Would you eat food that has gone past its use by date? depending on what it is and where its been stored, most things are ok for a few days and i take advantage of that. ham thats been kept in the fridge wrapped up isnt going to kill me if its a couple of days past its use by date. or is it better to be safe and throw it away just in case?

Have done many times.

Depends on the food, I wouldn't go near Prawns/Pork/Mayo based stuff even closing on it's SBD.

Usually i don't mind a few days past expiration, but to be safe i use my (not so) powerful sense of smell to evaluate the freshness of said product.

This is obvious but MILK is a killer.. specially chocolate. I'll tell you this, just because its CHOCOLATE MILK doesn't mean it is going to be Chocolicious when it's past it's due date. Never experiment! It did not taste like Chocolate Icecream!

Frybird:
Usually i don't mind a few days past expiration, but to be safe i use my (not so) powerful sense of smell to evaluate the freshness of said product.

Agreed.

Chocolate, crisps, biscuits, cereal yes. Milk, fruit, yoghurt no.

I hate it when you're half asleep and you don't know the milk has turned until you take that first big mouthful of coffee. Urg!

normally you can tell if its safe for consumption as soon as you open it. Most of the best before dates they put on food are pretty lenient anyway just so they the shops dont get sued if the food does go out of date early on the off chance.

Eaten donuts that were a couple of days out of date never did me any harm.

I figure they err on the side of caution on the use by date, so I use it up to maybe 4/5 days after depending on what it is or if I'm gonna cook it or not. I'll probably end up with food poisoning at some point, there's always suspiscious things in our fridge.

I eat out of date Vegemite. I'm just that hardcore.

Most things are good for a few days, rule of thumb is 'give it a sniff'. But I stay away from meats if they have gone past their use by date. I have eaten a 3 year old bag of crisps before and they werent that bad. But once had a bottle of beer we found in the garage, god knows how old it was the label was ruined but after I drank it (for a dare) my stomach felt like death for about a day.

My brother however compulsively checks EVERY sell by date on everything before he eats/drinks it and even if its the same day he usually wont touch it.

Is it safe to drink milk if it is only 1 day past expiration? or can it expire while being digested? I drank some milk that was 1 day past it's time and i have been feeling sicker then a dog all morning...

Cream cheese is also not delicious while expired... they should put these expiration labels in a more bold text somewhere so idiots like me can notice them

I ate some chicken that had what I thought was cotton in it. Turns out it was actually mold growing on it. Go figure.

I'll eat food until I can no longer tell what it was. Usually, this works out well enough. However, I now know how to tell when I'm going to get food poisoning about an hour before I start retching.

This reminds me of that instance about six years back where I took a swig from a can of Coca Cola with an expiration date from 1976. It tasted almost exactly like a pair of old socks.

Got the wine for free in a restaurant once because they served us stuff that was past date.

Best Garfield comic ever made:
The milk has gone sour.
How do I know?
There's no glass.

if it doesn't fight back, it's fair game.

my mate had a jar of English mustard that was 2 years out of date. When he opened it the smell was the most faul thing i had ever smelt. Honestly trying staying a room with that stuff for longer than a few minutes and you would probably die.

Usually like cereal or chips they just get stale most of the time

When I read the title, I thought this would be a thread about food that wasn't fashionable to eat anymore.... Darn it......

If I see food that's past its expiration date by more than a day or two, I toss it.

Unless I'm really, really hungry.

Then I usually still toss it.

Yeah, the vast amount of stuff is safe just by looking at it or smelling it. I'd avoid certain meats fish, dairy, but most stuff lasts a fair while. Hell, stale bread is just cold toast!

I've eaten cereal a year past its sell by and it was still fresh tasting and fine, and didn't feel ill. I don't recommend combining it with year old milk tho.

There was a show on BBC recently about sell by dates, the guy was eating progressively more out of date food for a month, and even stuff that had gone a bit mouldy was fine after thorough cooking, as it kills all the bugs. Doesn't mean its going to be nice, but when you read that nearly half of all food ends up in the bin, its worth pushing stuff an extra day or two, I think.

I used to (and probably will again after a few days) use the tried and tested "sniff it" method until two days ago when ate some pork mince that had been defrosting in the fridge nd spent the next 2 days with a splitting headache and being sick. Now i'm pretty religously checking sell by dates but I reckon that will wear off soon when I can no longer be bothered to.

Hey Joe:
I eat out of date Vegemite. I'm just that hardcore.

Vegimite goes off? I thought off vegimite was an oxymoron.

Dairy products are usually the killers when it comes to off food. I pours milk into my coffee one day, and little curds and chunks of milk fat were in it. Suffice to say it went straight down the drain.

Also they were talking about this on Triple J the other day. One woman pulled a chicken out of her freezer and found out that it went off back in '88.

I can tell you think the fruit drink Caprice sun...its bad after 6+ months after the exp date ><

Stuff with heavy sodium, vinger or other perspectives are good for a up to a year after the EXP date depending on where its stored, surgery goods like jelly's and stuff really depend on where it was stored. Milk and meats...don't bother its like playing Russian roulette.

Also open goods depending on type can only last a few weeks/months after you open it.

I was tripping and ate a brownie that was a month past its use by date. I thought it looked blue because of the acid. It definitely was mouldy as my mum found the bit I didn't eat (nothing tastes good on acid). No ill effects.

I'm a fussy eater so no, not without knowing because it has a placebo effect on me and causes me to not have it.

-Ricky

scumofsociety:
I was tripping and ate a brownie

I knew what you meant but I still couldn't help but lol:D

On topic though I have some beef in the fridge(the good stuff, not the chemically processed shit)which went off today but I'm going to keep it for another 3 days at least or until it starts to smell fishy before I throw it out. It won't last past 3 days, not with me yamming on it every few minutes anyways:D

The date on the food isnt usualy the date it goes of at, its more the date the insurance lasts on the food.

I regularlyeat out of date food, as long as it dosnt have a hair of its own or is rotten then no.

Depends on the food - I've eaten crisps that were six months or more out of date, and soft drinks more than a year after the expiration. Hell, because we deep-freeze our meats, some of ours stays fresh several months after expiration.

I think my step-brother said it best, "best before does not mean bad after."

some cookies actually get better after their expiration date since they get softer which means they are then edible.

I think you'll all be happy to know that if food is past by it's "best before" date then you can still eat it, using your own judgement. It's one's with "expires on" and "use by" that you shouldn't touch. Although I have eaten uncooked chicken, chicken that had been sitting in the sun all day after it was cooled down after cooking the night before, off milk and pretty much all of those foods you shouldn't touch. Cast-Iron stomach.

EDIT: Once again I've used should instead of shouldn't, thus ruining my message.

Ill eat any chips or drink any soda that's "expired." I won't eat expired meats unless they've been frozen, and I won't eat expired dairy products, or bread (At the point it gets green). I remember once a long time ago I had a milk jug thing from mcdonalds that I didn't want from an airport, and I put it in my carry on backpack. I forgot about it and 2 years later I used the backpack again. That was not a good thing...