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!!

I’ll eat yoghurts a few days weeks past if they smell ok.

Fixed that for you. Yoghurt's probably a bit iffy if the lid has swollen, otherwise the whole point is that it's acidic and cultured in order to preserve milk.

If he wants to eat it, let him eat it, one less meal for you to cook. His problem if it's horrible.

Why do you do absolutely everything in the house? Seems that this is your real problem (unless you don't let DH cook by not trusting him)?

Yes, yoghurt is an easy one - if it's not started fermenting and tasting "fizzy" it's fine..... we frequently eat it when it's several weeks past the date on the label.

I agree common sense is a major factor when deciding if food is safe to eat or not but do be careful because some foods release toxins when past their use by date which isn't immediately apparent until you've eaten it and become ill.

What cheese did you throw out?
I would tear up as well if my DH threw away that brie I've been maturing in a fridge. Month after the best use by, mind me...

This doesn't sound like ranting at the food dates thing. This sounds like you are fed uo with other things tbh.

Ha ha my mum offered me a yoghurt best before Christmas Eve today I declined so she ate it. She’ll be fine I’m sure- brought up by parents who lived through rationing.

Can I suggest OP that you think carefully about your relationship with this man, not because of food but because you say you do everything. So many threads on here from women who are married to men who do nothing and they don’t sound happy. One of my friends is separated for that reason.

Most goods don’t have sell by dates on then any more. The important ones are ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ .

I do absolutely everything in the house as I’m sure many of you do as well

Err NO.

I'm not a slave and I don't believe in 'wife' chores. Or 'man' jobs.

Everything is 50/50.

The bbf date isn't an issue for me. It doesn't suddenly go off at midnight that day. Use common sense and if it looks/smells off then bin it. Obviously more cautious about chicken and fish.

The leaving stuff out uncovered and unrefrigerated then freezing is just stupid and asking for trouble.

I leave mac n cheese or bolognese or whatever out and then eat it the next day. My kitchen is quite cold. As long as the cat can't get in it I don't see the problem. I've never had food poisoning, ever.

I’m iffy with coleslaw and raw poultry
Everything else I trust my nose
I found some spices in the cupboard the other day dated 2006. Quite proud!

I found some spices in the cupboard the other day dated 2006.

I've just finished a big jar of peppercorns dated 1999.

Eating food past its use by date and leaving food out are two different things though.

I do the former regularly because I can use common sense and my nose to tell whether something is actually off or not (and I don't eat meat, which makes food safety a lot easier). I do not do the latter because it's a bit more risky and because putting food in the fridge is extremely simple.

I found some spices in the cupboard the other day dated 2006. Quite proud!

@Siameasy please keep out of my cupboards

My DH won’t throw food out either as he ‘hates waste’. I swear he’s turning in to his mother - or even worse, my mother.....
I just ban him giving it to DC or me. TBH as he does most of the cooking I’m sure I’ve been served up out of date food many times which I’ve eaten in blissful ignorance. Unless it’s fizzy or smells off I’m sure it’s really fine.

It’s macaroni cheese if you are English, not mac and cheese.

Aside from that I’m with your DH.
My mother sees best before dates as some kind of sport. I don’t think she’s ever eaten anything that’s been within its date for years.

I’m wary with dairy, but even then stuff like double cream is good for a week after it’s date.
Packets and tins I rarely look at the date.
I got cross at work the other day because someone noticed that the milk was a day out of date and ditched it despite it being fine and there being no other milk.

mol.im/a/6638715

Show him this. A synopsis for those that don't want to click ..

Student age 20 died from eating pasta left out on the kitchen worktop for 5 days. He literally ate it was really sick then died that night. And he had microwaved it first thinking it would kill any bugs. What a waste. So not worth the risk!

People saying it's ok. Click that link.

I didn’t throw it in the bin because I do everything else in the house! I asked him to do one thing for me and I don’t think asking him to do a simple task is unreasonable.
But you must have been standing close enough to it to see it so in the time it took you to find DH and ask / tell him you could have done it yourself. 2 secs to shove it, dish & all in the fridge, 5 secs to turn the dish upside down over the bin & put it back on the side (if it's too congealed to go straight in the dishwasher). Sorted and no need to panic about food poisoning or post on Mumsnet. Pick your battles. Leave the dish for him to clean, but bin it if you don't want it.

"Even that risk is massively overstated. It's perfectly possible to reheat rice safely."

It isn't the reaheating that is the issue, but the cooling of cooked rice. There is a lot of ignorance about the difference between bacterial spoilage, which your nose would be able to identify straight away, and toxins that have developed due to foods eg rice being left in warm temperatures.

Foods that contain poisonous toxins don't always smell off. If rice isn't cooled and refrigerated pretty much straight away it can go on to develop toxins that can cause vomiting and diarrhea. Bacillus cereus is a bacteria that produces toxins that multiply at room temperature. Heating does not kill these toxins.

As I have already had bacillus cereus poisooning I will not take any risks with leftover rice.

I'm with you, OP. Years of immunosupressive meds tends to make you slightly twitchy about dairy products left out for days, open jars of mayonnaise on the microwave, meat stashed in a saucepan on the hob, green slime that used to be pig based in the fridge and god only knows what gradually acquiring sentience in the slow cooker. I'd expect that pasta would then have been brought out to defrost, then left to sit, then microwaved, then left out again.

The OH used to get lots of stomach upsets, especially before he moved in. Not so many these days, as if he didn't want something thrown out, he wouldn't leave it on the counter/hob/in the oven/SC, would he?

The most spectacular event, however, was with an ex cocklodger of my acquaintance - I was in the process of throwing out unwrapped food of dubious provenance prior to going to the supermarket and he spotted me putting a tub of prawn cocktail in the bin. 'It only went out of date yesterday!' he cried. 'I'm not happy about it, it's shellfish'. 'Well, if you're too stupid to trust your nose, that's your loss' he said as he snatched it out of my hand, opened it and slurped everything in seconds, making a point of belching over me and saying 'Lovely' afterwards.

Less than an hour later, I turn to look at him in the Baked Goods aisle as he hadn't done his usual of hurling every cake in existence into the trolley.

He was bright red, puffing up visibly by the second and wheezing quite badly. One little diversion back to the Pharmacy section, three antihistamines, a few puffs of his inhaler and absolutely zero sympathy later, I'd worked out that it was the prawns being past their date and producing particular compounds that caused the reaction.

Hard cheese, I'm not worried by. Eggs are easy to test. Veggies are no problem. But things left out can be contaminated by flies, mice or bacterial/fungal growth and, if in the fridge for weeks, especially when poorly wrapped, can easily contaminate things I would believe to be safe. And if it's fish/shellfish or the like (or has already been opened), it doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.

If he doesn't want food to be wasted, he needs to put it in the fridge or freezer straight away. And buy/make less of it if portioning and freezing quickly isn't going to be bothered with.

I've used salad cream that was months out of date without noticing.

The only one I'm really wary of is bacon. if it develops a greenish sheen I ditch it (sometimes it's even still within the 'best by' period)

@Nicebudget RTFT!

For those that don't want to read the Daily Mail, the actual paper is here:

jcm.asm.org/content/jcm/49/12/4379.full.pdf

I'd say this was a more worrying case:

jcm.asm.org/content/43/8/4277.full

but still wildly outside the OP's example. Bacillus cereus is the same toxin as makes rice potentially dangerous: don't eat pasta or rice that's five days old seems to be the takeaway (ho ho) line.