OH keeps food past it’s sell by and I want to kill him

[BellaFreckle1]

Ok so this is a really random subject but I need to know if anyone else is in the same boat as me ...

My OH is a nightmare for keeping food past it’s sell by date and claims it’s only a guideline. It’s starting to really upset me because imo he’s risking food poisoning and sickness. He also leaves cooked food on the kitchen worktop overnight and uncovered then freezes or refrigerates it the next day. I made Mac and cheese a couple nights ago and left the remains in the oven dish on the worktop and asked him to refrigerate it for the following days lunch. I got up in the morning to find it still sitting on the counter so I asked him to throw it in the bin and when I got home from work I found it in the freezer!!!

I know this is probably so trivial but it’s really upsetting me and I’m concerned that one of us is going to become really ill.

I accidentally threw out cheese that was within the sell by date and he almost started crying - honestly his eyes glazed over and he was so mad.

Any advice would be great - I need to nip this on the bud before one of us ends up sick!!

Don't get me wrong. I don't throw food out that is just past its best before date. This month I have eaten bacon that was a week out of date, and some parma ham that was a week out of date. I ignore dates on cheese and vegetables, but having had bacillus cereus poisoning I will not eat last night's takeaway rice.

I am also wary of chicken and meat, but will use common sense.

Out of interest how many times have people had food poisoning?

Once. In Myanmar when I ate some large mutant prawns from a BBQ

Never had food poisoning in this country. I never check dates on things and I find it abhorrent that people thrown good food out

It's not a badge of honour. The food is not dodgy. If it was we'd all be ill all the time, there's many on here who aren't chucking stuff out and aren't ill. It's common sense. I don't leave raw chicken out or eat it days after a best before date. Ditto shellfish. Ditto pork. Apart from that, I just check by smell and look

Stop being so bloody wasteful with food. It’s dreadful to be so wasteful. Maybe you should plan your shopping better so you’re not throwing so much away.

Re the best before/sell by dates YABVU, ridiculous, and wasteful. “use by” dates are different.

Re leaving stuff out YANBU. Leaving stuff lying out overnight is lazy and rank. How much effort is it to put it in the fridge?

In that case I agree with you Lonicera! I thought you were with the people saying they chuck anything ‘out of date’.

It's only a guideline.

Can't find the post about bread but there must be shitloads of preservatives in sliced bread, it lasts about a month past it's use by date! When I make bread in the bread maker it goes stale after a day!

Op yabu. My dh is always chucking out yogurts if they're one day out of date, it's such a waste, they're nearly always fine.

Sniff test/ common sense is all you need.

I've had food poisoning twice, once from some chicken in harvester (classy) and once from some calamari in goa. Never from eating anything at home!

Although I wouldn't recommend eating mouldy bread as the spores can spread through it very easily, unlike cheese.

I will eat hard cheese that has a bit of mould on it. All I do is cut the offending mould off it.

I eat out of date stuff all the time, DH used to be a chucker. I still remember the first time he saw me drop an egg in a jug of water and then cook it despite the date stamped being two weeks prior. He is still slightly sceptical but as I've not given him food poisoning in nearly a decade and I do almost all of the cooking he trusts me on it these days. I don't leave meat out over night mainly because of the cat, but Mac and cheese I would happily eat after it was left out. Only ever had food poisoning once, as a teen on holiday whole family had it having eaten at a restaurant.

None of us has ever had food poisoning.

Always use the sniff test.

Don’t really take notice of the dates

I’m actually quite shocked at some of the posts on here. The food waste is appalling. Obviously you need to be careful with fish and meat, and be sensible about refrigerating leftovers, but throwing away a loaf of bread a day past it’s best before date? Fruit and vegetables? That’s what my mother would have called “wicked waste”

I never look at dates for veg, cheese, bread, jars or tins. Why would you throw out bread tha5 can be toasted?

Yoghurt, cream and milk get the taste test.

I have had food poisoning but not in the U.K.

It seems v wasteful to throw away good food.

I leave stuff out overnight to cool before putting it in the fridge / freezer.
I cook meat, including poultry then freeze the left overs to eat another day.
I freeze blocks of cheese and butter.
I reheat left over rice.
I ignore use by / best before dates. My eyes and nose tell me.
I box up curries etc and leave them to cool on the side then take them to work for lunch the next day.

We've never had food poisoning and we're not dead.
I've only once had food poisoning and that was from a restaurant.

