Will I get food poisoning after tonight’s dinner?

[circles76]

I just ate a stir fry containing:

• Chicken that was 2 days past use by date
• Egg noodles that were 3 days past use by
• A pack of pre-prepared stir fry veg (including bean sprouts) that were 3 days past use by

All 3 were in sealed packets in the fridge and opened this evening.

What is the likelihood I will get food poisoning from this?

If you cooked it all through thoroughly and got it piping hot, you'll most likely be fine.

@Nnique

The eggs will likely have been contaminated somehow. You don’t get violently ill from 3 day overdue eggs - they keep for months.

That's what I was thinking - we regularly eat eggs that are longer than that past their date! Never had any issues afterwards.

My dh eats anything over date. He’s never ill.
I stick to dates and am still more likely to be sick.
I assume dh has a cast iron stomach and I know mine is sensitive.

Came to say I thought that would likely still be fine long as nothing smelled weird - then saw your update and glad all was fine!

Yes to more efficient meal planning though then you won't have to make that decision because nothing will be past date and you won't have the lingering worry

I plan a weeks worth of meals

Then when my shopping arrives (I get a weeks worth delivered per week) I have a4 blank magnetic whiteboard sheets on the fridge and I write down the item and the date as I put it in (apart from veg)

Then I look at what order it needs to be used in and decide what to freeze, take my meal plan and decide what days to have which meals (can't do this in advance as never know what dates food will have on it)

Then I set reminders on my phone to defrost anything frozen 24 hours before the meal is due

I have adhd and took a long time for me to figure out how to stop wasting food or deciding to risk it, I was useless at it for years but this works for me now

The meat I buy doesn't have a use by date on so I go by the smell and look of it.
I rarely look at the date on anything else unless it doesn't look good.

I can still remember when foods didn’t come with a use by/best before date at all. We all managed just fine.

Riseholme, do you not think there may be a connection between your dh's eating habits and his healthy gut?

I'm 63 and had food poisoning once in my many years of prepping, cooking and eating. I don't even look at use-by dates really, except to decide which of a duplicate item to use first. We have a great body system for determining what is, and isn't, good to eat.

One thing I've realised from many MN threads over the years, of the 'oh my god I ate a bite of raw chicken, what time can I expect the vomiting to start' (I don't mean you, OP, but the ones who seem to believe it's a foregone conclusion) is that food poisoning is not that predictable at all.

The time I had it was nothing to do with the usual suspects, eg underdone chicken (I ate a whole piece from KFC once which I realised too late was still oozing blood - I was fine, no reaction) but possibly from ice cream which had defrosted and refrozen, but no way to know for sure.

I can't say I pay much attention to use by dates. Our meat, fish and eggs don't have dates anyway and you can tell if something is off. I'll look at dates on dairy but if it's over I still go by look and smell first. We hardly waste any food in our house and rightly so. People need educating on how to tell if food is off.
To the person who was violently ill from eggs three days past their date, that either wasn't the eggs or they were contaminated. There is no chance you would eat rotten eggs, the smell is awful and you'd know immediately.

I would have eaten all of those things without a second thought.

It's worth noting that food poisoning bacteria do not always make the food smell "off" so you could still get food poisoning from something that looks and smells ok.

The worst food poisoning incident I've had was from a fresh cream cake that had been out of the fridge for an afternoon. Tasted lovely on the way down. . . .