I was curious about how firm the "sell by" dates are on a package of meat as displayed in the store.

The nice fellow at Gelson's, the fancy supermarket in California, told me they're pretty firm, that the food goes bad pretty much on that date.

I was a little surprised to hear this, since I felt that if you sold food on some day, it should be good at least a couple of days after that.

Recently, I tested this proposition, not deliberately but because I bought a little too much food for the week. So I had leftover chicken and beef that had expired.

I tried cooking chicken which was one day past the sell by date and beef that was two days past. The beef and chicken both smelled and tasted a bit funny. I didn't get sick, but I didn't enjoy it, either.

So I must advise anyone who's wondered about this issue to not push the question even one day. Eat your food before it expires!

D

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I always wanted to, but never did. And now I don't have to.

If you take the meat home and freeze it immediately it will keep longer, of course.

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which had today as the best by date, and I will eat it tomorrow and see what happens.

Hopefully I didn't actually have to freeze it immediately because I waited a couple of days after I bought it to do the freezing.

I was thinking of eating it today and unfortunately it was hard as a rock and I could not even split it up into portions without letting it thaw. So I decided to put it back into the freezer and take it out tomorrow morning.

One sad thing is that my beef dish is the yummiest and unfortunately it seems that beef expires earlier than chicken. Chicken can keep a week while it looks like beef only keeps a few days. Since I'm trying to keep my shopping down to about weekly, that's a pain unless I can freeze it without losing much flavour.

D

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If I buy meats of any sort and it's close to its expiration date or if it's on the expiration date I cook it all up , package it,and then throw it in the freezer.It keeps for quite a while that way.

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One thing I have noticed, though, is that it also varies dramatically by the specific piece. I've had some meat since then where the meat has been fine a day or two after expiration.

Very mystifying!

Thanks for your tip - unfortunately, I cook Chinese food that goes straight from fresh only - leftovers are always awful. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at cleaning my plate.

What do you like to cook?

D

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