Best Before Dates - a Rant and a Good Idea

We have just been up-country, as we say in Cornwall, visiting family, having a belated Christmas dinner together (for the first time in about 20 years!) and seeing how grown and wonderful my great niece Amelia has become.  So that’s why I haven’t written for a bit.

Whilst there I picked up a leaflet from the East of England Co-op who have had a good idea. They will now sell products past their ‘Best Before’ date in their 125 food local stores for a nominal 10p.  I don’t know if they intend rolling this out to the rest of the country, but it is surely worth investigating. 

According to the leaflet …

I have read different but equally horrific figures elsewhere but however much food waste it is it’s too much!  This is something I have ranted on about for years.  In fact, at the end of my book Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers I wrote …

BEST BEFORE DATES – A SHORT RANT

            I really don’t want to encourage anyone to take risks with their food but would nevertheless like to moan on a bit about ‘best before’ dates. 

         Whilst I am, of course, as delighted as the next person by a bargain I am also often irritated. Fruits and vegetables have sometimes not reached their ‘best after’ date when being offered as past their prime. I have bought out of date ‘ripen at home’ avocadoes that weren’t soft for weeks, I once lost a bargain white cabbage in the car when bringing in the shopping and it was still OK when I found it there ten days later (it was cold out) and I even snapped up a healthy growing basil plant with roots for 10p because it was ‘past its best before date’!

Cheese is another case in point. Bearing in mind that it was developed as a way to preserve milk and that many cheeses improve over time I was surprised last Christmas to see small gift cheddars, coated in wax, which were supposedly out of date by 9th January. Why? What would happen then? And don’t get me started on honey!

        ‘Are best before dates a cunning ruse to make nervous people throw food away and buy more?’ I ask myself cynically. According to Defra these dates indicate how long a food can be expected to retain its optimal condition and yet in my own experience many bargains have not even reached optimal condition by that date. May I therefore suggest that you rely on your own brain and your senses of smell and taste?

‘Use by’ dates are an entirely different matter as they concern food spoilage and safety and I don’t recommend you mess with them.

So, as I’ve said before …

Please, please, please learn to cook so you can use up all the food that you have available in utterly delicious ways. This is just one of my 7 Excellent Reasons to Learn to Cook. Go for it!!! 

Oh, and don't forget to pop down the Co-Op if you happen to be in the East of England!

In Other News …

A new edition of my book is to be released on 1^st March.  It is now titled Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers and can be ordered here. 

I look forward to meeting it myself!

Is this the World's Oldest Living Orange? - A Best Before Dates Rant

You're not going to believe this.

We are doing the final tidy up of my late father in law's flat and today in the corner of the pantry I found the above pictured orange.  He has been in there about a year and looked a bit rough ...

... but when cut in half was sweet and juicy!  So much for best before labelling.

Obviously I am in No Way recommending that we keep our fruits for ages and ages but on the other hand we don't have to be too nervous about best before dates.  

Best Before Dates ~ a Rant!

By best before dates I must stress I Do Not Mean use by dates which are to be taken much more seriously (most of the time - I don't mess with fish or meat but do rely on my own senses with dairy products) as they concern food spoilage.  Best before dates are supposed to advise when a product will be past its best but in my experience many bargains still have some considerable way to go before even reaching their prime.

Our orange is, of course, an extreme case but we are often very lucky getting a little help from our local supermarket, particularly with the “nearly out of date” stuff.  I  have recently bought a small basil plant for 15p, two perfectly good courgettes for 3p and what must have been “ripen at home” avocados (although it wasn’t mentioned) which took over a week to soften but only cost 5p each.

I am truly delighted by such a boon but, you know, the basil plant was,and still is, a plant for Gawd’s sake. Admittedly he is not the finest specimen of a basil plant I have ever seen but all he needs is a bit of lurve.  The little lettuces in soil also shown in the picture were in date and full price when we bought them but are now 2 weeks past their best before date, I've eaten quite a lot and new ones have grown!

Potatoes and onions treated properly (cool, dry, dark, separate from each other and with respect) will keep a good long time and in any case it’s quite likely the old potatoes for sale this week were dug at the same time as the “almost out of date” old potatoes in the reduced section.

Making cheese is a method of preservation in itself and, as rule, hard cheese keeps much longer that is implied on the label.  Nevertheless wax coated hard cheeses have bizarrely short best before dates. Why? 

And what about honey? It is virtually indestructible as I have mentioned before yet it has a best before date!

If this is a cunning plan to make people buy more food it may have backfired.  I see that my local supermarket recently overshot their waste budget by several thousand pounds, I fear they may have been hoist on their own petard, whatever that is. 

Sorry about that.  Changing the subject - have a look at this ...

Big Fish!

... which is a sample of the huge portions at the wonderful fish and chip shop, Gills in Seaton Sluice that we frequent when Up North (you can just see my real man's manly fist in the top of the picture to give an idea of size).  

And here's a picture of the delicious sloppy (or mushy) peas that are served with it.

Being from Down South with my "fancy southern ways" as my real man puts it I did at first demur at this but talk about yum!

In Other News ...

I have just uploaded my finished Ice Cream book to Amazon where it is available for kindle and in paperback ~ yippee!