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Old 12-11-2012, 05:25 PM
 
Location: In a chartreuse microbus
3,863 posts, read 6,276,079 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jasper12 View Post
My personal opinion is how can you tell if anchovies are bad? They stink and look gross, even when they are not "bad".
jasper, I agree they do smell bad even on a good day! I can tolerate the smell when making hubby's pizza, but this time they just weren't right, hence I called him over to double check. I know when he turns his nose up at anchovies there's something wrong.


I personally don't eat them. Just doin' my part to keep harmony, or something like that.
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Old 12-11-2012, 06:38 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by suzy_q2010 View Post
Thanks for the info.

The link I gave was to reports of illness, not recalls. The links you gave all specify that the issues leading to the recalls did not include reports of illness. Apparently even the moldy tomatoes did not cause illness. It would be interesting to know whether any of the products affected were returned because of consumers unhappy with the quality, though.

Most of the botulism cases in this country are due to home canned foods.

By their very nature, dairy products and fresh fruits, vegetables and meats are subject to spoilage. That can depend as much on how they are handled after purchase as before.

All I can say is that I have not had a problem with canned or frozen products.
Oops, didn't catch the illness vs. recall distinction.

The reason I knew about the tomato problem? I went through quite a period of on/off upset stomach/bowels, and finally started an elimination diet of sorts. After about a week of discarding this and that in my diet, it came down to tomato products. So I stopped eating them, the problem resolved, and I just assumed I couldn't eat acidy tomato products anymore. Thought it was odd, but chalked it up to some change in my system and didn't think about it a day past its resolution.

Then much later, I read about the mold problem. And I wonder if that was the issue, as I went back to eating those products and haven't had the same problems. My dh never had these issues, so it is possible my issues weren't caused by this, and equally possible that I am more susceptible to the effects of slightly moldy foods. I will never know, and because of lag in time, there isn't anything I could report to anyone. I suspect that is how a lot of these situations progress, ie where there isn't life/death issue, as there has been with say peanut butter, cantalopes, etc,

Sometimes companies report recalls all on their own; other times only after serious illnesses/deaths occur and they are eventually linked to the product that caused the injuries. If injuries aren't life threatening, I'm betting a lot of this taint goes undetected. Yet illnesses caused by tainted food can be disabling even if they are never life threatening, so it is too bad that there probably will never be a way to know with certainty if or how much illness is caused by such things.

I garden, and freeze (do not can), and make quite a bit of what we eat from scratch, and have lived off the beaten trail for decades, so am a bit familiar with spoilage issues and how to avoid them. All I can say for certain that in the areas I shop in Oregon, there has been an increase in spoilage issues. I think with produce it is the transit time in some cases, but who knows.

I did some quick looking re the botulism - the CDC looked at botulism cases from 1990-2000 (and they are rare), and said home canned foods and Alaskan native foods were leading causes, with restaurant associated outbreaks on the rise since the 1970s which surprised me. I'd like to see the data for this last decade to see how that is panning out. The article had some interesting points, if you are into that kind of thing: Foodborne Botulism in the United States, 1990

Anyway, glad I already ate before I read some of this stuff
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Old 12-11-2012, 07:12 PM
 
18,837 posts, read 37,241,315 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sirron View Post
jasper, I agree they do smell bad even on a good day! I can tolerate the smell when making hubby's pizza, but this time they just weren't right, hence I called him over to double check. I know when he turns his nose up at anchovies there's something wrong.


I personally don't eat them. Just doin' my part to keep harmony, or something like that.
You is a good wife...man asks me to cook anchovies, forget it. Probably why I failed at marriage.
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Old 12-11-2012, 07:19 PM
 
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I should add that the twin issues of food spoilage and tainted foods became fixtures on my horizon around 2007, when my dogs were sickened by the food I fed them that was recalled, and when, because I was paying a bit more attention to such things, I found Cattle Drive Chili from Costco on my shelves later that year which were from the recalled lots implicated in the 2007 botulism cases. Hadn't eaten it yet, so who knows, but it was part of the larger Castleberry recall and a few people were hospitalized.

And from that time on, I've started paying attention to these issues, and changed how we eat. I am more mindful of what I eat which isn't a bad idea, though still am playing a bit of russian roulette. I'm getting to that age where I might not weather a bout with spoiled food or a salmonella outbreak as well as I might have when I was younger. Which means I should watch out for the potential for salmonella in the October recall of Costco smoked salmon;...which is coming on the heels of their peanut butter recall (which also impacted Target, Walmart, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Kroeger, etc)...and on and on it goes.
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Old 12-11-2012, 07:38 PM
 
Location: Volcano
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chromekitty View Post
But I also think there is a problem when I go to purchase a bag of frozen peas this afternoon and their date is 1-3-13.
Their WHAT date? Their SELL-BY date? Their BEST-BY date? Their USE BY: date? Their EXPIRATION: date?

