DH gave DS a ready meal that went out of date yesterday!

[Bluepolkadotteapot]

A cottage pie ready meal with ‘use by 25th’ on it!

DS is 7 - will it cause any adverse effects?

God the amount of food that must be wasted due to this sort of 'food dates anxiety' must be criminal.

It's scary, isn't it?

He's not likely to come to any harm.

First world problems right there 🙄

Bloody hell, I never knew that! Better go and empty out the fridge before I start a world wide epidemic caused by rotting food 😂

Meanwhile, ring 111 and take your whole family to A&E. Just in case.

I thought same.

Best before dates are even more meaningless than Use By dates.

Lolz at the replies trying way too hard to show how utterly laid back they are.

https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/best-before-and-use-by-dates

Tbf op i probably wouldnt worry about this but I can see why you might want to ask for an opinion somewhere generally sensible, so not sure why you asked on here 😂

(If this is a pisstake at the sushi thread then 🖕)

Ffs, leave off.
OP, should be no problem at all.
I'm sorry so many people feel the need to be so shitty.
What's perfectly obvious to us is not necessarily glaringly obvious to others.
And before anyone has a go, I too rolled my eyes, but then rolled them back again when I saw the childish sneer responses.
Grow up.

Give your head a wobble

I'm going to be serious now, OP.
If this is giving you anxiety, is there someone you can talk to?
Perhaps if you contact the GP you can get a referral.
Genuinely - this is not anything to be worried about.

I wonder how are these dates even decided?

An arbitrary time post production?

I would have thought they were originally brought in so supermarkets could rotate stock easily?

Aren't most of them "best before" as opposed to "use before"?

It will be fine.

There's a massive margin in use by dates so that stuff that's mildly mishandled remains OK to eat.

If stuff looks OK, smells OK and tastes OK the chances of harm are minimal. I eat meat/fish that's over by a day or so without a thought as long as it passes the look/sniff test.

We've kept pasteurised milk and used it until it curdles for decades; occasionaly it curdles before the use by date!!

My Mother's kitchen hygiene - sixties/seventies - wasn't brill and we got sickness/shits occasionally; we lived.

Without googling id assume stuff that can cause food poisoning/issues when it goes off has a use by date, particularly food that might not have an obvious gone off look or smell about it like ready meals and such

Best before is things like fruit or stuff thats thats easy to see its not fit to eat and/or wont necessarily cause any issues, it just looks/tastes crap.

Considering how many preservatives and additives go into a ready meal to increase their shelf life, I’d say the dish would have been absolutely fine the next day.

Those bloody use by dates cause a hell of a lot of unnecessary wastage & panic.

Off the top of my head foods sent of for testing. Each company can decide how long they want to test for but the longer the more expensive it is.

They can only then use the dates it’s been tested and declared at.

But I’ve had milk and cheese that’s been off well before its date and steak that still looked smelt and tasted great over a week after.

Found some truffle oil in the cupboard the other week that had expired last year. Dh still used it 😅

Please tell us you're being sarcastic, OP

Me too and I agree with you!

Blimey. Of course not unless it smelt rank.

Also, it was cooked for 40 minutes, and I'm guessing was piping hot.
Please be assured. It'll be fine.

Joke thread for sure. Where are you to defend yourself OP?

What a horrible thing to say - even if it was meant as a an attempt at sarcasm

Er, that's called "humour", not sarcasm!!