Beef Use By Date

[bluemartian]

Using Hellofresh. Just started cooking for the first time properly.

Date on minced beef packs were yesterday (it's now 3:06am uK time).

According to NHS's website: You'll see "use by" dates on food that goes off quickly, such as smoked fish, meat products and ready-prepared salads. Don't use any food or drink after the end of the "use by" date on the label, even if it looks and smells fine. This is because using it after this date could put your health at risk.

So considering this is now 3 hours past the use by date (and probably 1 day past the use by date by the time I get a reply on here), is it still safe to eat?

Is it also safe to store the remaining in a container after it has cooled down in the fridge and eat it over 2-3 days (remember use by dat was yesterday).

 

[flea.rider]

smell it ..if it smells sour bin it ..
and yes to the saving it .. 2 days .. as long as the fridge is below 5 deg c

 

[WJA96]

Why risk it? Most mince is made from meat that is already several days old before it’s packed. Quite often the oldest meat in the factory is what gets minced because they didn’t use it in orders for more expensive cuts, so it’s good meat, just not always the newest meat in the factory.

The great thing about meat is that unless you poke things into the middle of it, any pathogenic (unhealthy) bacteria can only grow on the outside of the piece of meat and the nutrients they need to grow are locked up inside the meat so they don’t grow very fast. When you mince the meat, you spread the bacteria throughout the meat and you break open the meat to release lots of nutrients so bacteria can grow faster.

The advice about smelling it only tells you about a couple of spoilage bacteria that generate gases as they grow. And actually, they’re usually fine to eat if you cook the meat.

Smelling it tells you nothing about E. Coli, Staphylococcus toxin, Clostridia or any number of other food pathogens.

Some pathogens only release the toxins when you kill them ie. when you cook the meat, so cooking it won’t necessarily help.

If you were quite literally starving, then fine, no harm will likely come to you from eating out-of-date meat, but why risk it if you’re not starving to death?

 

[bluemartian]

Why risk it? Most mince is made from meat that is already several days old before it’s packed. Quite often the oldest meat in the factory is what gets minced because they didn’t use it in orders for more expensive cuts, so it’s good meat, just not always the newest meat in the factory.

The great thing about meat is that unless you poke things into the middle of it, any pathogenic (unhealthy) bacteria can only grow on the outside of the piece of meat and the nutrients they need to grow are locked up inside the meat so they don’t grow very fast. When you mince the meat, you spread the bacteria throughout the meat and you break open the meat to release lots of nutrients so bacteria can grow faster.

The advice about smelling it only tells you about a couple of spoilage bacteria that generate gases as they grow. And actually, they’re usually fine to eat if you cook the meat.

Smelling it tells you nothing about E. Coli, Staphylococcus toxin, Clostridia or any number of other food pathogens.

Some pathogens only release the toxins when you kill them ie. when you cook the meat, so cooking it won’t necessarily help.

If you were quite literally starving, then fine, no harm will likely come to you from eating out-of-date meat, but why risk it if you’re not starving to death?

Excellent reply. Thank you.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Waaaaaaaat?????

It'll be fine! My god such a waste of food.

I'd eat mince, well I HAVE eaten mince at least a week out of date unless it looked or smelled bad.

Such privileged lives we lead that we choose to throw out food a packet says it's three hours out if date. It's disgraceful.

 

[CircleFaust]

have a look at it, smell it all the rest
if it's been refrigerated it will be fine i'm sure
fry it up good and make that chilli con carne

 

[Scam]

I think 3hrs out of date would be absolutely fine, but @WJA96 raises good points about mince specifically.

I'd sniff it and probably risk it. Just open the packet and let it breathe first, don't shove your nose in otherwise you'll be convinced it's off regardless

Such privileged lives we lead that we choose to throw out food a packet says it's three hours out if date. It's disgraceful.

To be brutal, why should he risk food poisoning? We do live privileged lives, there's no use hiding that fact or pretending we don't.

 

[Freakbro]

TBH, they do build in a extension factor into the use by date as well for safety standards. 3 hrs (or 1 day) over would be ok imo, especially if you cook it thoroughly.

 

[Cleisthenes]

Waaaaaaaat?????

It'll be fine! My god such a waste of food.

I'd eat mince, well I HAVE eaten mince at least a week out of date unless it looked or smelled bad.

