'Best Before' confusion leading to needless food waste

Not neccisarily true. On many occasions I've purchased food from the grocery store which expired the day after, despite being days, weeks, or in one case of Peanut Butter, months away from it's expiry.

Basically, if it tastes like shit, don't eat it. There is a reason why it tastes awefull.

No kidding! Milk that goes sour before the BB-date, cheese that is molded before it. BUT, when you buy something that is not good anymore before the BB date, you bring it back to the store and get your money back.

I pick up expired milk every Monday from a grocery store for our food bank. The milk is suppose to be good for another 5 days after the BB date, the food bank kind of splits the difference and will dump it after the third day, after the BB.

They try to sell it 3 days after BB day here, half off. Yoghurt is half off till 10 days after BB.

Eating stale food just to save a few bucks isn't worth it. Factor in your time lost being sick in bed (or the hospital) versus the cost of eating from an expired $4.00 tub of yogurt or a potentially moldy 25-cent hot dog bun. It's dumb thinking and better safe than sorry, as usual.

What I did find funny tho, was that the make-up (eye-shadow) my daughter gave me for Christmas (Made in China and not tested on animals...) has a BB-date on it. June 21, 2012.

It also depends on storage, milk is a prime example.

Very true. I bought a litre of milk once 7 days before the "best before" date which was completely sour.

On the other there are products that are probably good months or years after their dates.

Not a perfect system. More in the way of guidelines.

Yup!

The problem with milk these days is it doesn't go sour, it goes straight to rot.
Pasteurization kills off the bacteria that make milk go sour.

So quite often, even though milk isn't smelling funny after it's BB date, it's still already starting to rot.
When you see milk starting to separate it's either been frozen, or it's going bad and you just can't smell or taste it yet.

If it's green (when it's not supposed to be), not green (when it's supposed to be) or fuzzy (and it's not a peach), then don't eat it.

OK. Maybe the milk I bought 7 days before the "best before" had gone to rot. A murky, semi-translucent liquid with white hunks the size of a sugar cube floating around it. In any case I was very irritated as I had checked the date at the store. In any case who is going all the way back to the store for a litre of milk?

Anything but bakery and specialy dairy products I think should be fine for sometime after best before.

Stuff really goes rancid fast here in this climate, so I really don't take any chaces, I recently found a stashed away forgotten unopened pack of cornflakes, more than a year after its date.

Opened it and tasted one flake and tasted fine and still crispy, anyway didn't take any chances and fed it to the birdies, which I usually do with most leftover corn or wheat products, the birdies seem tolove that stuff