Re:Expired food: how best-before dates create a waste mountain
by DanBC on Saturday April 20, 2019 @12:38PM
(#19707457)
You keep saying "use common sense" and "using my senses", but you cannot use your senses because you cannot smell most food poisoning bacteria.
When you sniff food and it smells bad you know that food can't be eaten, so you throw it out. When you sniff food and it doesn't smell bad can that food be eaten? You don't know.
That's why they have the dates: the dates take into account the most common food poisoning bacteria, and best practice storage in the home, and make a balancing act.
What you do with your own body is obviously up to you, but please don't use "I can smell if it's bad" if you're feeding children or old people because they are at risk of death or permanent harm.
In most cases that extends to using my senses, but if I'd left a bottle of milk outside for a week in summer, I wouldn't sniff it to 'check'.
Also the original comment mentioned best before, not use by. But use by dates are a useful tool, I'm saying you shouldn't just blindly rely on that.