she became very good at being ultra cautious for dh!

i thought you were only suppossed to reheat food once, as each time it cools it encourages bacteria to grow. sorry i'm not helping. zipzaps idea sounds reasonable. there was a feature in the paper a few months ago about an increasing number of old people getting food poisoning because they were ignoring the use by dates. maybe worth googling and then you could drop into the conversation?????? or could you say that your mothers been ill and they think its because she's been using out of date food and reheating stuff too often?

i know it's hard, but i'd point out use-by dates and also be very clear if i'd had the runs:

'oh gosh, didn't sleep last night as i had terrible diarrhea. now i don't feel so well. my, those prawns are 3 days over. none for me thanks!'

really, you do need to make a fuss about this. it is not funny having food poisoning. and something like salmonella can be extremely serious.

We had this issue and unfortunately were staying with PILS (between house moves) and couldn't ignore it or someone would have got seriously ill.

Luckily DH knows how fastidious I am about food preparation and got involved and just took it upon himself to sort through the items himself. We are not talking a few days here we are talking tins which were years out of date and little flies inside numerous jars of dry things!

TBH I didn't care how MIL felt about it. It needed to be done as it was a health hazard. I think DH was mostly embarrassed.

Food issues abound with the women in this family.

Thanks Zip that is a good idea as won't be in any way critical of her .

Eggs are fine weeks after their date. Shell fish ~ no, meat, depends on storage and type etc.

My fridge keeps things for ages after the use by date...never had a problem

If I go with Zip's idea we can point out the date/smell thing when there.

Glad it's not just me then.

Half of the problem is it being mil,would be very easy to bring this up with my mother without offense.

When you say eggs is that if hard boiled/cooked?

Any way with eggs. I sometimes have them a month after the date and I don't like over cooked eggs either.

You can tell if an egg is off if it floats. Also, have you smelt an off egg - it is so obvious!!! Eggs last ages.

I had food poisoning once and it was awful. I had uncontrollable runs and violent stomach cramps that almost knocked me unconcious for almost a week. Lost loads of weight. It was camplyobacter - one of the less dangerous food poisoning bugs.

Most people dont have food poisoning when they think they have.

My MIL appears to keep all cheese on a board on the counter of her sweaty little kitchen. The cheddar is shiny and sort of, well, waggly. DH found a half eaten jar of mayonnaise in the cupboard, covered in mould. "nobody told me it had raw egg in it" she says. Bollocks, she used to be a wonderful cook and probably made more mayonnaise than my mum's made mince and tatties. (Think the marbles may be going, sadly)

My mum's a nightmare too, though. While staying at hers I decided to give my kids beans on toast, there was a tin in the cupboard. I put the toast on, got the tin out and put it on the kitchen table. The very gentle imnpact caused the lid to blow off and fly 5 feet into the air.

I can't remember what the date was on those beans but they'd definitely moved house with her some 8 years previously!

I have this with my own mother, so it's a bit easier to handle. I made coleslaw at the weekend and put lots of mayo on it... thought mayo tasted a bit weird, so checked the date...was best before FEB!!!

Anyways, we ate it. I hadn't chopped all that cabbage/ onion and grated carrots for it to be chucked. And we were ok.

Yoghurts are ok a couple of days over.