For potentially poisoning my family with my utter incompetence...

[PoorMissDior]

How in gods name does anyone remember when to throw out opened ketchup, jam, mayonnaise, pesto etc etc

Once opened these items need to be used within 6 weeks or 12 weeks or some other defined time period.

I was vaguely aware of this but it's just occurred to me that I have a fridge full of condiments and absolutely no goddamn idea how long they've been open for. Could be weeks, could be months, could be years. Who the hell knows.

How does anyone monitor this? Do you all have calendar alerts set up? sophisticated spreadsheets? beautifully written little time stamped labels?

AIBU for not having the faintest idea what is going on in my kitchen?

@ChocolateCherrybomb

All the gung ho healthy people going "eat it".

Yes, you will probably be fine but some people cannot risk it. Diarrhoea etc. can kill some people so please don't go around calling others names who are being, what you consider, overly cautious.

Many years ago, my GM nearly died of it, had to be hospitalised. She was so tight with her money that she thought she would risk it until she nearly shat herself into the local crematorium.

Also, a few days off work with illness can mean a missed mortgage or rent payment to more than the odd few. To risk that trying to save 10 pence by not throwing out old ketchup is frankly bizzare.

Fine if there was actually a risk. I've had food poisoning once in the last 30 years and that was almost certainly due to a prepacked prawn sandwich from the work canteen where hygiene rules will have been followed to the letter.

Throwing away perfectly good food because there's an infinitesimally small chance that it might make you ill (bearing in mind no-one is actually eating food that is mouldy, just that which looks smells and tastes fine, but is 'out of date') is frankly bizarre.

We had salad cream that sat in the fridge for ages (as in, two years past BBE date) because we stopped having fish and chips so much

Now that is disgusting. Salad cream on fish and chips?

Another one for writing the date on with sharpie. I will use things past the date if it looks/smells OK but not more than a week or two at most as DH can be hospitalized if something triggers his crohns disease.
I buy Hellman's light mayo as it keeps for 3 months from opening, the longest recommendation I've ever come across.

My (quite pedantic) auntie opens them and then labels them with their expiry.

She asked me when some homemade mango chutney I gave her was due to expire.

*(Plus I need to reduce some of the larder stock. But whenevr I do DH gets all panicky and buys more.... ).

Freezing pesto is genius.*
DH is right - you might thank him after 1st January.

So is it OK to have opened jars of pickles in your cupboard that you only get out on boxing day each year?

@onlythepianoplayer

You could just use your own senses and chill out a bit?

And you could stop being so sarcastic on someone else's thread. If they have concerns you're not going to solve that by telling them to chill out.

@PoorMissDior it's already been mentioned but the Sharpie date onto the bottle or jar when you opened the item is a great idea. Instant reminder!

Mayonnaise - if it's the fresh stuff containing egg I'd be a lot more strict about it than other kinds of dressing that don't have egg in. But I'm a bit funny about eggs generally. I only buy a small size of Mayo so it stays fresh.

Tommy ketchup - bullet proof! If it starts to ferment consider lobbing it.

Salad dressings - generally bulletproof

When in doubt, the sniff test is always reliable! I keep all sauces in the fridge.

Date stickers i keep a roll in a drawer next to the fridge. But there's a lot of leeway on certain things, look at the ingredients, check for colour changes or unusual separation.

Throw pesto out anyway, it is horrible.
I just dump things if they are growing a new identity. However I do try to use things up before that happens, and as a result there has been some creative cooking.
Jam tends to be fine as long as no-one leaves butter or crumbs in it, but jam tarts are popular here. Lemon curd is no longer purchased due to containing palm oil so no problem with that. Ketchup isn't even in the fridge and it has never gone off although rarely used. I think the oldest item in the fridge is a jar of lemon jam from France which is so sweet it will probably be there forever.

@chaosmaker

Also eggs can be eaten months after their use by date. Think my record is 6 months after. Tasted fine just had less cohesion :D

If in doubt put the egg in a bowl of water. If it sinks it's fresh, if it floats it because there is a build up of gas and it's definitely bad. There are degrees of OK in between.

