I’m one of those people who always checks use-by dates. Not only do I check use-by dates, I check those sentences in tiny print that tell you the tub of yoghurt needs to be eaten within seven days of opening, or the ham within four days. I’ll go a day or so beyond the limits, if something looks and smells okay, but that’s about as far as I’ll push it. I had a bad experience with some dodgy mince many years ago, and I’ve never been able to forget it.
Anyway, that’s me. Then there’s a woman calling herself cavefelem who posted on British website Mumsnet a few days ago:
“Just found a jar of cook-in curry sauce with a bb [best before] date of April 2009. Seal is still intact. As it is a curry sauce I’m not sure I will be able to tell if it’s gone off. Shall I just bung it in the slow cooker and not tell DH [darling husband]?”
For many people, the answer was a clear “no”. Or something rather less polite.
“Chuck it in the bin, you grubby mare!” replied ThisPasadenaHomemaker.
“You’d trick your DH into eating seven-year-old food?” asked CelestialLight. “Seriously? That’s vile.”
“Has the apocalypse come and you’re living in a dystopian nightmare world, where humans have formed feral gangs, desperately fighting over the last few surviving resources from before the atomic war?” Sniv wanted to know. “If not, then no, you don’t need to eat seven-year-old jars of curry sauce.”
So you have jars of sauce that should have been used when Kevin Rudd was prime minister. Clean-out time. Photo via iStock.
But there were others who would have used it.
"I hate to waste anything," lljkk posted. "I'd eat it, no hesitation (as long as it smells and tastes okay)."
"In ye olden days, bottling/jarring was what we did to preserve," wrote doradoo. "It's the same as canning and they last forever."
In the end, cavefelem didn't use the curry sauce.
"I told DH about the bb date and he was up for trying it," she wrote. "But I really didn't want to be responsible for encouraging others to eat stuff well out of date so I binned it. I will have to wait for my chicken curry."
But could she have used it?
Top Comments
It's illegal where you are to sell food past it's bb date? In many places there are whole stores dedicated to such foods. To say you can't eat anything past it's bb date is incredibly wrong. Most foods can go WAY beyond that date. You're thinking of an expiration date. That's a very different thing. BB dates just mean "Up to this day we guarantee top quality". That is a very, very different thing than "after this date it's hazardous to your health". Tons of foods, especially ones containing no meat nor dairy, and are still factory sealed and have been stored in the cupboard can easily last a year or more past that date and be 100% fit for human consumption with zero ill effects. Some foods lose their flavour and texture if left too long but again, that's a very different thing than it going "bad". I used to be one of those "don't eat it" types but have been researching it and trying out old food myself and I now feel silly for all those times I carelessly and irresponsibly threw away perfectly good food for nothing.
Tread warily. Being from a large family, we had a huge chest freezer. One weekend while the parents were away we held the legs of our youngest sibling as they dived in to find a 12 year old roast beef on the bottom shelf, third on the left.
I finally know what roasted wood tastes like.