Expiration dates..

Bread, though, goes off (for us) pretty soon after the "use by" date. We get about five days, max, before little blue mold appears.

Oh. I heard they are finally going to add folic acid to baking flour/bread. (Good idea - neural tube defects in babies are caused by a lack of folic acid in a pregnant woman's diet). Now if they'd just put vitamin D in the milk.... 

On the very rare occasion that I buy bread, it doesn't last a day. I tend to buy fancy stuffed breads and then I eat the whole loaf in one day. That's why I rarely buy it... no self bread control!

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Bread, though, goes off (for us) pretty soon after the "use by" date. We get about five days, max, before little blue mold appears.

I freeze bread the day I buy it and just take out as many slices as I need. It defrosts in no time.

My husband was super strict too but I've worn him down. I've taught him things don't magically go bad at midnight. 

I've taught him how to check if something is still good. If he isn't sure, he will ask me.

Same!

But I also find those best before and expiry dates are very conservative. My dairy lasts way longer than marked... sometimes a week or more.

Everything here gets the smell and look test before I chuck it in the bin. I never go by expiry dates here.

On Tuesday night (the 23rd), I opened a pot of double cream that had a use-by of the 18th.  It passed the look and sniff, so I used it for my recipe.  No problems.  The next day, I used up the last bit, and we were just fine.  It was nearly a week past the printed date!

... things don't magically go bad at midnight.

My husband was the more liberal one when it came to eating "expired" food, but he caused me to consider it, and I came to that same conclusion.  Is that a saying here, or did we independently invent the same phrase?

It works the other way too. I've had things from time to time, not make it to the expiration date. 

Fish is the only food that I stick to the date with.  Apparently when it gets old, it builds up a toxin that is not fixed by cooking.

It works the other way too. I've had things from time to time, not make it to the expiration date.

I've experienced that with milk here. Seems to turn much more quickly.

Okay. I'm not sure if I've noticed this because it's a thing...or because I am eating at home more often.

BUT I feel like food expires here WAY earlier than it does in the States. I'll buy some food and like 4 days later it's expired whereas in the US that same food would last for weeks.

Is it the things the US puts in food that does that? Or am I just crazy?

Our store has a small food section. We can buy the fresh items for a very low price on the sell by date. I put them in my fridge  ( mostly fruit) and I use them for smoothies at home several days after. They may be slightly wilted for a store sale but are fine for me. Hope you are getting along well here Teamtollie!x

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Our store has a small food section. We can buy the fresh items for a very low price on the sell by date. I put them in my fridge  ( mostly fruit) and I use them for smoothies at home several days after. They may be slightly wilted for a store sale but are fine for me. Hope you are getting along well here Teamtollie!x

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I am adjusting! Though the food expires quicker, I appreciate that preservatives aren't allowed to the same extent as the US

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I freeze bread the day I buy it and just take out as many slices as I need. It defrosts in no time.

Unfortunately, my tiny freezer is so full of meat and fish that I don't have room for bread! But I buy it at the corner shop in their "soon to expire" section and get it at like 50p a loaf, so it's not a drain on my finances if some does go funky. Usually I have a couple of slices every day and it never gets to expire. And I put the heels out for the birds. But now and then I don't have breakfast and then (in the summer) it sometimes does go moldy.

I am somewhat amused that you can buy "small" loaves. I would have expected that to be basically a loaf cooked in a shorter pan, so that there were fewer slices in the loaf. It's actually a much smaller pan, to the slices are only about 3/4 the size of a regular slice!

It's bad for the many people who have MTHFR mutations (also causes neural tube defects) who can't convert folic acid to folate. With more genetic testing they're finding a higher prevalence of people with those mutations. Hopefully organic flours will remain without it!

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Hopefully they'll identify people more consistently who have that problem so that they can avoid the bread made with the flour and also will clearly label the finished baked goods. As I understand it, depending on the particular MTHFR mutation, the result can be anything from the person simply can't process the folic acid very efficiently  up to them having severe issues with homocystinuria. The UK has the highest rate of neural tube defects in Europe, so it's a reasonable action for them to take to help mitigate the malnutrition that causes that problem.  (Since they don't seem too keen on making sure everyone has a decent amount of quality food.  Bread is cheap.)

I don't think the "dose" per loaf will be particularly high - I think the effort is being made to add it back to wheat flour that has had it removed by processing out the wheat germ - but since it's also in the following foods if someone has issues with it they need to be cautious to not get too much:  spinach, kale, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli; beans and legumes (e.g. peas, blackeye beans);  yeast and beef extracts; oranges and orange juice; wheat bran and other whole grain foods; poultry, pork, shellfish and liver; fortified foods (e.g.  breakfast cereals).

Fish is the only food that I stick to the date with.  Apparently when it gets old, it builds up a toxin that is not fixed by cooking.

If it smells like fish, when you open the package, don't eat it. Fish should not have any sort of "funk" around it. That's the sign of either "old" fish or improperly chilled (at some point) fish. 

It works the other way too. I've had things from time to time, not make it to the expiration date.

I've taken stuff back to the store when that happens. Irritates the fool out of me, it does! (If you email Waitrose when you have a problem like that, they refund your money immediately.) I bought, on three separate occasions, un-homogenized whole milk from Roots-n-Fruits, to bring home to make cheese with. Never got any cheese out of it - old milk won't make cheese. My guess is that it hadn't been properly refrigerated at some point along the way, as well. Now stick only to the "big" shops for buying things like milk and eggs.

Fish is the only food that I stick to the date with.  Apparently when it gets old, it builds up a toxin that is not fixed by cooking.

100% agree on this. And it's the only food I won't buy on discount.

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100% agree on this. And it's the only food I won't buy on discount.

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Same. I'll buy flash frozen to save money but never fresh reduced price fish!

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