/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>15452063
How poor do you have to be to gamble with your life over an expiration date? Just throw it out and buy another loaf of bread or jug of milk.

>>15452077
Fuck off you wasteful fuck. Your body is strong and can make use of food of all types. Stop being a idiot.

>>15452083
I like being an idiot, don't tell me what to do.

>>15452090
Noted.

>>15452063
Those dates are just when you should start paying attention to whatever product it is. For bread, for example, you start checking if it has mold on it around the best before date. It's good to eat if it doesn't have mold and you don't mind it being a bit dry and stale.
General rule: if it looks, smells, and tastes fine, it's good to eat even past the expiration date.

Tho I guarantee you that milk or meat won't be good to eat months past their expiration date.

>>15452098
>It's good to eat if it doesn't have mold and you don't mind it being a bit dry and stale
Bread is one of the few places where you're horribly wrong. It takes millions of spores to make visible mold and bread is toxic long before that. The smell isn't a surefire method either since it too takes a while to kick in.
Easiest way to tell if bread has mold? When it gets above room temp. Mold is a living organism and the sheer amount that develops in bread makes for a lot of very busy life which equals heat.

Best by dates are just that and have been determined by the producer through some semi scientific tests. It's basically a conservative estimate of how long a product will taste the best and be safe to eat.

I actually worked at a food company where I was in charge of determining the best by date based for different products. If you're in the US there's a chance you've eaten something I put a BB date on lol.

>>15452077
Has nothing about being poor, it's about not wasting food. Give it the old smell test and if it smells fine it probably is. There are certain foods that I wouldn't fuck with, obviously if jarred/canned foods have a puffy lid.

gave ur mum the ol smell test last night and boy did she fail spectacularly

Easily go months or years after expiration date and refridgeration/freezing is unnecessary. Not ideal, but unnecessary.

>>15452112
>a conservative estimate
thats the problem manufactures often only test products just long enough to ensure it is convenient for the the supply chain. they don't care how long it lasts in your pantry. that's why you see so many canned goods that "go bad" only a few years after manufacture. to be fair however some canned goods will lose texture after long term storage and not taste as good even if they are still safe to eat. this is also a huge problem in medicine to. drug expiration dates are not actually when the drug shows signs of degrading. instead drug manufactures typically only test shelf life to the legal minimum amount of time required.

>>15452063
Everyone I've lived with has been terrified of expiration dates, rare meat, leftovers, etc, and they've all had a litany of weird rituals like washing meat/rice or refrigerating/freezing things that clearly don't need it.
What gets me is that every time I've been food poisoned in my life it was immediately after eating at a restaurant or getting takeout. The same people who whine at me about kitchen safety will go Instagram themselves in Mexico eating street food that I wouldn't touch with a 20-foot pole.

>>15452063
The dates clearly are due to liability and regulations trying to help supermarkets and other retailers from selling spoiled food to a market. For the people actually eating it, it's just a general guideline that the food may start to degrade in quality beyond that point. Just use your common sense. Cheese is not going to go out of date because it's already been aging for a while anyway, just keep it sealed up and air tight and it'll last until its eaten. If a pack of bacon in your fridge is past the sale by date but it looks fine and smells fine, then it's fine to eat. Unfortunately, this is /ck/ and common sense is rare here.

>>15452387
What websites would you suggest where common sense is not rare?

>>15452366
I'm not fussy about expiration dates, (just ate some eggs I bought 6 weeks ago infact), but I do wash things like rice and chicken. Rice could be handled by literal street shitters, and I think it tastes better when you wash away all the powdery residue that makes the first rinse as white as milk. Same with chicken, I know it's being cooked, but I don't care, slaughter houses aren't necessarily the cleanest places, and often times there's congealed blood and stuff on the chicken.

I saw a picture of chillis sun drying in some 3rd world place, and there were mice crawling all over them.

