May a biology graduate offer a few words of wisdom? Old food that looks and smells OK isn't necessarily safe to eat. There are plenty of microorganisms that alter the smell, taste and appearance of food, but you could still eat it without coming to harm, though you probably wouldn't enjoy it. Conversely, the dangerous bacteria may not affect the eating quality, and are often undetectable except by lab tests. There's a difference between a "best before" and a "use by" date. The first refers to eating quality, the second to safety. Some "best before" dates are clearly daft, for instance, my supermarket sells kiwis as hard as bullets, and they don't ripen until the "best before" date is history.
The retailers add on a margin to cover their own backs, so it may be safe to go a day or two over a "use by" date, but it's unwise to ignore them and rely on your nose, especially with meat. (Vegetarians rarely get food poisoning!)
Same goes for medicines. They don't remain stable for ever, and can undergo changes which, at best, make them less effective, and at worst could make them harmful. Out of date medicines, whether prescribed or over-the-counter, should always be taken to the pharmacy for safe disposal, never put into landfill or flushed down the toilet.
I applaud the comments about supporting poor farmers in developing countries, and a good way to do this is to buy goods with the Fairtrade logo. If you have a bit of money to spare, think about buying some Fairtrade groceries to donate to a food bank. That way, you benefit two lots of needy people with the same money.
Coming from a time most food and fruit was home or local grown we were used to a vast variety of fruit tastes, out of season we got New Zealand African and Canadian fruit. The fruit was watched and as it ripened was harvested and preserved or stored. We knew how to store most fruits and vegetables to over winter, Jams, Bottling even drying and pickling, my Mother and Aunts often made it a social occasion as they made jam and bottled fruit, we would exist the winter eating stored Apples, one or two were lost but with enough spaced properly on the racks you had good edible food.
Supermarkets educated peoples tastes to like one or two flavours of apple, a cooker a soft pinkish tasteless lady or some such and we lost the taste for a good eater. Our Local farm shop put out taster trays of Hazel Pears and a mix of local apples I think I ate most of them as people made remarks such as the skins do not look nice, they have blemishes, it is for nothing, cut the blemish off, skin the fruit. No it was the pink lady from NZ, yes you can lead people to the trough but cannot make them eat.
I often feel like a Dinosaur, I like pastry made with lard, Liver and onion, Kidney in my pies, we ate everything that came out of any animal we killed and like other posters sell by dates are meaningless, Mother opened tins in 1945 she had put in store in 1939, I am still here. We are more likely to die from the advice from experts who over the years have been proved so wrong over most Diet fads they introduced.
When I grew up in the 50s, we didnt even have a fridge, you just have to be sensible. The experts do reckon that the reason so many children have eczema,allergies, is because they are not exposed to enough germs bacteria. I dont rely on my nose for meat, I dont eat it, was very shocked a few years back getting a joint of pork from the fridge, the God awful smell of it! It was well in sell by date, i googled, it said pork does have a weird smell, yuck!
A few years back I worked somewhere that had a cherry tree in the courtyard and the fruit was nearly always wasted. One evening I was very surprised to come out of work and hear rustling from the tree. There were two women who had climbed into the tree and were picking the cherries. Very enterprising"
I think a lot of food waste from supermarkets are because of "3 for £10" type offers which encourage people to buy more than they actually need at the time.
I think that I probably have out of date prescription medicines - they will be creams and ointments which usually seem to be supplied in much larger tubes than are required.
I think the younger generations are far more likely to throw away food on the basis of sell by dates. Then there are those ready prepared fruit and vegetables that will go off completely in about two days and loose much of their vitamins and minerals. That really annoys me.
Very little food gets wasted in our vegetarian household. Just odd bits little pieces of fruit and veg lost in the bottom of the fridge. That all goes on the compost heap. I was just aware of the end of rationing around the time of the coranation. I'm having a good old rant here.
Sometimes you get prescribed a big bo of pain meds from the Dr and you just use a few, then next time you are in pain, you get the darn things out to disocver they are a couple of years out of date. I did a daft thing when we moved, here, looked at my glass spice jars, thought they were out of date, silly ***** I threw them away, they werent out of date, because i had re-filled them from the boxes! My youngest 26, last week, would chuck everything out on its sell by date, YET, has half jars of sauces (which look pretty revolting!) in her fridge, I usually use half a jar, and the other goes straight into the freezer.
