Mumsnet users talk Best before and Use by Dates with Sainsbury’s

[EllieMumsnet]

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The team at Sainsbury’s would love to hear your thoughts on Best before and Use by dates for food and drinks. Do you know the difference between Best before and Use by dates? And which dates, if any, are you most likely to ignore? What foods are you most likely to bin if they’ve gone beyond their Best before date? And, more importantly, how do you use up food that’s gone beyond its Best before date – please share with us your tips! What food storage ‘rules’ do you tend to follow? And finally, how do you ensure you don’t have to throw away food?

Sainsbury’s says “We know there’s often lots of confusion around Best before and Use by dates, as well as how food should be stored properly to avoid it going to waste. So we want to hear your tips and tricks to avoid food going in the bin unnecessarily.”

Add your comment, tips and views to this thread and you will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will get a £300 Sainsbury’s voucher.

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Standard Insight T and Cs apply

I don't eat chicken, seafood or fish past the date but am happy to eat other foods as long as they look and smell OK. I freeze some foods before their dates if I have no plans to eat them yet.

I ignore most of the dates, tbh.
I menu plan to try and use things while they are still good, and freeze if I'm not going to manage it.

I tend to ignore the best before dates on fruits and some cupboard tins or products like ketchup or toothpaste. The internet is great for what can be ignored in terms of finding out if you can still use toothpaste past its best before date. Use by date is usually for fresh produce like milk, yoghurt and as these tend to have some timed preservative, they usually do go off on use by date. Smell or Taste is a good indicator too.

As a vegan food poisoning is hard to contract so I tend to just go by smell and appearance

Do you know the difference between Best before and Use by dates?
Yes, best before is a recommendation of when the product should be consumed, but it wont necessarily go bad after that date. 'Use by' is used on perishable items and should be more strictly followed (although common sense prevails and if it still smells/looks ok I'm usually pretty relaxed give or take a few days. We have a good fridge and store things correctly).

And which dates, if any, are you most likely to ignore?
Best before dates on most store cupboard ingredients and use by dates on eggs (I'll do the water test if unsure).

What foods are you most likely to bin if they’ve gone beyond their Best before date?

I'll only bin food past its best before date if I don't think it's good for eating anymore. Or things that have become unusable (rock solid brown sugar for example!) With use by dates I'm most cautious with meat, particularly chicken as well as dairy products.

And, more importantly, how do you use up food that’s gone beyond its Best before date – please share with us your tips!
Baking and also trying new recipes by googling (or looking at recipe books) the ingredients I have to use up.

What food storage ‘rules’ do you tend to follow? I tend to do what it says on the packet. I do keep a lot of stuff in the fridge too.

And finally, how do you ensure you don’t have to throw away food?
Keep track of what I have and try to incorporate foods into a meal plan if I need to use things up. Meal planning and sticking to a shopping list is important.

I pretty much ignore best before dates; look, smell and touch are a far better guide than a date printed on a piece of plastic - when I was younger perishables didn't all come packaged and we are stuff that passed the look/smell/taste tests.

I'm a bit more wary on use by dates, but again if a piece of steak is a day out of date and still looks, smells and feels ok then it is probably still ok to cook well and eat, so long as it has been stored properly. My yogurts don't wake up on the day after their use by dates and suddenly grow mould. I have drunk milk three or four days after it's use by date and it has been perfectly fine; equally I have made a coffee using milk within its date and it has curdled.

I do think that these dates cause an awful lot of unnecessary food waste, which is dreadful in these times where the environment is suffering from overproduction and excessive waste, as well as our financial situation and the fact that so many people can't manage to afford enough food. Food prices have to reflect the amount of waste generated by both the manufacturing and selling processes, so prices are artificially higher directly due to waste. We should all be far less wasteful, and don't get me started on overpackaging!

I’ve used cheese months after use by and chorizo the same, milk and cream for maybe 2 weeks after, yogurt maybe a month... meat I tend to freeze if it’s gonna hit its use by date. I’ve also thrown out food at or even before it’s use by if I don’t think it’s in good nick.

Sight and smell for testing here. Never had food poisoning yet.

I mainly ignore best before dates; my fridge is like the arctic

I can tell by the smell as soon as I open a packet if it needs binning; it's so easy to just throw food out because of a date

When I was a child my parents never threw food out because of the date - we could not afford it and to be honest we can't now

Fruit and veg often last well after the best before date so they just stay in the fridge until they are cooked/eaten, unless they have gone slimy/mouldy or obviously off.

Yoghurts/cheese etc is usually fine after the best before date, especially if it hasn't been opened. Meat I'll be more careful with - I'll use it a day or so after but if that's not possible it will go in the freezer or get cooked then frozen.

I usually bin stuff if I haven't used it by its use by date. If it's best before I use that as a guide but bin anything that's mouldy etc. I used to bin a lot of food but I recently took a food waste course that educated me,

My understanding is that Best Before dates mean a product is at its best when used by the Best Before date but may still be used after that date. However, there may be a reduction in quality, effectiveness and/or flavour if used after the given date. Products may be sold at a reduced price after the BB date.

To me, Use by means that the product should be used/consumed by the given date and the product cannot be sold or given away after the given date. Obviously a consumer may still use the product after the Use By date but at their own risk.