Such privileged lives we lead that we choose to throw out food a packet says it's three hours out if date. It's disgraceful.

I've got to agree with this really.

Whilst yes we do live priviledged lives, it doesn't mean we should be wasteful for the sake of it. I wouldn't hesitate in using mince that's a day over the use by date.

 

[bluemartian]

I think in this case where it is minced beef specifically it isn't worth attempting. Food poisoning can kill. I will just buy some from the supermarket as the veggies and potatoes and rice are still good to go. It makes me sad too to see food go to waste, but it's just not worth the risk.

The last time I made minced beef I ended up in hospital for 3 days with severe stomach pain (had to be shot with morphine) a rash and something else I forget. It may not be due to the minced beef, but the docs weren't able to identify the cause. I think it was. There was nothing else new that I ate or used in that week.

I had made burgers using minced beef back then.

 

[WJA96]

TBH, they do build in a extension factor into the use by date as well for safety standards. 3 hrs (or 1 day) over would be ok imo, especially if you cook it thoroughly.

I’d be surprised if that is correct. Which red meat (or any meat) supplier have you worked at that built in such a safety margin? How much is the safety margin? In my experience they all work to the letter of the Minced Meat Preparations regulations and it’s really not smart to eat any food after it’s USE BY date is expired. BEST BEFORE is no issue, that’s a food quality indicator, but USE BY is a legal point at which the manufacturer will no longer guarantee the safety of the food you are consuming.

If you look at all the food-bourne illness outbreaks in the last few years, the one associated with mince is Escherichia coli, which will grow slowly in the fridge, and can easily make you ill or even kill small children or elderly adults. You can’t smell E. coli. It’s a very common thing to mix up food spoilage (where the food is just unpleasant to eat) and food-bourne illness where the food will poison you. Sniffing it won’t tell you if it’s microbiologically safe.

And cooking it thoroughly has no effect on thermostable toxins like Staphylococcus aureus exotoxin (aka vomitoxin).

 

[Freakbro]

I’d be surprised if that is correct. Which red meat (or any meat) supplier have you worked at that built in such a safety margin? How much is the safety margin? In my experience they all work to the letter of the Minced Meat Preparations regulations and it’s really not smart to eat any food after it’s USE BY date is expired. BEST BEFORE is no issue, that’s a food quality indicator, but USE BY is a legal point at which the manufacturer will no longer guarantee the safety of the food you are consuming.

If you look at all the food-bourne illness outbreaks in the last few years, the one associated with mince is Escherichia coli, which will grow slowly in the fridge, and can easily make you ill or even kill small children or elderly adults. You can’t smell E. coli. It’s a very common thing to mix up food spoilage (where the food is just unpleasant to eat) and food-bourne illness where the food will poison you. Sniffing it won’t tell you if it’s microbiologically safe.

And cooking it thoroughly has no effect on thermostable toxins like Staphylococcus aureus exotoxin (aka vomitoxin).

TBH, I've no evidence I can link to back it up but I just remember seeing it on a programme where they were discussing this (I'm sure one of the guys was wearing a lab coat too ) and what they were saying made logical sense ie: You can't exactly state that the food becomes unusable at midnight on the date given, so there is always some leeway to make sure the use by date is still well within the date it really think it will start to spoil. Else it would even be a bit touch and go at 11pm on the day!

That's not to say short shelf life items have a lot of leeway, but in this case, I'd use mince 12 hrs after the date.

 

[WJA96]

The USE BY is calculated based on the worst case microbial loading at the point the meat is packed, then they know fairly precisely how fast the target pathogens will grow in your fridge at home and when they almost get to a point where you would be made sick by them, that’s the USE BY date.

Most factories will test the mince at the beginning and end of the run to make sure they are inside the worst case scenario - but they will generally be packing right up to the limit of the worst case scenario because they know that as long as you eat the mince inside the USE BY, everyone is safe.

Definitely don’t confuse spoilage with toxicity. They’re not the same thing. If the meat was green, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, because you can see it’s not right. Same if it smelt bad. The challenge is that you can’t see or smell most of the really dangerous bacteria. Which is why you should stay on the right side of the USE BY.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I’d be surprised if that is correct. Which red meat (or any meat) supplier have you worked at that built in such a safety margin? How much is the safety margin? In my experience they all work to the letter of the Minced Meat Preparations regulations and it’s really not smart to eat any food after it’s USE BY date is expired. BEST BEFORE is no issue, that’s a food quality indicator, but USE BY is a legal point at which the manufacturer will no longer guarantee the safety of the food you are consuming.

