Ask the Food Standards Agency experts your questions about use by dates - £200 voucher to be won

[LucyBMumsnet]

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We’ve all been there. You’re rummaging in the fridge for something to eat and right at the back you discover something that you forgot you bought. On closer inspection, the use by date has passed by a few days but you decide to eat it as it looks and smells fine and you’d rather not let it go to waste. However, use by dates are the best indicators of whether food is safe to eat or not, so it’s important to stop and consider if we’re putting ourselves at risk of feeling unwell.

Whether you’d like to know the difference between a best before date and a use by date, how to make safer decisions when deciphering food labelling terms, or whether consequences of ignoring the dates on the pack will affect the quality of your food or how well you feel, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) experts will be online on 24th March to answer your questions.

Here’s what the Food Standards Agency has to say: “Last year, our Covid-19 Consumer Tracker* highlighted that more people are eating food after its ‘use-by’ date, particularly families and those aged over 65 years old. It’s important to understand that different products can undergo different manufacturing processes and this can affect how perishable they are. For example, yoghurts may have a use-by date or best before date, so it is important to always follow the manufacturer’s advice. It is safe for people to eat food after its best before date, but a use-by date is a safety marker, eating food after this date can cause food poisoning.”

Want to know who will be responding to your questions and comments? Find out more about the Food Standards Agency’s experts below:

Narriman Looch - Head of Foodborne Disease Control Branch at the FSA
Narriman Looch is the Head of Animal Feed and Foodborne Disease Control Branch at the FSA. She leads the team responsible for developing policy in response to rises in human cases of foodborne illness, this includes developing guidance and advice for consumers.

Robin May - Chief Scientific Adviser at the FSA
Robin May is the Food Standards Agency’s Chief Scientific Adviser and a Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham. As the FSA’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Robin provides expert scientific advice to the UK government and plays a critical role in helping to understand how scientific developments will shape the work of the FSA.

Helen White - Special Advisor, Household Food Waste, WRAP
Helen works with food retailers, manufacturers and brands on engaging with citizens to reduce food waste and is WRAP’s spokesperson on household food waste-related matters. She has played a key role in defining WRAP’s approach to citizen food waste prevention and the development of the Love Food Hate Waste campaign.

All who post a question on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £200 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

^*www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/news/covid-19-consumer-tracker-waves-three-and-four-report-published^

Please can we scrap Use by and Best before dates as they create huge amounts of food waste, and replace with Date of preparation / manufacture. If I buy meat from a butcher, it doesn’t have a Use by date on it and the only way to tell if it is safe is to use our senses, yet somehow we still cope! Providing a date of preparation would give consistent information on which to judge the freshness of the product, regardless of which outlet it is is purchased in.

I used to work in a dairy and the staff used to drink the surplus full fat milk for up to a week after the use by date.

Is there any flexibility on dates on eggs and do they last better if stored in a fridge or room temperature?

Has there been any progress on a smart labelling system that responds to actual storage conditions or actual food quality? That would be more efficient than a somewhat arbitrary 'x days after packaging' system.

Can we keep a 'packed on' date for veg? It's really useful for knowing what to eat first. I often have several packets of peppers or cucumbers for example. It's hard to work out which one I've had longest if there is no date of any kind on it.

Does every food that's sold have to have a use by date by law? I can't understand why they're on things like tinned veg or dried pasta which don't ever seem to go off.

Why does the use of use by and best before appear inconsistent? I see some items in the same department eg pasta with a mixture of these.

Do you think that use by and best before dates are over cautious? Could more food be prevented from being wasted if there was more education?

My understanding is that Use By dates should be adhered to for safety reasons, but how long is milk actually safe to consume after the BB date? It seems to go lumpy after a couple of days but at what point is refrigerated milk actually a health hazard?

Why do supermarkets store eggs outside the fridge but then we’re supposed to put the in the fridge? Maybe it isn’t that important to refrigerate them?

Are wax wraps good at keeping food fresh?

I've heard that reheated rice is one of the worst offenders for food poisoning so I always throw any leftover away.

Is this true? Are most reheated things or food just past its use by ok if you heat them up or cook them really well?

Another one sorry! Do tins never go off or is it just a myth?

When things say "once opened eat within three days" but the use by date is way off why can't you just store them in the fridge! E.g sliced ham.