Posts
May a biology graduate offer a few words of wisdom? Old food that looks and smells OK isn't necessarily safe to eat. There are plenty of microorganisms that alter the smell, taste and appearance of food, but you could still eat it without coming to harm, though you probably wouldn't enjoy it. Conversely, the dangerous bacteria may not affect the eating quality, and are often undetectable except by lab tests. There's a difference between a "best before" and a "use by" date. The first refers to eating quality, the second to safety. Some "best before" dates are clearly daft, for instance, my supermarket sells kiwis as hard as bullets, and they don't ripen until the "best before" date is history.
The retailers add on a margin to cover their own backs, so it may be safe to go a day or two over a "use by" date, but it's unwise to ignore them and rely on your nose, especially with meat. (Vegetarians rarely get food poisoning!)
Same goes for medicines. They don't remain stable for ever, and can undergo changes which, at best, make them less effective, and at worst could make them harmful. Out of date medicines, whether prescribed or over-the-counter, should always be taken to the pharmacy for safe disposal, never put into landfill or flushed down the toilet.
I applaud the comments about supporting poor farmers in developing countries, and a good way to do this is to buy goods with the Fairtrade logo. If you have a bit of money to spare, think about buying some Fairtrade groceries to donate to a food bank. That way, you benefit two lots of needy people with the same money.
Coming from a time most food and fruit was home or local grown we were used to a vast variety of fruit tastes, out of season we got New Zealand African and Canadian fruit. The fruit was watched and as it ripened was harvested and preserved or stored. We knew how to store most fruits and vegetables to over winter, Jams, Bottling even drying and pickling, my Mother and Aunts often made it a social occasion as they made jam and bottled fruit, we would exist the winter eating stored Apples, one or two were lost but with enough spaced properly on the racks you had good edible food.
Supermarkets educated peoples tastes to like one or two flavours of apple, a cooker a soft pinkish tasteless lady or some such and we lost the taste for a good eater. Our Local farm shop put out taster trays of Hazel Pears and a mix of local apples I think I ate most of them as people made remarks such as the skins do not look nice, they have blemishes, it is for nothing, cut the blemish off, skin the fruit. No it was the pink lady from NZ, yes you can lead people to the trough but cannot make them eat.
I often feel like a Dinosaur, I like pastry made with lard, Liver and onion, Kidney in my pies, we ate everything that came out of any animal we killed and like other posters sell by dates are meaningless, Mother opened tins in 1945 she had put in store in 1939, I am still here. We are more likely to die from the advice from experts who over the years have been proved so wrong over most Diet fads they introduced.
Frank.
When I grew up in the 50s, we didnt even have a fridge, you just have to be sensible. The experts do reckon that the reason so many children have eczema,allergies, is because they are not exposed to enough germs bacteria. I dont rely on my nose for meat, I dont eat it, was very shocked a few years back getting a joint of pork from the fridge, the God awful smell of it! It was well in sell by date, i googled, it said pork does have a weird smell, yuck!
A few years back I worked somewhere that had a cherry tree in the courtyard and the fruit was nearly always wasted. One evening I was very surprised to come out of work and hear rustling from the tree. There were two women who had climbed into the tree and were picking the cherries. Very enterprising"
I think a lot of food waste from supermarkets are because of "3 for £10" type offers which encourage people to buy more than they actually need at the time.
I think that I probably have out of date prescription medicines - they will be creams and ointments which usually seem to be supplied in much larger tubes than are required.
I think the younger generations are far more likely to throw away food on the basis of sell by dates. Then there are those ready prepared fruit and vegetables that will go off completely in about two days and loose much of their vitamins and minerals. That really annoys me.
Very little food gets wasted in our vegetarian household. Just odd bits little pieces of fruit and veg lost in the bottom of the fridge. That all goes on the compost heap. I was just aware of the end of rationing around the time of the coranation. I'm having a good old rant here.
'You must have some bread with it me duck!'
Sometimes you get prescribed a big bo of pain meds from the Dr and you just use a few, then next time you are in pain, you get the darn things out to disocver they are a couple of years out of date. I did a daft thing when we moved, here, looked at my glass spice jars, thought they were out of date, silly ***** I threw them away, they werent out of date, because i had re-filled them from the boxes! My youngest 26, last week, would chuck everything out on its sell by date, YET, has half jars of sauces (which look pretty revolting!) in her fridge, I usually use half a jar, and the other goes straight into the freezer.