And you could stop being so sarcastic on someone else's thread

That wasn't sarcasm, that was genuine advice. wtf?

we ate ham that was 2 days out of date for dinner last night.

No bad reactions yet.

Do many people adhere to those arbitrary dates? Mould or smell here too, like many PPs.

@sorenipples

So is it OK to have opened jars of pickles in your cupboard that you only get out on boxing day each year?

If it's over a year old, bin it

Mould and smell. Pickles, ketchups, jams and jars of condiments/mayo have all been preserved already with heat, vinegar, salt or sugar (or all four).

Throwing away perfectly good food because there's an infinitesimally small chance that it might make you ill (bearing in mind no-one is actually eating food that is mouldy, just that which looks smells and tastes fine, but is 'out of date') is frankly bizarre.

Surely food hygiene is comparable to personal hygiene. Loads of makeup should be thrown out after 6-12 months and brushes/sponges need cleaning every week or so. Obviously, the chances of getting an infection is almost zero by using expired makeup or grotty brushes, and many things are perfectly fine to use for years.

However there's a reasonable cut-off point for throwing out and replacing things. Simply the fact that it won't make you sick seems like a very low bar. Sorry but to deliberately use condiments for months AFTER the expiry date is downright scroungy and disgusting. It becomes something people do just to prove a point like the quoted post, rather than genuinely saving money. Even on the tightest budget, a 50p bottle of ketchup is a reasonable, replaceable item. Meals can also be planned so condiments get used up faster (not hard within a family).

A tight budget is never an excuse to serve old, expired food. I think most people will agree that you will NOT be happy if invited to someone's home and get served expired food because they "smell fine" to the host and there's an "infinitesimally small" chance it would make you sick. if people do that with condiments then you can bet they're the same types to let proper storage and handling of perishable foods slide as well.

Every time you've had food poisoning in your life was because someone you know or someone from a restaurant thought exactly that.

@onlythepianoplayer

And you could stop being so sarcastic on someone else's thread

That wasn't sarcasm, that was genuine advice. wtf?

OK, dismissive then.

It's like telling someone who's feeling depressed to "cheer up" - as the title is quite clear that someone is worried they'll poison their family by accident, and aren't that about use by dates, telling them to chill out is pretty naff advice.

But the condiments OP is talking about havent gone past their best before date. They have gone past the 'use within 12 weeks' or similar but are still within the best before.

If in doubt put the egg in a bowl of water. If it sinks it's fresh, if it floats it because there is a build up of gas and it's definitely bad. There are degrees of OK in between.

I had an off egg. Once. There is no way to miss it once you crack it. It's bad... 🤮
Thpugh my eggs now never last longer than a week at home so less risk.

There was a MN thread about half a year ago from someone whose PIL regularly served expired/old food and she didn't want her children eating at their home. And of course they themselves never got sick because their bodies were used to it. Lots of comments said the same thing...people with appalling food hygiene never get sick themselves because their stomachs have been trained over the years, ergo they sniff down on everyone else for being food wasters.

User214934514 - that's it isn't it, throw away about 50p (or less) or run the risk of throwing up. Urgh

No way Jose Not for 50 quid thanks!

It's not about stinginess and 50p bottle of ketchup. It's about the shameful and often absolutely unnecessary food waste levels in our world.

In our house, nothing goes before it gets mouldy/rancid/bad smelling. Not everthing goes as soon as it's mouldy. The scientific basis is that mould doesn't penetrate hard, dense foods as easily as soft foods. So any visible mould on a strawberry = the whole fruit foes, but mould on cheddar = cut around it and eat the rest. The US government has a sheet on what needs to be thrown out when it's mouldy and what's still ok: www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/a87cdc2c-6ddd-49f0-bd1f-393086742e68/Molds_on_Food.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

Open jar/bottle/tube, smell, look with my eyes, use or dispose.

I had an off egg. Once. There is no way to miss it once you crack it. It's bad... 🤮 That's why it's useful to find out before you crack it. When I'm cooking I crack each egg into a cup separately just in case. A bad egg will stink the house out for ages.