Today I opened a jar of pickled gherkins that said the same, once opened eat within three days. I always thought anything pickled could last for ages,

How strictly do we have to adhere to the "once opened use within..." thing? E.g. Bagged salad has 24 hours which seems like madness - we always end up wasting some which I hate. I have friends who make salad lunches with non-bagged ingredients (e.g. Head of iceberg lettuce) on a Monday for the whole week and don't get ill - what's the difference?

Do the big supermarkets or their representative bodies have any input into the length of bbe or use by dates?

Being instructed to eat some things (eg cheeses, smoked meats) within 3 days of opening must mean supermarkets make money from cautious people who dutifully follow the instructions and then buy replacement rather than employing a sniff test.

I'm another that sets almost no store by use by dates. Meat from the butcher has none, but you know the package date and sometimes even the slaughter to table date. Are there are figures to show that prior to use by dates we were all suffering food poisoning regularly? Figures that don't also correspond to domestic fridges and basic food hygiene being introduced to homes (which I personally feel must have had a far far greater impact upon public general health than arbitrary dates)
What is the food standards agency's take upon vacuum sealing? Lakeland's vac packer advertising states up to 3x fresher / longer- which my experience confirms, but should they be able to advertise that if it means people are then eating outside of use bys?

I always thought things in the freezer last forever, but a colleague told me you still have to follow the use by date? That doesn’t make sense to me.

Why does hummus have such a short shelf life now compared to a few years ago, and is it really a risky food to eat after the use by date?

I always used that ‘use by’ dates are set with a kind of safety margin by a few days or a week to cover the manufacturer’s liability.

Is that true? How are they set exactly? Is it fixed for each specific product or by product/food category?

Are the Use By dates for when the food may cause poisoning. Or is it sometimes just when it will not taste as good?

What is the give - it surely won't go off at midnight that night?

@TheLaughingGenome I used to take imraldi, and then vedolizumab, about to start tofacitinib and have never been told to avoid things like lettuce?! (presume because of the listeria risk?) Yes, to be careful to follow food hygiene scrupulously making sure meats are cooked through and stuff to kill normally present food borne pathogens like salmonella/campylobacter but certainly wasn't told to exclude foods on the basis that they could have a production failure that would make them contaminated, surely that's possible for all food? Do you not eat anything raw at all?
I think you can get veg washing solution that's sort of like Milton, maybe that's something you could use? I think 'washed and ready to eat' salad is washed in a chlorine solution to kill pathogens, perhaps the veg wash would let you replicate that at home?

Why can't food manufacturers have a date of manufacture on food products? That, in conjunction with a public education campaign helping in knowing how to identify if your food is still safe to eat, would help people to judge whether something can be safely eaten or not. More needs to be done about educating whether something has deteriorated in quality/freshness but is still safe to eat, or is actually unsafe and needs chucking.

The amount of food waste in the UK is shocking, it's certainly not something that would have happened 70yrs ago.

I remember my Grandma and her generation saying that food very rarely went to waste, she made a note of when she'd bought it (if she thought she'd forget) and that she used her nose and common sense as to whether something was safe to eat.

With the advent of fridges and freezers, food storage has been revolutionised surely.

It just seems like such a first world problem to throw food purely by the date and without employing common sense.

We're arable (so wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape) and poultry farmers, and I would hope that if people saw the work and the time that goes into growing quality crops and raising healthy livestock then they wouldn't Chuck food away so lightly.

I can't abide waste of any sort, but unnecessary food waste really saddens me.

I was horrified when visiting my mum for a holiday and discovered she'd been eating refrigeratored food that had a 'best by ' date from Nov 2020 and it was February 2021. She thought that the best by date was arbitrary ...that the food should be OK to eat..just not at its 'best'..
Also, is a "best by" date the same as a "use by " date ?
Have many days after opening a packet of deli meat should it be consumed even if the use by date is weeks away?
Please advise! Thank you for your time.

What is the best temperature to keep your fridge at?

@Sweetpea1532

I was horrified when visiting my mum for a holiday and discovered she'd been eating refrigeratored food that had a 'best by ' date from Nov 2020 and it was February 2021. She thought that the best by date was arbitrary ...that the food should be OK to eat..just not at its 'best'.. Also, is a "best by" date the same as a "use by " date ? Have many days after opening a packet of deli meat should it be consumed even if the use by date is weeks away? Please advise! Thank you for your time.

Your DM is right, that's exactly what a best before date means. Potential loss of quality after that date, but no safety risk.

think look closely at item ,you can usually tell if its ok to eat,i find a lot of supermarkets are not rotating stock find dates not in use first at front,do they not train staff to rotate food when stocking the shelves