If you look at all the food-bourne illness outbreaks in the last few years, the one associated with mince is Escherichia coli, which will grow slowly in the fridge, and can easily make you ill or even kill small children or elderly adults. You can’t smell E. coli. It’s a very common thing to mix up food spoilage (where the food is just unpleasant to eat) and food-bourne illness where the food will poison you. Sniffing it won’t tell you if it’s microbiologically safe.

And cooking it thoroughly has no effect on thermostable toxins like Staphylococcus aureus exotoxin (aka vomitoxin).

I agree with everything you wrote however. if he was planning on cooking it and it was 3 hours past the date. i'd say it was still safe. i'd even go far as 1 day past so long as it had been stored in a decent fridge. this is the main issue.

people in supermarkets will pick up some meat. carry it in their trolley. change their mind and stick it on a random shelf in the tinned foods aisle. it will then take several hours before a member of staff notices and they will likely ignore it leaving for the next member of staff to deal with, etc. by the time it's put back in the fridge it's likely been ruined.

so even stuff that is in date could be bad. so you do need to check to see if it's changed colour, etc and smells bad. minced beef goes from a pinky red to a dark brown colour over time. so if it's colour has changed i would avoid.

this is why when i buy meat. i'll tend to buy the one with the longest date. and i'll pick up the packet at the back or in the middle or under another packet, etc. chances are it won't have been passed around the shop, etc.

 

[WJA96]

Again, it's nothing to do with smell or colour. The darkening of the meat is to do with a breakdown in the pigment in haemoglobin. That's fine.

The standard shelf-life testing protocol includes an 'abuse' phase of 4 hours at 22C to simulate the customer taking the product home in a warm car or bus, so they pretty much have you covered for a bit of abuse inside the USE BY period.

 

[bluemartian]

people in supermarkets will pick up some meat. carry it in their trolley. change their mind and stick it on a random shelf in the tinned foods aisle. it will then take several hours before a member of staff notices and they will likely ignore it leaving for the next member of staff to deal with, etc. by the time it's put back in the fridge it's likely been ruined.

this is why when i buy meat. i'll tend to buy the one with the longest date. and i'll pick up the packet at the back or in the middle or under another packet, etc. chances are it won't have been passed around the shop, etc.

This is a good idea. Never thought about this.

HOWEVER no one seems to be addressing the second part. IF meat is cooked on it's use by date, is it then ok to eat it if it is refrigerated over 2-3 days?

 

[tom_e]

I agree with everything you wrote however. if he was planning on cooking it and it was 3 hours past the date. i'd say it was still safe. i'd even go far as 1 day past so long as it had been stored in a decent fridge. this is the main issue.

people in supermarkets will pick up some meat. carry it in their trolley. change their mind and stick it on a random shelf in the tinned foods aisle. it will then take several hours before a member of staff notices and they will likely ignore it leaving for the next member of staff to deal with, etc. by the time it's put back in the fridge it's likely been ruined.

so even stuff that is in date could be bad. so you do need to check to see if it's changed colour, etc and smells bad. minced beef goes from a pinky red to a dark brown colour over time. so if it's colour has changed i would avoid.

this is why when i buy meat. i'll tend to buy the one with the longest date. and i'll pick up the packet at the back or in the middle or under another packet, etc. chances are it won't have been passed around the shop, etc.

That food is wastage it should not be put back in the chiller and if an employee is caught doing it they'd be in for a severe spanking.

 

[bluemartian]

Again, it's nothing to do with smell or colour. The darkening of the meat is to do with a breakdown in the pigment in haemoglobin. That's fine.

The standard shelf-life testing protocol includes an 'abuse' phase of 4 hours at 22C to simulate the customer taking the product home in a warm car or bus, so they pretty much have you covered for a bit of abuse inside the USE BY period.

Where are you getting all this info from? Sources please? Not saying what you are saying is wrong. I am intrigued how you seem to know so much about this.

 

[WJA96]

Where are you getting all this info from? Sources please? Not saying what you are saying is wrong. I am intrigued how you seem to know so much about this.

Yes.

 

[adidan]

I never go by use by dates stringently.

It's either off or it's not, if in doubt just cook the bejebus out of it.