London - My supper looks absolutely normal - a ready-made pasta meal with a salad of tomatoes and rocket, and a bread roll, then chocolate cornflake cake for dessert. It looks fine, tastes fine and, most important, 24 hours after eating it, I feel fine.
This is remarkable - because all the items I consumed were two weeks past their “use by” and “best before” dates. I bought them on April 29, and ate them on May 16.
Had I followed the labels, I”d have had just a few days to eat this food after buying it. In fact, all but some raw chicken were fine to eat up to a week after their date stamps - and some were still edible another week after that.
I wouldn’t usually risk eating food past its end date: like so many Britons, I suffer from “Best Before paranoia”. Anything out of date goes straight in the bin. I attribute my approach to the fact that I have three young children and would hate to feed them anything remotely unsafe.
I am not alone. British households throw away 8.3 million tons of food and drink a year, with an estimated five million tons of that amount still being perfectly edible.
Every day, 1.3 million unopened yogurt pots are dumped, as well as five million potatoes, a million loaves of bread, a million slices of ham, and 440,000 ready meals. The average family with children bins food worth £680 a year.
Yet many of us do not know what the date stamps - “display until”, “sell by”, “best before” and “use by” - actually mean.
“Display until” and “sell by” dates provide stock control information to shop staff.
“Best before” dates relate to food quality. When the date runs out, the food isn’t harmful, but may begin to lose flavour and texture.
Despite this, research by supermarket chain Morrisons has found that 55 percent of us throw away food past its “best before” date, even though it is still safe to eat.
“Use by” dates are a different matter - they are usually found on food that goes off quickly, including meat products and ready-prepared salads.
The Food Standards Agency warns that food and drink should not be consumed after the “use by” date, even if it looks and smells fine. Doing so could put health at risk, it says. But how great is this risk in reality?
The food manufacturer is responsible for providing date stamps based on its own scientific studies. But with so many people confused by the current system, the Government is considering scrapping “best before” dates completely.
Cue my experiment...
THE EXPERIMENT
I bought 12 shopping baskets of exactly the same items: a pasta bolognese bake ready meal, tomatoes, bread rolls, chocolate cornflake cake, fresh raspberries, sausage rolls, cooked beef, chargrilled chicken breast slices and raw chicken breast fillets.
All items were stamped with the same “use by” or “best before” dates. They were then divided between myself, food safety expert Dr Slim Dinsdale and an independent laboratory.
All the items were refrigerated, then tested over four dates - the date of purchase, the day indicated by the date stamp, a week after the expiry of the date stamp, and a fortnight after it.
The laboratory would look for dangerous bacteria, Dr Dinsdale would carry out scientific checks for food quality - while I would actually eat the food as your very own human guinea pig.
For each test a new, unopened, item was used or tasted.
THE SCIENCE
The laboratory tested for a range of bacteria most likely to cause food poisoning: Listeria monocytogenes, E coli and Staphylococcus. Listeria, the most dangerous, was detected in only one product, raw chicken, and only when the meat was two weeks past its “use by” date. The other dangerous bacteria were at levels too low to detect. The laboratory also tested for Enterobacteriaceae, a group of bacteria that includes those found in the human gut.
High levels can indicate that a food is “off” - this is usually typified by an unpleasant odour, taste or texture. They can also lead to stomach upsets.
Again, other than in the raw chicken, the tests revealed relatively low levels of these bacteria in the food I had bought.
At the same time and on the same dates as the laboratory conducted its microbiological tests, Dr Dinsdale conducted organoleptic testing - assessing the taste, smell and appearance of the items, and monitoring whether these changed after the end-dates.
He concluded that up to a week after purchase, all but the raw chicken fillets retained the same characteristics they had at the time of purchase.
The raw chicken was deemed to be “off”, with bacteria causing the pack to inflate with foul-smelling gas. But, as we’ll see later, even that did not mean it was inedible - just that it smelled unpleasant.
Armed with the information from the laboratory, and guided by Dr Dinsdale’s expert observations, I ate the items deemed safe.
WAITROSE SPECIAL RASPBERRIES, £3.49
I keep these in the fridge. A week after the “best before” date stamp, some of the berries are a bit mouldy, but the rest taste fine. A week later, they are covered in mould and I throw them away. “The mould could trigger an allergic response in someone sensitive and is best avoided,” says Dr Dinsdale. “Anyway, they would taste awful.”