>>15452387
>The dates clearly are due to liability and regulations trying to help supermarkets and other retailers from selling spoiled food to a market
Not really. It obviously helps them keep fresher food on the shelf and spoil out food past its prime, but liability and regulation's not really a big part of it. Apart from like baby formula, it's not illegal for grocery stores to sell spoiled food in the US and there aren't really any successful lawsuits from people buying spoiled product.

Also the whole "grocery stores don't donate food because they're scared to get sued" is a big old myth. A lot of them just don't bother as it's just a little more of a hassle or they just don't have a connection to a local food bank.

Source:worked in and adjacent to grocery stores for years.

>>15452063
Am I the only poorfag here that eat's moldy bread to save money?
I just cut the moldy bits off and toast it well.

Generally they are overly cautious to avoid any legal shit.
Better for them to say it goes out of date a day before it normally would so that growth is well below acceptable amounts for vulnerable people.
Most of the time meat will be fine a couple days after just smell or even see if its slimey
The only things I wouldn't fuck with are cans, I dont know the conditions they packed that shit in and you cant detect botulism

>>15452442
Then why do so? Is it just inventory management then?

>>15452459
you'll live but just buy bread more regularly so it doesn't spoil

>>15452459
How poor are you to not just buy another loaf of bread? You can get bread for about 50p to a pound a loaf and that's bread for most of the week. If you're really poorfag and want to make the most out of it, just freeze half the loaf. If you don't have a fridge/freezer then how the hell are you even online, short of currently being homeless.

>>15452433
Enjoy your OCD.

>>15452477
I think so, yeah. It makes sense and like I said makes keeping track of fresh food easier. Food companies also have a reputation and want you to consume their product within a range that they determined for best taste, smell, texture, etc.

>>15452077
expiration dates are more about a legal issue about the quality of the product than the safety of the consumer.
for example, if anon get sicks for eating a food that was 1 week after expiration day and he decides to sue the food company, the company would have an advantage over it

>>15452077
I mean if the bread inside is fine, then why throw it out?

>>15452109
So it's not enough mold to be visible, but you figure it's enough to raise the temp of the bread a noticeable amount? Gtf out of here with your pseudo science babble.

If it's not enough mold to become visible upon close inspection it's not enough mold to have any affect on a healthy adult. It's like people don't think their bodies are used to this sort of shit. People are becoming so fragile because of all this bitching about things being 100% perfectly sanitary. Pandemics notwithstanding, a little bit of a bad thing doesn't hurt you.

>>15452387
>If a pack of bacon in your fridge is past the sale by date but it looks fine and smells fine, then it's fine to eat.

In 2009 we were like 14 a friend was spending the night at my place. We were all-nighting Fallout 3 and got hungry at like two in the morning. We rifle through the fridge and find a pack of bacon crammed up into a back corner where you couldn’t see it. We start frying it up and both comment on how it smells fucking weird. We demolish the entire pack, which tasted kind of weak but otherwise normal, and then pulled the plastic back out of the trashcan. It expired in 2006. Absolutely nothing happens to us. We didn’t even get the farts.

>>15452442
>A lot of them just don't bother as it's just a little more of a hassle or they just don't have a connection to a local food bank.
Another big reason is that food banks often don't even want it. They don't want 400 blackening bananas and a truckload of expired cans of tomato sauce. They mainly just want cash donations, so they can go buy unexpired food according to a meal plan.
Food is cheap enough and the west is wealthy enough that the idea of a desperate starving underclass who will take any scrap you donate is a meme. When you donate a bunch of expired-but-still-good cans to a charity food drive, the volunteers doing the sorting are instructed throw them all in the trash, and aren't allowed to keep them for themselves either.
I laugh my ass off at the ridiculous laws everyone is passing these days to try to force grocery stores to 'solve' food waste.

>>15452109
based retard

Are there any pathogens that would pass the smell / sight test?

>>15452544
>>15452109
The thing with mold is that before you see visible mold grow on the service, the molds mycelium network has already colonized the food. The visible mold shows up when its ready to fruit and send out spores to colonize more.

