Is this chicken safe to eat?

[CocoDeJour]

I've just taken out some chicken strips that I put in the freezer in September. The use by date is 13 sept. The packet also says, "safe for freezing as long as used by use by date". I've now got the packet thawing in cold water. I'm 37 weeks pregnant so am I taking a risk here?

Freezing lengthens the use by period so don't know why it says that. Were they raw before you froze them? The longer they are frozen the more the texture is affected but they should still be perfectly safe to eat

I don't look at the dates of stuff in the freezer I dread to think of how long some stuff's been in there Hopefully someone more sane than me will know......

Yes, they were raw. I thought it should be ok to eat. Don't know why Tesco put that on the packet.

Do they mean as long as its frozen by the use by date? As long as it was fresh when it went into the freezer it will be fine.

You'll be fine! (And I am fairly anal about food hygiene)

Now that they've defrosted a bit, they look white. Like they've been partially cooked on the outside. Hope that's from being in the freezer.

Afaik (and I was advised this by a friend who has not only worked in kitchens all her life but also done some very high-end cooking - think royalty etc.) if something is frozen it completely stops the degenerative process, so once it's in the freezer there is no 'use by' date as such. The texture of meat can be affected by being frozen for long periods so it might not have as nice a 'mouth feel' but it's a completely different process to storing food in a fridge in that it doesn't delay food from going off but stops it from going off altogether. Since she told me that, I have been happily defrosting and using food without paying any heed to sell-by dates, and we're all still alive.

Thanks everyone. Looks like the chicken has freezer burn. Going to go ahead and cook it.