Six in 10 people admit to eating food past its use-by date to save money, according to the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
It was the most common money-saving habit found in its latest survey of British households, as food prices remain nearly 40 per cent higher than five years ago.
The Independent’s report on that finding drew a large reader response, and one view came through time and time again: don’t trust the date on the label.
Rather than defer to a printed date, readers described relying on sight, smell and years of experience.
Several recalled growing up before use-by dates existed at all, insisting that neither they nor their families ever fell ill trusting their own judgement over a manufacturer’s.
Here’s what you had to say:
Dates are artificial – trust your eyes and nose instead
‘Best Before’ and ‘Use by’ are artificial values. Always do the sight and smell tests. Does the product, in its packaging, look OK? Out of its packaging, does it smell OK? If both are positive, it’s good to go. Lost count of the amount of cheese we’ve ditched before its sell-by, the packaging having expanded from bad gas!
It isn’t just about money
It isn’t just about bank accounts though, is it? Many people (I suspect) simply dislike the idea of throwing food away. And people make judgements about food in a variety of ways besides sniffing at it.
My partner has a nose for these things
You learn what will last and what won’t. I always hand fish to my partner to smell, she’s got a good nose for these things.
Shops never had sell-by dates and nobody died
Unfortunately I’m old enough to remember when there wasn’t a Tesco Express on every corner and we bought our weekly shopping from the local butcher, fishmonger, grocer, greengrocer. None of these places sold their stock with any sort of sell-by date, and guess what? People weren’t dropping dead in droves.
By the way, this was our real, local high street, a street that now consists of bookies and food takeaway shops that don’t even open until midday. Death of the high street.
A year-old banana milk did me no harm
Always used the smell test before even looking at the label, which I mostly only do if it doesn’t smell right or the label looks vintage. Drank a banana milk that was over a year out of date not long ago, no adverse effects at all. Obviously I’m not recommending anyone else be so laissez-faire; I’m just old school hard as nails. Old school steel nails, not soft Temu ones.
We grew up without fridges and survived just fine
Regardless of what’s on the label, and with loose veg there are no labels, if it looks OK, doesn’t smell off, then it gets used. I was brought up in an era before we had use-by dates, food was wrapped in newspaper and refrigerators didn’t exist in most UK homes. We survived, using the look and sniff test, no food was thrown away. It never got forgotten at the back of the fridge we didn’t have. It was bought with hard-earned money. We weren’t poor, but we didn’t ever have any money to waste.
Use-by dates are about liability, not health
You British actually have the right accompanying assessment for the sell-by date and use-by date. It says: best BEFORE. After that date the QUALITY cannot be guaranteed and the producer cannot be held responsible for the product being flawed. That is no absolute verdict on the quality, but has to do with legal liability.
Retailers are not allowed to sell products past their sell-by date as a measure of guaranteeing public health. My cheese lady sometimes gives me a piece of cheese that is past its sell-by date for free. Cheese is a fermented foodstuff; it can hold out past its sell-by date quite easily.
Use-by goes a little bit further. It is the limit of GUARANTEED safe to eat, if properly stored. Many people think stuff past its use-by date is guaranteed unhealthy, even if stored properly.
If you educate yourself in what foodstuff really is, you can save a lot of money and prevent a lot of food waste. I never had salmonella, nor did my family, and I’ve cooked for them for more than four decades now.
A seven-year-old tin of Fray Bentos was perfectly fine
I really don’t know how I have survived to the ripe old age of 73. Back in the 1950s there was a concrete paving slab in the pantry that served as a cold shelf, and an air vent in the wall! There was no such thing as ‘sell-by’ dates, Mum would look at it and smell it if there was any doubt and I don’t recall ever being ill through what I ate.
These dates were invented so that manufacturers could sell more products and they took away common sense, hence the huge amounts of food waste these days. My old mate was having a clear-out of a cupboard and he found a tin of Fray Bentos meat pie. It was seven years past its date but I wanted to try it so I cooked it; it was perfectly fine! I even wrote to the company telling them but, sadly, as is often the way these days with companies, they didn’t bother replying.
So forget the experts and sell/use-by dates: if it looks OK and smells OK, just eat it!
Plan meals around what’s on offer instead
Have a ‘tray plan’ for the week. Design recipes around what is cheap at the time. I shop with Ocado, so this is really simple.
Be ruthless: don’t buy stuff you really don’t need, just because it’s ‘on offer’. Keep space available in your freezer for leftovers. Where you can, cook from scratch.
Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.
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