Is it safe to eat and why (not)...?

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Solomon

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This thread is devoted to all who notice items in their fridges and pantries whose "sell by," "best by," and "expiration" dates have long past and are curious if the items remain safe to consume.

Please share your "discoveries" in this thread. With luck, a fellow FoodiesChat member will reply with an explanation on why it may (not) be safe to consume the "old" item.

Thank you in advance for your active participation.
 
I'd like to begin this thread with a plastic jar of Burman's Real Mayonnaise. The jar has a "Best By" date of "March 06, 2013." The product inside appears like mayonnaise, leading my grandmother to desire to eat it. The ingredients label mentions "whole eggs and egg yolks," however, which gives me great pause.
 
In the case of mayonnaise, eggs might your major concern if your grandmother has a health problem preventing her to eating eggs, but the main concern with mayonnaise is the oil used in the process, because oil becomes rancid with ease.

So far for the "best by" date, you need to keep in mind how the jar was handled to know if it is still safe to eat it. Rancid oil is easy to perceive either by taste or smelling.

Any product containing oil should be store in amber jars and away from the sunlight and hot. Mayonnaise is ideally best preserved inside the fridge.

Other than this, I have found that when a product recommends a "best by" date, it doesn't mean that the product expires by that date, but that their freshness is over around that date. I have eaten products labeled as "best by" up to 6 months later such date, but depends much on your common sense too.
 
I guess I can start with the obvious one. Eggs - that is fresh uncooked eggs in their shells.

I was always taught (both at school in cookery lessons and by my grandmother) that the best way to check an egg's freshness was to get a deep bowl of cold water and put the egg into it, still in it's shell.

  • A very fresh egg will immediately sink
  • A slightly older egg will still sink to the bottom just not as suddenly.
  • An older egg with 'hover' mid way
  • An egg that floats at the surface should not be eaten.

This is due to the amount of gas/air inside the egg. A freshly laid egg has no air in it, so is not boyant. As it ages, air can both pass through the shell and bacteria can produce other gases to cause the egg to float.

I will eat eggs from the first 3 categories, but not the 4th and have never had any issues.
 
If I have something in my cupboard that has passed the sell by date usually I would throw it away without a glance but if its something I want to use then I'll look at it very well to check if its ok:)
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I will eat eggs from the first 3 categories, but not the 4th and have never had any issues.
Click to expand...

In addition, a clear sign that an egg must not be eaten is when it smells rotten or it is evidently, usually yolk turns dark maroon and the white is turbid or dry.

Another food easy to detect by its consistence is fish, that develops an ammonia odor and taste when it's not longer edible.
 
Thank you to all for your thoughtful responses and wise wisdom. I will ensure to sniff the mayonnaise when grandma finally opens the jar. If it smells iffy, I'm snatching it from her hand and dumping it down the drain. I know the jar was not stored wisely. The jar may have been kept in a dark location, but the temperatures in that location soared to triple digits this summer. I can't imagine the the product is any good, but it continues to look "normal" as it sits on the dining room table presently.

My grandmother has additional items she is inspired to consume. For this week's topic of discussion, I offer the following:

One plastic jar of Peter Pan Creamy peanut butter with "Best By" date of October 03, 2009

AND

One plastic jar of Food Club creamy peanut butter with "Use By" date of 07/08/10

Both jars "look" edible and no eggs are listed in the ingredients table. Can "hydrogenated vegetable oils" go rancid in high temperatures? One would think so; these jars have the dubious distinction of surviving cyclical near zero and triple digit temperature swings also...YET the peanut butter inside looks like as if it was just produced in the factory.

Thoughts?
 
I am the type of person who is always alert with regards to expiration dates. I always like to check our food items inside the refrigerator to see if they are expiring already so that we will not eat anymore. The same with the canned foods and other stored in bottles and jars we had inside the kitchen cabinets I am always checking in particular their expiry dates. Most especially fresh eggs and tofu I always buy the ones with expiry dates label in order to be safe for eating.
 
What I can never understand is the sell-by dates on pre-packed fruits and vegetables in supermarkets. They are completely fine to eat until they start going off and aif they are in good condition even two weeks after this date, they are still perfectly OK to use. Admittedly, the plastic packaging used will do little to preserve the life of the produce so I usually remove all of this when I get home and put the produce in the optimum place (eg: dark cupboard for potatoes).
 
There was a report in the local news recently about this. The sell-by dates are a suggestion; without them, food would sit on store shelves longer as well as in home cupboards. The date encourages consumers to use the food items while they are still at their more palatable. Eating something past the date might not kill you or make you sick, but food items do go stale and it's probably true they lose vitamins.
 
If you read the label it says 'best by' not 'this will turn into a green blob and poison you by'. The sell by dates are also a marketing ploy - the supermarkets cannot afford to take any risks and will remove stuff from the shelves weeks before it has deteriorated. Thousands of tons of perfectly usable food are wasted annually because people read a label rather than check the produce.
 
The other thing that I wonder about is the sell-by dates on cheese. Really? It has been sat maturing for months before it gets to the supermarket shelf, I hardly think an extra week is going to kill you!

Also, I am pretty sure that manufacturers give a sell by date which is probably shorter than needed, just to cover themselves. If it looks and smells OK then it is OK!
 
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