To think that chicken should be ok

[BlackholesAndRevelations]

when it's been in the fridge since last Monday?

I had my tesco delivery Monday afternoon, and the chicken breasts have been in the fridge since then. Display until today and use before tomorrow.

They smelt a little funky when raw and now I'm not sure if they taste ok or not (cooked with garlic and fajita spices)

Should we eat them or not?!

The label says they are fine.

NO not ok! Forget the labels, "listen" to your sense of smell on this one.... it's what your nose evolved for.

Use by date only a guide, if cool chain broken at any point between slaughter and consumption, they will go "off" much faster. If your fridge is not cold enough, they will go off faster.

I'd eat it if it was well cooked - fresh meat sometimes smell a little bit if it's been sitting in a packet for a while.

If they smell a bit funny then don't use them.

If they only smelled a little off when you opened them then they are likely to be okay - the juices go 'off' before the chicken. In that instance I would have washed the chicken and then smelled it again to see.

Open the packet and leave it for 10 mins, if it STILL smells odd then bin it. If not, cook it!

I cooked it and DD has just eaten it!! Dp said it was ok though (I was bathing the baby) We'll eat later. I hope I haven't poisoned her :-(

(so that's why you're supposed to wash chicken!! Thanks for all the advice)

Valium- will def do that next time!

I saw a programme once that said washing chicken just moves the bacteria around and doesn't actually stop the bacteria spreading or causing food poisoning. Not sure if that's true or not.

I wouldn't eat anything that smells funny. I had food poisoning once and it was awful.

you're not meant to wash chicken...

it just spreads nasties around

Here see

If it was use by tomorrow then it's probably fine.

I've eaten chicken before though which was in retrospect off and didn't get ill. I think DS had some as well. It doesn't taste good though, and obviously there's a higher chance of getting poorly from it so wouldn't risk it.

I know you aren't meant to wash a chicken, but if it smells bad it's the only way to find out if it's on the outside or all the way through.

"The label says they are fine"

That logic probably explains a lot of cases of food poisoning!

Well.... I'm glad to say in that case, that I've never washed chicken!

We're eating it now and it tastes ok- I'm working on the assumption that if it was off, it'd taste rank!

(by the way I did trust dp to check it before giving it to DD!)

If it was off, it would still stink after being cooked.

I remember seeing something once where some scientist tested loads of out-of-date food and the vast majority was still safe to eat. Even with some chicken breasts, where they really stunk and the packet had inflated with the gases, they were fine once thoroughly cooked.

I'd still eat most meat that was a day or two after the use-by date but I would be absolutely scrupulous about cooking it thoroughly, and I'd probably only feed it to myself and DP.

I think, squeaky, that most food poisoning comes from mixing raw and cooked foods, or attempting to cook frozen meats.

In date, or just a few days over, supermarket food is pretty safe.