Expiry date on food, how seriously do you take it ?

Oh...dont beat yourself up about it!! theres no arm been done...its a mistake anyone couldmake.... im not too worried on my part..as long as it smells looks ok thats fine.But dont ever tink you arent a caring mum because youve done something accidentally!

Well i am a guy but ever since i had some sour milk a couple years back anything that smells even a little weird gets thrown into the trash. I sometimes dont even care if i throw something out a week early. I guess this is pretty wasteful thinking though...

I usually use the expiration date on products as a guideline when I am buying food. It tells me how fresh the food is. But, after I get it home, I'm less picky. Usually, I eat all the food up before the expiration date. But, I've found that most foods stay good after it expires and are sometimes edible for another week. So, I go by the standard smell and mold tests that we all do to see if food goes bad. If it's been a very long time since the expiration date, then I'd throw it out.

In the US the expiration dates are very conservative- the food will be good for quite some time after the date. I'm not sure if that's true anywhere else though. Milk and dairy usually don't go bad for about 3 or 4 days after they've expired, assuming they've been kept in the fridge in a closed container. The "sell by" date on meats is usually close to a week before they spoil, and if you freeze them they keep up to 2 years. "Best by" dates are totally subjective. I see those dates on canned veggies, and even sodas; foods that have been properly canned can be good for decades. I believe I read once about preserved foods found in a pyramid that were still unspoiled! Packaged baby food, should be fine long after the date & you shouldn't feel guilty about accidentally giving your daughter some.

We actually watch the expiration date very carefully. With the increase amount of food poison cases out there it is better to be safe than sorry. There have been quite a few times lately when we have bought milk that doesn't expire for another week, just to get it home and find out that it is bad. And with the expense of gas, milk and hospital cost. It doesn't make me happy. I take my family's welfare very serious. Knowing meat packing plants are selling diseased meat to consumers is also alarming. Just because something has a expiration date on it doesn't mean anything anymore. Sometimes it doesn't make it to the date. Thanks.

I know what do you mean about the baby food, i have a baby myself and i always check the label of dairy foods and cheeses and all the other stuff for him. But I am quite lazy about food for myself. I do throw milk products after expiry date. But lets say some chocolate bars or dry snacks,I know they can last longer than it is said on the packaging. My godfather used to work for chocolate factory, and lets say chocolates can last up to 2 months after expiry date. Quite interesting, normally i wouldnt believe it, but i have tried, because we got them for free when my godfather was working there as shops couldnt sell it anymore. And here I am alive and feeling good. Nothing happened to me. But definitely wouldnt risk it with different food, and not talking about babies at all.

i am actually very lenient with the expiry date on food as i don't like to waste food by throwing it away... as long as i find it still in good conditions and i can still eat it, then i won't throw it away even though it has passed the expiry date... for dairy products, they go straight to the bin if it passed the expiry date... especially milk...

Like you, I would be a bit more wary with any foods I was feeding to a baby, or indeed to a child, but now there's just me, I don't worry so much. I think the stores put what I call a "safe date" for them, on the packages, so that if the product is sold fresh and you are harmed after the date they state, there is no come back on the store. I've often eaten meat that's a day or two over, because I store it in the coldest part of the fridge, and I can tell if it's not good enough to eat, more or less by looking at it. Sometimes, I'll need to test it further but I've never had a problem yet. Brightest Blessings.

There are certain foods I am very careful about but there are lots of others I'll use my judgement on. We tend to throw away too much food - especially in the West so we should use as much as we can rather than just dump it. There are some germs we can't see but as you say with most food its recognisable if its not fit to be eaten. If I have vegetables around that I think I won't eat in time i freeze them or I make soup from them and then freeze that to eat some other time. Saves wasting so much food.

I get really serious about the expirations date and just throw the stuff out..especially if it's like fruit in those little containers...I won't eat anything that has expired!

I'm usually pretty careful about things. Just because, like one of the guys on here, I had a moutful of sour milk once. It wasn't very pleasant at all! Yuck! I usually try to keep an eye on it all, or put it in the freezer if I don't think I'll eat it right away.

Hi serenidity. I am so careful and keen when it comes to date of expiration. Everytime I grab food when I do my grocery shopping, I check their expiration date. If I'm gonna store the food for days then have to check how many days til the expiration date. I read this story about someone who intake an expired food and been rushed to the hospital. The doctor's finding was food poisoning. Oh I dont want to endanger mine and my loveones lives because of some carelessness.

Ive been very very particular of the expiry date of the food that I buy. Though they said that you can still eat the food within a month after the expiry date, but I'm not willing to risk my health for being too frugal... There are some canned foods that has manufacturing date but no expiry date, in these kind of case I always go to the store manager to check and make sure that the food is not yet expired.

Hi Serenidity, you are absolutely correct, we should take serious on the expiry of product, because the end result might get into very serious and bad situation if those food have become toxin. Previously I do experience that before. The root cause is because i feel waste if i through away the food as it is not cheap but ends up, seeing doctor and need MC for few days. So would strongly suggest and advice people not because to save little and ends up pay back more.

I am glad all turned out well regarding the expiry date. However, I would be worried as to what kind of preservatives went into a pudding if it would not expire until a year from now. Anyway, I think a day or two after the expiry of dairy foods is still o.k. unless the smell is off. There is a built in safety time in the expiry dates. Sometimes if dairy products have not been stored properly, like sitting on a loading ramp at the store they can even go bad before the expiry date. This has happened to me with milk and cream from time to time. Frozen food usually does not go bad. I have friends who eat frozen foods after it has been in their freezer for a year or more. They tell me they never got sick, however, I have read many times that frozen food looses the nutritional value even if it does not make you sick. It is like eating straw or hay. I would never do that. I use up frozen food within two or three weeks. Now there is also an expiry date on canned goods such as kidney beans and tomatoes. I try to use them up before the expiry date but if it is a couple of weeks after I don't worry. There was a time not so long ago when we actually did not know how old our food was. I remember the days when there were no expiry dates.

I take expiration dates very seriously. I don't care if it is a sell by date or a use by date. If the date on the calendar is after the date marked on the package, I won't use it. Food poisoning is just not something I want to experience.

For me, I will seriously consider the expire date on food, no matter what food is it. It's actually a reminder from the manufacturer that when the food is not suitable to be eaten. So if we ignore it and there's sth happen to us, it's actually our own fault. That's why, everytime I bought sth, I will make sure the food is finished before the expiry date. Who knows what may happen..

It really depends what it is, most of the time things will last longer than it says as the date the put on will possibly be a few days shorter than when it's really estimated to go off so they don't have queues of people demanding their money back. It's all just an estimate, With stuff like fruit and veg it's easy to judge, and dairy products. I wouldn't worry, expiry dates haven't always been there, if it would have been off you would have been able to tell. The date on the packaging isn't the exact date it will go off.

I am very cautious regarding the expiry dates on food, but sometimes amazingly when I forget to check them, and I come back home I find I have bought expired stuffs.

I do take the expiry date of food stuffs seriously. I read the date of manufacture and expiry before buying any food stuff. I do take care of doing the same with tinned food also. After all its food. Healthy food means healthy life.