People are paranoid these days when it comes to food with all this use by / best before stuff. I had a friend who would throw perfectly edible food because she feared poisoning, yet her kitchen was cluttered and filthy. No love, the food won't poison you, your filthy kitchen will.

Eating raw chicken -> russian roulette
eatinv well cooked chicken that looked and smelled good but was over sell by date -> common sense
eating raw egg that isn’t fresh -> russian roulette
eating well cooked egg that didn’t smell funny but was over sell by date -> common sense
eating mouldy bread, irrespective of sell by date -> russian roulette
eating bread over sell by date but no mould -> stale, but fine

I leave food out overnight. I am careful with leftover rice, but I cool it quickly and reheat it thoroughly and gobble it up the next day. I cut mouldy bits off bread and cheese and eat the rest. I take little notice of dates. Frozen food lasts until I get round to eating it. It could be years. I don't keep packets for cheese, eggs, fruit and veg, so I've no idea of the dates. If they look, smell or taste dodgy, I chuck them out. I last had food poisoning in 1989, same as my mum. Mum eats meat and I don't, but neither of us have been ill from food in 30 years.

Eating fruit and vegetables that are past their best before date but still look and smell fresh- not Russian roulette.
Eating fruit and vegetables -or indeed anything when you or the cook haven’t washed hands properly -Russian roulette. And I suspect the main reason people on here have been ill.

Yabu, they are just guides. ‘Use by’ is riskier t ignore but even then there isn’t a set time after which the food is suddenly not safe to eat. The companies massively err on the side of caution to avoid people getting sick or complaining about spoiled food. It’ll last well past it’s best before and on some things like fruit and veg and eggs those dates are complete nonsense.

Bottles of water have a sell by date on them.

Water that has been for thousands of years sitting in a lake suddenly you have to drink by a week on Friday.

Eurgh I hate this! My DM and her partner use things for up to 2 weeks after they’ve gone off. ‘It’s just a guideline it’s fine!’ Yeah I’m sure it’s just a guideline when you’re feeding my child mouldy blueberries and strawberries I eat something up until the actual use by and throw it on the day it goes out. Most fresh food does tend to go off fast anyway it’s just common knowledge

It's not common knowledge or even common sense. The amount of perfectly good food that must be thrown away makes me shudder. It sounds as if those predicted Brexit food shortages will do us the world of good.

fullforce fruit has a best before not a use by date. Use by dates are for things that can actually harm you if you use them after. Best before is a guideline.

I wouldn't feed anyone mouldy fruit. But I would cut the bad bit of an apple and eat the rest of it. And I'd look and see if fruit was mouldy before binning it.

Common sense is to look at the item and then use errm common sense!

The fruit doesn’t grow with a best before date on it, a hen doesn’t lay an egg with a date it will suddenly go off stamped on it. Best before dates are basically just a very rough guess!

I find this thread utterly terrifying. How have we got to a point as a country where a significant proportion of people can't cope with food that doesn't come wrapped in plastic with a date stamp.

We must look absolutely ridiculous to other countries. It's absolutely shameful.

To those of you who chuck perfectly good food out because of an arbitrary date, do you never feel any shame or embarrassment about how wasteful it is? Are your food bills not astronomical?

I have a feeling that the best before dates on water in plastic bottles have more to do with the plastic than the water.... and of course BBF is a useful tool for stock rotation - no point in eating the most recently made / purchased stuff first.
Fresh fruit and veg doesn't even come with BBF dates in France - even if it is packaged in cellophane and comes from the supermarket.... if you can't tell by looking and tasting if it's off then you're not safe to be out shopping without your Mum or Dad!

pastabest I couldn't have put it better myself.

I am beyond shocked at the waste. People who chuck blueberries or strawberries out the day after a BB date have more money than sense. You're a supermarkets dream customer!

I buy all my veg/fruit from a street vendor (when I can). No dates on it, you just look at it. I doubt the poster who said her parents are guilty of feeding her child mouldy fruit that the fruit is covered in mould! If I were your Mum I would be buying fruit/veg from a street vendor where there is no Best Before date so you wouldn't know..

What do chucker outs do about Lidl/Aldi who don't have BB dates on their fruit/veg? Even Tesco at Christmas didn't have BB dates on their 29p veg.

There are clementines in my fruit bowl that I bought before Christmas. I had one yesterday, nothing wrong with it at all.