How Do You Feel about Expiration on Food?

Let's not get defensive or accuse other people of nastiness or whatever because of their opinions/choices, okay? This isn't meant to be an attack thread. I was just curious about people's opinions when it comes to different kinds of food/liquid expiring. So, what do you do when you see something has expired? You can go into detail with different methods depending on what it is, too.

I'm somewhat paranoid when it comes to most expiration dates. Same thing usually goes for those "should be eaten by" or "fresh until" things. I just feel a little weird eating something when I know it's past a date or I have to cut off little mold spots. However my mother is totally different. She's reasonable enough, but she uses things that like, say, mold spots could be cut off or don't smell even past the expiration dates. I wondered what everyone else thought about the matter. Do you eat things past the expiration date as long as it looks fine? Are you super paranoid and never eat things past expiration? Does it depend based on what it is? Ever had a bad experience or a surprisingly good one? Share!

If it looks, smells and feels like something I'd eat, I'll eat it. Dates are guidelines, imo.

I try to prevent anything that I buy from becoming bad, which results in me indulging in more food than I would prefer to eat sometimes. Obviously, I know that expiration dates don't necessarily mean that the food will go bad at that time. For example, I usually smell milk if it has reached, or has gone beyond, its expiration date. There's also the matter of leftover food, which has more of a likelihood of getting thrown away because of reasons, such as too much leftovers and the leftovers not going well in my body.

If it doesn't stank and it isn't moldy, I'll take my chances.

I have a fairly strong stomach so I'm not afraid.

I rarely eat things with expiry dates printed on.

I just use the smell/ look test.

My stomach has a rather strong tendency to become upset about the tiniest thing, so I usually don't eat it if it's a dairy product; I don't care when it comes to things I'd cook/fry anyway, I'll eat them without a second thought.

Bread and such, I eat them all the time no matter what the date is unless they're too hard to be chewed or you can see something moldy on it. o_o Mold is a big no-no for me, but my grandmother is just like your mum, Sakume, and she just cuts it off or something and eats it. And I'm all @___@

My mum has a surprisingly good story about a cheese that became all boilt as it wasn't kept in the fridge and she tasted it for the fun of it (???) and it was awesome? Well, I don't know... I hardly eat cheese as it is. :'>

After I had a bad salad and threw up so hard I was puking liver bile, I can get a tad touchy

I'm very touchy about expiration dates.
I have milk in the fridge that's past the sell by date right now, it totally freaks me out.

My worst story involves fruity pebbles that were quite old, I believe about a year or so after expiration. I had some little surprises in there when I ate them. My mother said it was "a little extra protein" and wouldn't hurt me. It was pretty nasty.

Depends on what it is really. Meat and dairy I'm pretty anal about expiration dates. Generally tend not to eat them after the date, and coming up to it I'm pretty cautious. Everything else though I don't pay much attention. If it looks and smells all right, it's probably fine.

I don't care about it much.

If it smells bad I won't eat it, even if it's not the date yet, if it seems to be okay, I'll eat it, even if it's past the date.

I've always thought it was really hilarious how some products put the exact time next to the expiration date, makes me imagine someone going "OH GOD I HAVE TO EAT QUICKLY, THIS WILL EXPIRE IN 3 MINUTES AND 23 SECONDS".

it's "best before," not "rotten by."

Originally Posted by Galedeep

it's "best before," not "rotten by."

well that depends.

there are, in fact, different kinds of expiry dates that mean different things. Particularly resilient foods have "best by" dates which can still be just as good, or at the very least, still healthy after the date. Other foods (such as milk) have "sell by" dates, which represents the date by which the product needs to be off the shelves. These are necessarily still good after the date, since it wouldn't make sense to sell something and have it immediately go bad, but they don't last forever. A general rule that I've heard is that dairy products are still good seven days after their sell-by date.

and then there's "use by" dates. These are things which generally should be used by that date or there's no guarantee that it will still be healthy to consume.

Most dates are sell by or best by dates. This means the greatest quality will be before said date or the store is legally obligated to destroy the food by said date. I usually follow the dates for dairy but any other food is fine if it isn't decomposing. Most foods are good to eat beyond their expiration dates. If the packaging specifically says "expiration date", then it's probably good to not eat it after that, but it could be fresh a bit after it.

If it looks and smells fine I'll eat it.


Though even then it's a crapshoot with me. I have an awful tendency to eat unripened fruits and they're just awful. I know that's like the complete opposite of expiration dates but ♥♥♥♥ the police

oh ♥♥♥♥
If it has a bad smell, its trash
If it has mold, its trash
If it looks nasty and has a ♥♥♥♥ load of flies around it, it goes in the neighbours trash

If it looks okay, ill keep it for one more day
If it tastes okay, ill finish it

I'm a totally by-the-book tightwad in this respect. If something's even a day past the expiration date, I'll throw it out. I've had a few unpleasant experiences with spoiled yogurt that I never want to repeat.

Like what most people said, if it still looks good and smells alright, then I'll eat it.

Meat and dairy products are different, however. I won't touch them well after the expiration date.

I'm pretty wary of anything that's past the Best Before, Expiry, etc. date. If I see blue mold on some bread the rest of the loaf, and at times depending on my paranoia level, the rest of the bread that was in the same spot is in the trash.

Dairy normally is in the garbage the moment it is no longer at its best though usually with milk I have a hard time telling which has led to sour cream and Cheerios one too many times cuz lawl bags of milk was the greatest idea ever.

Meat is zero tolerance. Something being stale doesn't bother me in the slightest though and sight and smell tests normally serve me well.

Story time:

One day I was starving. There was practically nothing to eat around the house. I came across some microwave fajitas in the freezer. When I started to eat them, they tasted awful. It was probably one of the worst things I've ever tasted. Till this day, I can still remember the god awful taste. But I was so hungry, I ignored the taste and just kept eating them. I thought it was just the brand or something. I devoured the entire thing. Some thirty minutes later, my stomach wanted to kill me. I knew it had something to do with those god awful fajitas. So now I'm thinking, what the hell was wrong with those things? Well I decided to look at the wrapper and check out the expiration date. Turns out the fajitas expired over two years ago at the time. Just talking about those fajitas gets my stomach going and my taste buds running...

It was at that point I decided to never eat anything past the expiration date after two or three days.