STARBUCKS BELGIAN CHOCOLATE CORNFLAKE SQUARE, £2
The chocolate is in plastic wrapping. It tastes and looks no different a week, then a fortnight, after its “best before” date. The lab tests confirm this, showing no significant microbio- logical changes. I am sure this would still be fine to eat in another fortnight’s time.
TESCO SAUSAGE ROLLS, 50p FOR TWO
Normally I’d be wary of eating an “old” meat product such as this, but lab tests show that even a week after the “use by” date stamp, there is no increase in bacteria. The sausage rolls look and smell fine.
As an extra precaution, I heat them thoroughly and eat them. I do the same a week later. They taste dry and have very little flavour, but there are no ill-effects.
SIX-PACK OF TESCO SCOTCH BREAD ROLLS, 70p
A week past their “best before” date stamp and the rolls, which are in plastic packaging, are unchanged. They do not look, feel or taste stale. A week later, there is plenty of mould on them. One of them is hard and dry, but edible.”Small amounts of mould can be cut off, but a lot of it will penetrate the surface and should be avoided,” says Dr Dinsdale.
TESCO COOKED BEEF, 10 SLICES, £1
A week after the “use by” date stamp, there’s no noticeable change. When the air-tight, plastic lid is removed, there’s no unpleasant smell. The beef tastes of very little. “It is safe to eat, thanks to hygienic manufacturing conditions,” says Dr Dinsdale. “If you are in any doubt, cooking the beef in a sauce would make it even safer.” A week later, an ammonia-like smell emanates from the pack when I open it. I do not attempt to eat the meat.
SAINSBURY’S WILD ROCKET, £1
I keep it in the fridge and a week after its “use by” date stamp it looks just like it did when I bought it. There is a slightly sour smell when I open the bag, but it tastes fine. A week later the smell is stronger, and the leaves have gone mushy. Eating pre-packed salads past their “use by” date can cause sickness because of the risk of listeria, but this is not detected in any of our tests.
SAINSBURY CHARGRILLED CHICKEN BREAST SLICES, £2.59
A week after the “use by” date stamp, the plastic packaging is inflated. When I pierce it, there is a smell of cheese and dirty nappies. Very unpleasant, and I certainly couldn’t eat this. The laboratory tests show an increase in bacteria, but - surprisingly - not at levels that would cause illness if eaten.
ASDA SALAD TOMATOES, 95p
A week past their “best before” date stamp and the tomatoes look and feel as good as the day I bought them. The same is true more than a fortnight later, when they taste just as a tomato should.
ASDA ITALIAN BOLOGNESE BAKE READY MEAL, £1
A week after its “use by” date stamp, I cook it for 20 minutes as instructed and it tastes fine. Another week passes and it still looks and smells unchanged. I increase the cooking time to 30 minutes to be on the safe side. Again, it tastes fine.
ASDA MINI-CHICKEN RAW BREAST FILLETS, £2.28
A week after its “use by” date stamp, the pack in my fridge is inflated with a foul-smelling bacterial gas. Dr Dinsdale says that, on his samples, this was even the case on the chicken’s “use by” date. Cooking the meat will kill the bacteria.
Dr Dinsdale explains: “The chicken was safe to eat, and I cooked and ate it, although the ÒoffÓ odour in the chicken was noticeable. Most people would, rightly, be guided by their noses and not eat this.”
My nose and I agree, so we decline the chicken.
TOM’S VERDICT
These results took me by surprise. I’m not suggesting we all live on a diet of old food, but these tests show that if you’re careful, using your taste and smell sensibly to assess food, there really is no need to be paranoid about date stamps.
On the basis of my experiment, I wouldn’t recommend everyone starts eating two-week-old ready meals. For the very young, the very old, the infirm and pregnant women, it pays to be especially cautious.
But for others, while date stamps must be treated with respect, common sense has a key role to play. For example, milk has a “use by” date, but most people will drink it until its taste or smell warns them not to.
Before labelling was introduced to Britain in 1980, consumers relied on their senses to tell them whether food had gone off.
With the growth of the nanny-state and of packaged, processed foods, that approach to food is now alien to many - but it’s surely time we reconnected with it.
From now on, I for one will be doing more eating and a lot less binning. - Daily Mail