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!!

YABU to have any leftovers of macaroni cheese. And YABVU to call it mac and cheese. /misses the point of the thread

My husband is exactly the same!!!!

He will cook something, like chicken in a white wine sauce, leave it in the pan on the hob overnight (usually without even a lid on) and then won’t understand why I don’t want to eat it the next day.

He will get some chicken breasts out the freezer to defrost and leave them on the kitchen counter, fully exposed to the sun and leave them there for about 13 hours and then cook them.

He honestly will eat anything - he does not care at all about food hygiene.

What on earth do you think we did before sell by or use by dates
I was brought up without a fridge or freezer
In hot weather we kept milk in a bucket of cold water in the shade
We had a larder and a meat safe
No food poisoning ever
I rely on taste look and smell
All that said your view is up to you leave him to his point of view
My DP is far more risk averse over food than I am
In his home I leave him to it, in mine I just don’t tell him! He’s never noticed or complained or been ill

I'd have microwaved and eaten the mac and cheese, it tastes even better the next day I'm sure it would be fine for one night in this cold weather seeing as there's no meat or fish involved.

What puzzles me is how thousands of generations survived prior to the invention of use by/sell by dates. And brought their families up on leftovers. It's a complete mystery.

What puzzles me is how thousands of generations survived prior to the invention of use by/sell by dates.

With massively higher rates of death, a lot of it from food and water borne diseases. As you can see from my postings to this thread I am as "don't be silly, the dates are just a guideline" as they come, but arguing that the past was some sort of golden age of safe food is ludicrous.

What puzzles me is how thousands of generations survived prior to the invention of use by/sell by dates

Really? Do you genuinely not know that people only ate seasonal fresh food, grown locally to them? It's only very recently that food is flown around the world and then transported up and down the country for weeks.

Meat used to walk from the field to the butcher and be out on the slab the same day, nothing like the ridiculous supply train that we have now.

but arguing that the past was some sort of golden age of safe food is ludicrous.

Absolutely agree with this.

On threads like this we always get the "it never happened to me" brigade.

Well, it has happened to me. Once when I had a really bad case of salmonella from a meal out in a Greek restaurant in Ilkley, once after a buffet at a party (loads of other people were ill as well) and once after a Chinese buffet where the rice had been kept barely warm.

As a result I now have IBS and a stomach that is no longer cast iron, so you will forgive me if I don't keep last night's leftover takeaway rice.

Meat used to walk from the field to the butcher and be out on the slab the same day

No it didn't. It's only recently that people started to think that beef should be red. Up until the 1970s most beef, pork and lamb had been hung for several weeks prior to sale, and even poultry was hung for several days. Game and other wild meat, of which a lot more was eaten in the past, is almost inedible unless hung for several weeks or longer. One of the reasons why the import of lamb from New Zealand and beef from Argentina was so cost-effective was that it was hung in transit.

I'd challenge you to identify any time in the past couple of hundred years in which meat has been eaten direct from slaughter, and I suspect that if someone served you meat that had been killed that day you'd find it pretty nasty.

What puzzles me is how thousands of generations survived prior to the invention of use by/sell by dates

It's a bit like saying "What puzzles me is how we drove cars for decades without seatbelts and we were fine. In the 70s my parents drove me to school every day and none of us wore seatbelts! And we're all alive and well to this day! Bloody seatbelt-wearing snowflake millennials are all obsessed with health and safey!"

Use by dates are for quality not health purposes. Going a few days over isn't an issue unless it smells weird. The amount of food waste in this country is ridiculous cause people are scared of going 1 minute over a use by date.

I shout at my husband for leaving leftovers out overnight too so I always put leftovers straight into a Tupperware box to cool down then pop them in fridge before bed.

On Friday, I used my eyes, nose & fingers to check that a pack of red grapes - a couple of day past label date - were OK.

I scoffed them

Then spent Friday evening, night & Saturday with D & V, also shivering uncontrollably then sweating buckets with fever
I had to check away kickers and 2 pyjama bottoms, not wearing them again

I'm posting from home, because my GP said I shouldn't go back to work yet.
And that I should be more careful in future.
< me told >

knickers

BigChoc no way would grapes 2 days past their sell by date give you food poisoning. Fruit is the sort of food that you check if its wrinkled or soggy. Unless your grapes had been there for weeks/months I cannot imagine how they could give you D&V. If they did, it won't be anything to do with the date, there is obviously something wrong with them in some way.

I never check sell by dates on fruit, ever. I just use my eyes and my taste.

Grapes 2 days past their sell by date wouldn’t make you ill. Sounds like you-or someone-didn’t wash their hands properly before handling them. Or just coincidence.

On Friday, I used my eyes, nose & fingers to check that a pack of red grapes - a couple of day past label date - were OK.

There's no way that would have given you D&V

Sell by dates ARE a guideline, if it looks OK and smells OK it's most likely OK.
However, if he's crying and you want to kill him then you both need to figure out why you're so weirdly dramatic.

I also eat most things past used by so long as it looks ok.

How often is DH sick?
OP, get a grip and stop wasting food and donate more to your local food bank.

I ignore all use by/best before dates and use my eyes and nose to determine if it's edible. My Christmas Day organic chicken was reduced in price and 2 days out of date, by the time I ate it. It was delicious.

Worked in the food industry. sell by dates are a VERY VERY conservative guideline. there is no need to chuck stuff out because of the sell by date. Look, smell, taste. its likely ok

Food poisoning usually comey from bad hsnd hygiene, NOT from
spoiled food. in 99% of all cases, if it doesn’t look, smell or taste funny, its ok. exception are salmonella etc, but that just mesns you need to heat it properly . otherwise, somebody didn’t wash their hands , nothing to do with sell by dates!

Not eating Mac and Cheese because it was left out is ridiculous, as is throwing out food past it's sell by date.
I think it is appalling taht you waste food like that tbh. Just use some common sense!

I give my children food that says it is out of date because I look at it and smell it and make a judgement on whether it is safe.

It's not that long since I finished the catering packet of hundreds and hundreds of thousands type things that my grandmother bought in the 1960s, but it's ok they weren't past their date as they didn't have a date. I'm sure most of you won't believe me but it's true

I love that people are posting yesterday’s Daily Mail pasta salad story to show that the OP is right to worry. Don’t you think the fact that the papers are reporting on a 2008 death in Belgium shows just what a freak occurrence it was?! (Not to mention that the food had been left out for five whole days in that case).

YANBU to refuse to eat food past it’s use by date. I mean, I think it’s silly, wasteful and lacking in common sense to have a blanket rule on that, but it’s your prerogative. YABU (and a bit controlling) to try and force that rule on your DH.

I'm the same. If we have any bread at home that's just one day over the best before date, I won't use it. Same with milk (even though that's "use by"). I don't trust anything as soon as it's the day after it's use by/best before date. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it