To cook a chicken one day past use by date?

[MimosasInFrance]

I'm cooking Christmas lunch tomorrow and my dad has kindly purchased the chicken (small family, turkey doesn't make sense). It's a reasonable expensive one from a local organic farm shop.

I've just seen the chicken had a use by date of today. Dad thinks it will be fine, won't entertain wasting money on a new one and I don't want to offend him. At the same time, I absolutely do not want food poisoning.

Any advice??? Considering secretly buying a new one and replacing it, but don't want to be wasteful if it's not needed.

I have turned my fridge down from 4 degrees to 1 degree over Xmas period. It makes stuff last a day longer.

Cook it now, then reheat slices tomorrow

It's the toxins you have to be careful of with unopened meat as they are not killed by cooking.

I'm an EHO so you don't need to tell me the ins and outs of bacteria. These threads are always full of quite scary advice regarding food safety!

@BluebirdRobin - what is your source for that? All the information I can see says Campylobacter is particularly susceptible to stomach acid so a high dose is needed to get acute illness.

I’d cook today and eat tomorrow

We’ll go three days over if it’s been in our fridge. Cook it thoroughly, it’ll be fine.

I'm sure its fine.
It won't get to midnight and suddenly go off.

Mine is also going to be 1 day out. Can't see a problem myself and cooking it without a 2nd thought

I'm an EHO. Campylobacter is a low dose pathogen as it's food bourne, not food poisoning. The difference is food poisoning bacteria multiplies on food and will make you ill if it reaches unsafe levels. Food bourne illness is where the bacteria doesn't multiply to unsafe level on the food, so you only need a low dose on food, but it will multiply in the gut. Food bourne illness also have a longer inset time (days) before you're ill, whereas food poisoning appears within hours.

I can take a picture of my Level 4 food safety book if you need a source?

You will absolutely know if chicken is on the turn, never mind off - the smell is horrendous, like ammonia crossed with rotting flesh, it’s unmistakable. I recently froze two legs on their use by date, when I defrosted them and opened the bag, the smell knocked me for six.

Sure, I am still confused though as you appear to be contradicting your own point.

If it’s a food borne pathogen which multiples not on the food but in the human gut, why would its presence be made worse by an extra 12 hours in the fridge?

With chicken that's not been opened, it's the toxins that will most likely be produced from the bacterias (more than one kind may be present) which cannot be killed through cooking which is the main worry.

With chicken that's not been opened, it's the toxins that will most likely be produced from the bacterias (more than one kind may be present) which cannot be killed through cooking which is the main worry.

12 hours can make a lot of difference.

Cook it today and cover, they reheat tomorrow? It will be fine.

OP what did you do?

The OP has been hospitalised with severe food poisoning I suspect! 😂

😂

😂- sorry for not updating! All went fine, in the end went for a best of both approach. Cooked chicken 1 the night before and ate for tea, bought a d cooked a second one (with a longer date!) the next day for lunch for nice crispy skin, and ate leftovers of both over the next couple of days! Both were delicious and no food poisoning here!

In another time zone it will still be in date... In all seriousness, give it a sniff to check and if it smells fine, just make sure you cook it to temperature.