>>15452567
Plenty but none of them are going to be commonly found on food in a domestic environment where the main concern is the start of decomposition which almost always will result in bad smells and a change of appearence.

>>15452063
I drank milk that expired two years ago and I was fine, however those instant coffee mixes that have powdered milk and chocolate are complete poison, don't go near them

>>15452494
Enjoy eating feces if you ever have basmatti rice and don't wash it. Indian's living in the UK, running restaurants subject to health inspections have literal shit all over their hands, you think the street shitters living in india working as agricultrual labor have better hygiene?

salt has an expiration date explain that one.

>>15452517
The date says throw it out, just throw it out and buy another loaf.

>>15452652
Pretty sure any rice you buy in a western country went through a washing step before being sealed in a nice little supermarket sized bag for you. You might have noticed it's always an immaculate white with uniform size and not a speck of dirt on it. I don't think I need to improve on that at home.
If I was living in India, or eating out of an imported 50 pound burlap sack covered in Hindi writing, I might worry.

>>15452248
>often only test products just long enough to ensure it is convenient for the the supply chain

I bet it would become pretty much impractical and so much more expensive if they tried to test products right up to the absolute longest they could last for.

>>15452366
>washing meat/rice

You know people 'wash' rice to get rid of gluten (and potentially grit and dirt but largely for the gluten) right?

>>15452549
This is correct and food banks pretty much always prefer a monetary donation to shitty canned beans and spaghettios everyone throws together because like you said they don't have to waste labor sorting through it and can actually bulk buy what they need.

Also if your store can't figure out how to cull and use those bananas for banana bread or you have expired tomato sauce, you might have some problems with how your store's running lol.
>>15452904
I don't think rice has gluten unless it's been cross contaminated.

>>15452433
>implying rinsing your rice isn't commonplace already

>>15452459
Mold on bread is a no no if you see moldy bits that means the bread is already a goner its not cheese anon

>>15452063
my lil bro is like this he went to make mac and cheese and stopped when he saw the milk was 5 days past the "expiration" date. I told him it was fine and even poured myself some in front of him and he was like "gross look there is chunks" there wasn't any and it tasted fine. I later made mac and cheese with the milk and he loved it lol

>>15453131
This nigga drinking chunky milk

>>15452459
mold has already taken over the entire loaf
usa is full of tons of day old free bread. foodbanks, and bakery dumpsters

>>15452063
it's best before date. after date it isn't best but still pretty good

>>15452549
>Food is cheap enough and the west is wealthy enough that the idea of a desperate starving underclass who will take any scrap you donate is a meme. When you donate a bunch of expired-but-still-good cans to a charity food drive, the volunteers doing the sorting are instructed throw them all in the trash, and aren't allowed to keep them for themselves either.
those foodbanks youre describing fucking suck. it always some christian funded shit where they spent the money on dry beans, rice, plain oats, condensend milk, and a bunch of other shit that no one i know cooks with.

my local foodbank is pretty based and pretty much soley hands out old canned food and other grocery store items headed towards the dumpster. and the volunteers there take home all the shit they want.

>>15452489
Yeah, I live alone so I never get through a whole loaf before the date (and I'm not getting ripped off with those shitty half loaves).
Just bang what's left in the freezer and it's fine for toast.

>>15453275
>charity
>funnels everything to the "volunteers"

>>15453387
>>funnels everything to the "volunteers"
nothing wrong with taking home a few cakes and steaks when you have literally hundreds of them to give away.

>>15453387
>>funnels everything to the "volunteers"
nothing wrong with taking home a few cakes and steaks when you have literally hundreds of them to give away.
and VOLUNTEERING your time and effort

>>15452077
You are why we'll have to eat the bugs. It's because of people like you.

>>15452063
go eat some expired chicken friendo

>>15452119
kek

just made a pizza
the jar of sauce had mold at the top, but none in the rest
used it, tastes fine
it's a risk tolerance thing

>>15452077
>expiration date?
show me a picture of an "expiration date" on any food item.

