Skinless chicken breasts from supermarkets never last until their sell-by-date. Or AIBU?

[SnowDin]

I have just opened a pack of 4 chicken breasts.

Bought on Nov 25th.
Today is Nov 27th.
They are dated until Nov 30th.

They still look nice and pink, but they have a very very slight whiff to them, and they feel ever so slightly more slippery than I am comfortable with.

Not sure if I am paranoid due to previous bad experiences.

Would you eat them?

I have this problem VERY regulary, so maybe I am expecting too much?

Do others find that their supermarket chicken is often not up to scratch?

Mine are usually fine, and I am also over cautious when I detect a slight whiff.

More than once i've had chicken from supermarkets go off before the sell by date. It's bloody annoying. I would never risk it with chicken to be honest.

The sniff test wins every time with me and if they don't feel right then it wouldn't be worth cooking them as I would be put off.

Is your fridge working ok?

I buy frozen chicken breasts and defrost them as needed, which gets around BBD issues.

Yes. I would eat them. YABU.

Binned them.

Got nothing for tea now.

I find raw chicken always niffs a bit. I woudl assume cooking it would kill any bugs

Raw chicken always smells weird no matter how fresh.

Don't think I've had this problem more than once- and that time the smell was astonishing! How quickly do you get them from shop to fridge? ( I use waitrose or asda btw).

I find all prepacked meat has a whiff to it as you open it. Leave it for five minutes, then sniff again, and it will probably be fine.

If something is off, it generally has a lot more than a "whiff".

Raw chicken should never smell. A whiff means it is on its way out. A pong means do not eat.

You should put the chicken right at the back of the shelf and make sure the fridge is cool enough - it will go off quicker, I find, if the fridge isn't cold enough.

Re-reading your OP, I actually think you are regularly throwing away an awful lot of meat that has nothing at all wrong with it!

Hmmm

You could well be right, squeaky

It's because they are stored in sealed plastic. I always whip meat out of its supermarket wrappings and store it on a plate loosely covered with foil.

I buy mine frozen, cheaper, fresh and no whiff at all. I hate wasting food, I'm a tight wad

Packaging makes meat smell a bit - rinse it and leave for a bit and should smell fine and.be fine if you cook it well.

Some chicken has carbon dioxide pumped into the pack to prolong life ( gives it a couple of extra days) ime that's what makes it a bit slimy - chicken has a shelf life of 7 days from slaughter to eat, the fresher the better for chicken, the complete opposite of beef.
I can tell freshly killed chicken from 3 day old, the taste is far superior, it's best within 48 hours, so the longer the use by date the better.

If it's ok, it won't smell funny whilst cooking.

I agree, I have had this with whole chicken and with fillets, it's near the use-by-date (say 2 days before) and it honks. I always throw it. I always smell the chicken so I know what off chicken smells like that/

Sometimes I find that the chicken breasts are slippery/slimy. I just wash them under a cold tap and cook them. I'm not wasting the money by throwing them away.

I find this with one supermarket in particular (my local Sainsburys). Convinced they don't have the fridges cold enough there. I do sometimes cook chicken with a bit of a whiff but lots of times it's been unmistakably off. I try to cook chicken the day I buy it now. I agree it's crap because meat is a massive part of the cost of our food shop so it's rubbish throwing it out We're eating veggie a lot more nowadays.

I wonder about the time it takes them to get from transit onto the shelves too. Mine never last that long. I buy thighs now, far cheaper and the dark meat is the best.

I agree. If it's left in the packaging its more likely to go off quicker. A butcher told me that. I've always run it under the tap if in doubt, left it for half an hour once rinsed then if it still smells bad I chuck it.

Same as Mandy, I let it air for half an hour, if it smells dodgy, then it's binned.

You're not supposed to wash them, because the water can splash off and spread germs around your kitchen.

Sliminess probably means they are fatty? I bought some horrible value frozen ones from Asda and they are very slimy - they actually had a layer of fat on them which I had to scrape off. BOAK.