I will happily buy products such as bread and bakery items (unless they contain fresh cream), fruit and vegetables that have passed the Best Before date or on the Use By date.Similarly, if I have those kind of products at home I wouldn't throw them out just because of the date - I would check a product for signs that has gone off or is stale; if still ok I would either cook and freeze (e.g. fruit), freeze (e.g. bread) or use up the product within a couple of days. Some products are down to personal preference - I won't eat bananas once they are soft and prefer them when the skin is just turning from green to yellow, whereas my dad would happily fry a banana that was quite mushy and the skin was totally black. I suspect the Best Before date was somewhere between the two.

I am far more wary of the dates on meat and dairy products. When I have my weekly shop delivered, I freeze any raw meat that I'm not going to use within a day or two, as I don't want to waste it by leaving it in the fridge and missing the date. Similarly, I will not use cream or cheese beyond the Use By date. Admittedly, this is partly down to my perception - if I know the cream is perhaps a day out of date, I convince myself that it tastes different/off, even if that is not really the case.

If I purchase raw meat on its Use By date, i will happily cook the meat that day and eat it a day or two later. I'm quite happy to eat meat that I have cooked and has then been stored in a fridge up to about 4 days after it has been cooked.

I would happily consume tinned, dried and packet products that are beyond the Best Before date, This is because I trust my instincts to know if these items don't taste right and, in my opinion, they are unlikely to do much harm if consumed beyond the date.

I usually ignore the dates and go by my own sight, taste and smell. I will eat things which have gone up to a week beyond the use by date if they look, smell, taste entirely normal. However, I wouldn't give something to anyone in my family if I had even an ounce of concern about its' safety, I happily eat products which are months beyond their best before date if they look, small and taste ok (tinned, jars and packets are usually fine). The best tips to not wasting food are1) not to buy too much in the first place and 2) get creative with leftovers

Just smell it. Apart from poultry, don't risk it with that.

I buy a lot food reduced and just freeze or use on the day. I tend to cook up batch amount meals and freeze in labelled tubs and stays in freezer for up to 1 month if something is near a use by date, but best before I not so concerned about as it only gone past its best freshness after a best before date you can still eat it and it usually still tastes just as good.

Best before dates are when things should be eaten by so they are at their best. Use by dates are when things will be spoiled and shouldn't be eaten. That being said I do take note and use them as a guide but typically use my nose and the look to see if something is safe. Dp on the other hand will stick to the rules-- so I often have to hide the evidence of out of date things!

I'm another one who uses such dates as guides rather than hard and fast rules.

Best before dates I have always considered just advice to eat earlier but there would be no concerns by eating after the date. Usually I presume these to be dried or tinned goods. I would def use sense of sight and smell when opening these if much past date and I possibly wouldn't give the contents to my young children.

Use by dates I am more aware of. I stick to dates for milk, chicken and eggs, otherwise I don't mind using smell again to check. An extra day or so with hung red meat will usually improve flavour!

Using common sense makes much more sense with fruit and vegetables.

Laughably, I once bought salt that claimed to be 'ancient' and from prehistoric deposits. It had a 48month Best before date - so it can be tens of thousands of years old but recommended for consumption within 2 years!

Meat I will stick to dates or maybe one day over at a push. Things like flour, sauce mix packets and spices I don't wrong about. Crisps and biscuits I would just try unless they were miles over.

BEST BEFORE I pretty much ignore and go by look and smell..

USE BY I might pay a bit more attention to, but will apply common sense - a day or so over, and if it looks and smells and feels OK, I'll go for it.

I stick to use by dates for meat and fish but if it's short dated I freeze it. For eggs I do the water test if they are past their use by. I think it's mad supermarkets have dates on veg, it depends on how you store it and how gentle you are with it. I'd like to see more loose veg and less plastic as well as fewer dates.

I’m currently pregnant so paying a lot more attention to use by dates. Generally look at these for anything in the fridge and stick to them. Before I was pregnant I’d go on look and smell. I check eggs in a jug of water to see if they float - you always get loads longer than the packet says.

Best before I go with look and smell, tins I’d keep for ages!

I pay attention to use by dates and if we're not going to use something before or on the date I freeze it. Best before dates are generally ignored, if it smells ok and doesn't have mould on it we eat it.

I think ‘best before’ means the product will be at its best before that date but is ok to eat after. And ‘use by’ means you must use it by that date. I generally don’t look at dates much but go by how they look and smell. I do hate waste and have been buying more frozen veggies then I don’t waste anything and things like frozen chopped peppers are really convenient

I think best before is confusing for a lot of people, foose takes a while to degrade so a lot of edible food is thrown away. Use by dates also seem to err on the of caution for instance you can tell when milk goes off and we regularly have milk that is fine 3 days after the use by date

Sometimes good has actually gone off or past its best before the sell by or use by date so it is no use relying on the stated date alone especially if it is something that can go off very easily and/or quickly. I have seen soft fruit, for example, rotting or mouldy in shops but potatoes, apples, carrots, etc can last well beyond their sell by date. Moreover, how you store food is very important. My dog got very sick from eating within-date ham that had (without me realising it) become dangerous when stored in a holiday cottage fridge that had been turned down too low.

If food looks and smells fine I would not throw it away just because it was a day or so past its use by date unless it was something like fish. Sausages, for example, and other processed foods, are usually absolutely fine for a few days after the use by date because the dates seem to see on the side of caution and the products usually contain a huge amount of preservative.

I would quite happily eat anying after best before date unless it actually tasted funny/never been ill from it yet. I pay more attention to use by dates but they’re still only a guide-and rely more on taste/smell/I would never automatically throw something out. If bread or cheese have gone mouldy I’ll just cut out that bit