>>15454390
>semantics

>>15454457
>Retard

>>15452549
What kind of laws? It'd be better to go the the producers and tell them to stop over producing.

i found a bottle of olive oil in my basement that "expired" in 2005.
opened it up, totally fine. been using it for the past few weeks.

>>15455180
"Over producing" is a requirement if you want to go to a supermarket and see every single item stocked on the shelves.
Stores can't perfectly predict the demand they'll get on every item, so they err on the side of ordering over instead of under for all of them. Because if there's a store where you walk in with a shopping list and can only hope to cross two-thirds of your items off, nobody wants to go to that fucking store.
If you want a supply chain that's afraid to overproduce, welcome to the shopping experience of USSR/Venuzela/etc.
The recent laws demand that the grocery stores donate their waste in different ways. This helps charities to some extent but a lot of it basically mandating a middleman for the disposal of garbage, and guess who pays the extra expense.

>>15452063
instead of going to the store once a week i make the rounds to all of the neighbors and offer them a quarter per expired item they're willing to give me. i carry the quarters and the food in a big wheelbarrow and as there's less quarters there's more food, sometimes people give it to me for free.

the kids are scared of me but i don't care i am eating well

>>15452459
Start freezing your bread, dude. Especially if you're gonna toast the shit anyway.

What about a can of beans with an exp date of 2014?

>>15455316
>over producing is a requirement
And this is why we'll be eating bugs and living in pods soon.

>>15454390
https://www.myfearlesskitchen.com/code-egg-carton-mean/

worked at a bad grocery store, overstocked on everything and would pull baskets full of expired product and sell it for 25 cents

damn good eating, the only thing i wouldnt touch was the fresh deli. even the milk and yogurt were fine

>>15452517
Mold grows invisibly inside bread because it's porous.

>>15452109
>bread mold is toxic
dispose of yourself

>>15452109
some bread goes moldy quickly

my milk sometimes spoils before best by date

>>15453275
How the fuck do you not cook with beans, rice, oats, or milk?

>>15456303
The shit literally grows out of the ground dude. We'll just keep growing more. It'll be fine and no bugs necessary.

>>15452063
>Friendly reminder that all those "suggestions" about refrigerating and use by/expired are bullshit and
>use/by expired are bullshit
Absolutely.

>refrigerating
Not necessarily and depends on the food items that should be refrigerated. Are we talking about hot sauce, or milk here?

>>15458337
The liberal think tanks convinced the same type of idiots that we were running out of water 25 years ago. WATER! LOL. There are tons of papers from 25 years ago saying that wars will be fought for water.

Let them believe in their bug eating nonesense and keep buying chicken for 60 cents a pound.

>>15458388
Who the fuck refrigerates milk?

>>15452599
>when its ready to fruit and send out spores to colonize
So let it have its fun – basically nut (once and only) – before you kill it.

>>15458313
because i get way tastier and easier to cook ingredients from the other foodbanks or the grocery store.

>>15452077
>gamble with your life
How fucked up does your immune system have to be for it to be dangerous to your health?

>>15452063
At worst I'll eat them a year out, I had yogurt that was about eight months past the date and I was fine.

>>15456386
>worked at a bad grocery store, overstocked on everything and would pull baskets full of expired product and sell it for 25 cents
ive always heard of stuff like this but never seen it. who shopped at this store?

>>15458313
also mos the time im going to the foodbank is when im living in a car and cant cook/store shit like that.

My canned swansons beef broth that had a nov. 2013 date on it got used last week in a cozy soup concoction. Smelled tasted and looked fine and i am not dead

>>15452063
No shit dumb fuck. Those are the "sell by" date, with a buffer of time past where it's safe to sell without getting into trouble from customers mad about food they bought being bad.

Everyone fucking knows this.

>>15458337
Animals grow out of the ground?

>>15459327
>we were running out of water 25 years ago
They’re saying it now (guardian – bong pink hair newspaper) because our population will increase. No surprise it doesn’t say stop immigration.

I got yelled at by my dad for throwing away ten year old mustard. He said it's my fault we starve now