AIBU to cook beef mince that expired last Friday?

[tryingtosortmylifeout]

Probably not technically an AIBU, but posting here for traffic and a (hopefully) quick response!

I’m cooking a chilli con carne tonight for DH and me, using half a packet of beef mince. It was opened on Thursday, when I used half the mince and stored the rest in the fridge. The use by date was Friday November 2nd.

AIBU to now be using the remainder in a chilli? I was loathe to throw it away, as money is tight at the moment and I can’t stand wasting things. I will be boiling the hell out of it for 45 mins or so.

Would you eat it or bin it?

A packet of mince costs about £4 so for the sake of £2 there is no way i would risk food poisoning 🤮

I think NoSquirrels is a butcher because he/she/it said "I wouldn’t, because mince had a greater surface area exposed to nasties so I’d avoid" which is correct here and why we could otherwise hang uncut beef for 21 days or so without keeling over.

Yes because the meat gets slightly heated as a result of the mincing process and it has meat from all different parts of the animal so could have bacteria on it. Diarrhoea central.

I'd make the chilli without the meat tonight!

DH and I are going to go for it. I’ll report back tomorrow morning on whether we’ve made it through alive!

I do need to start another thread in some other section on food wastage though, or rather, how to cut down/avoid it. I would love to ensure that I use every last morsel of what I buy, as like I say, money is quite tight at the moment.

I just cooked Grey/Brown coloured mince for tea tonight opened today with tomorrow's date on it.

That's disgusting. It's off. Why on earth would you cook it?

I did this a couple of weeks back and lived. It too smelt 'on its way' and was greying but it was fine. Got to go with your instincts though

I wouldn’t, especially as it’s been open since Thursday

Smell and taste can’t detect germs that may have been merrily multiplying all weekend and are desperate for a run around your digestive systems

Hope you don’t end up regretting it

Well look on the bright side. If it's off, you'll save at least 2 days worth of food money by not being able to keep anything down.

Gosh no. Why would you risk your families health?

I wouldn’t! Bit good luck as you already have!

You can’t always trust your nose, despite what people say!

Trying, if it is of any help for future reference, I always cook all of a pack of mince that is going to last me for several meals, usually by frying up with onions.

If I am going to be making e.g. cottage pie followed by spag bol I take out half the meat and onions for the first dish, then either put the rest in the fridge in a covered bowl or carry on to cook it to the 'bolognaise sauce' stage and store that in the fridge in a sealed plastic box.

That made up sauce will then last for a good few more days in the fridge (much longer than half a pack of uncooked mince) or can be frozen for quite a while. In fact, I usually split the mince mixture 3 ways e.g. spag bol / chilli [plus beans and peppers and flavourings]/ lasagne [plus lots of chopped vegetables and usually an extra tin of tomatoes] over 3-5 days without issue. Or I cook 2 meals and freeze the third batch to add variety later in a menu cycle.

I menu plan EVERYTHING to a fine level of detail and aim to have a completely empty fridge at the end of each week - so start from zero and end with zero, though we do have some basics in the freezer and obviously in the cupboard.

siakcaci the colour only means it's been oxidised. It isn't harmful.

If you cook it to death OP, it's probably fine.

I've risked worse and escaped unscathed.

Hope you have more than one toilet in your house op!

I was also going to say you would have been better cooking it all at the same time. Then the cooked mince would have lasted another few days in the fridge or could have been frozen. Also saves time and messing about cooking it all at once.

The fact it’s been open since Thursday would be a no from me

Yuck. Grim.
Fetch the buckets and chill the loo roll.
You can’t smell every bug and organism that could make you ill. If it’s rotting you can tell but if you could smell that meat would give you food poisoning then why would anyone ever get sick.
In future. I shop on a friday. I write each day of the week with what dinner we will have next to it. I then list ingredients to buy and note the date next to that. If I want to cook chilli on 12th but the mince goes off on 10th then I know to freeze it when I get home. Sounds a PITA but it works for me and we waste very little.

*I just cooked Grey/Brown coloured mince for tea tonight opened today with tomorrow's date on it.

That's disgusting. It's off. Why on earth would you cook it?*

Lol. You do know the pink colour is unnatural don't you - it's as a result of the gases in the packaging. Grey / brown doesn't equal off at all. Smell equals off.

I would not. I would be stocking up on extra soft toilet paper tomorrow.

Lol. You do know the pink colour is unnatural don't you - it's as a result of the gases in the packaging.

Lol. You do know when you mince beef it is pink? Before it gets packaged!

Grey / brown doesn't equal off at all. Smell equals off

I will give you that.

I wouldn’t risk it.

Meat can be off without a smell. Smell is not a reliable indicator.

If you're wasting food, start freezing it. Pretty simple.