The staggering news today is that we in England and Wales throw away 3.6m tonnes of food each year. Now I know this is awful, but what I immediately asked myself was, did hordes of people really go through the bins of 2,138 homes? 
We even throw away 5,500 whole chickens each day. Well, we never have, so who's throwing ours away? Of course it's these "best before" dates. We have three simple tests if something is past the date:
1. Does it look OK?
2. Does it smell OK?
3. Does it taste OK?
If the answers are all "yes", then we eat it! Mind you I was roundly told off by a nurse who works with elderly people, who said that bacteria start multiplying before you can smell or taste them. But we're not worried at the moment. A week or so ago we opened a horseradish cream bottle. It must have been stuck at the back of the cupboard as its date was July 2007. We had visitors that day so I gave them a health warning about it! They weren't worried - but then they were our generation, not the younger generation that seem to venerate these dates!
We even throw away 5,500 whole chickens each day. Well, we never have, so who's throwing ours away? Of course it's these "best before" dates. We have three simple tests if something is past the date:
1. Does it look OK?
2. Does it smell OK?
3. Does it taste OK?
If the answers are all "yes", then we eat it! Mind you I was roundly told off by a nurse who works with elderly people, who said that bacteria start multiplying before you can smell or taste them. But we're not worried at the moment. A week or so ago we opened a horseradish cream bottle. It must have been stuck at the back of the cupboard as its date was July 2007. We had visitors that day so I gave them a health warning about it! They weren't worried - but then they were our generation, not the younger generation that seem to venerate these dates!
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