This is the distinction that many consumers are so foggy about. They see a date, any date, and act as though it means FOOD GOES ROTTEN ON: date. But it mostly means something very, very different.

And if you're going to eat those peas this week or next, what difference does it make anyway?
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Old 12-11-2012, 08:09 PM
 
Location: In a house
13,250 posts, read 42,666,139 times
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I don't remember ever having looked for a date on frozen foods before. As long as there aren't any ice crystals formed on the outside of the packaging, I'm satisfied that whatever's inside the packaging will be whatever I'm paying for it to be.

As for canned goods, I tend to toss cans after the date. Mostly it's a matter of pragmatism: I figure, if it's been 3 years and I haven't opened it yet, it's not likely I ever will bother opening it at all. And so it's really just wasting space in my cabinet.

Butter - I keep it in the fridge indefinitely, and keep a stick out on the kitchen counter at all times except the worst heat of summer. I currently have three pounds of 1/2 sticks in the fridge, two of which have been there for at least six months. The only downside to stockpiling butter, is the butterfat starts to seperate and forms a thin layer surrounding the stick. It doesn't affect the taste at all but it makes for some strange sizzling in the pan when you melt it.

Milk - I don't *ever* keep it in the fridge til the date on the container. I don't care what that date represents - it's never good all the way til that date. Every time I've tested it, I've gagged. I'm just supersensitive to the smell of souring milk, ever since I used to be the marketing secretary for a local dairy. Just the *hint* that milk is *starting* to spoil sends me to the sink. So - I err on the side of caution and empty the carton, and wash it thoroughly with hot soapy water, usually 2 days before the date on the carton. Or even sooner, if that hint of sourness hits my nose.

Meat - home from the store, and repackaged for the freezer before I even put the eggs in the fridge.

Eggs - I replace monthly.

Canned foods - I rarely buy canned goods other than tuna, and the occasional Progresso Chickerina for nostalgia's sake. The tuna gets used up within a month of purchasing - I keep a rotating stock of it. The soup gets used the week I buy it - sometimes even the same day.

Fresh produce - I try to buy only what I need for 3 days worth, except for things that have to ripen on the counter or in paper bags. I return to the market to get more as needed; it's in walking distance, so it's good exercise. I never *ever* buy 5-pound bags of anything. My sister does that and she ends up throwing 2-3 pounds of whatever it is away after realizing it's starting to grow a thick layer of fur. I'd rather pay extra and buy single items, than pay less and throw most of it away.
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Old 12-11-2012, 10:25 PM
 
Location: Volcano
12,969 posts, read 28,305,646 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AnonChick View Post
Milk - I don't *ever* keep it in the fridge til the date on the container. I don't care what that date represents - it's never good all the way til that date.
No offense, but this makes no sense at all to me.

The date on the carton indicates when the milk is still at least a week away from going sour. So throwing it out 2 days before the Sell-By date means you are throwing it out at least 9 days early.

Perhaps you just don't like milk?
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Old 12-11-2012, 11:03 PM
 
8,402 posts, read 24,130,323 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OpenD View Post
No offense, but this makes no sense at all to me.

The date on the carton indicates when the milk is still at least a week away from going sour. So throwing it out 2 days before the Sell-By date means you are throwing it out at least 9 days early.

Perhaps you just don't like milk?
I can appreciate Chick's view on this. I'm careful to buy milk as close to the beginning of its sale time, which I think is two weeks from the sell-by date, and it never lasts more than a few days. But on the infrequent occasion when it does get close to the sell-by date, it tastes very different to me. I drink a lot of milk so I'm a bit sensitive to the change in taste, as Chick is.

I've also noticed things like Walmart milk isn't as cold as other milk when I've (even more infrequently) bought it, tastes...odd..., and degrades quickly.
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Old 12-12-2012, 12:08 AM
 
Location: Volcano
12,969 posts, read 28,305,646 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vmaxnc View Post
I've also noticed things like Walmart milk isn't as cold as other milk when I've (even more infrequently) bought it, tastes...odd..., and degrades quickly.
I think this is actually the big factor... the temperature the milk is kept at has a huge difference on the storage life. Use an accurate thermometer... check!

On a temporary out-of-state work assignment once I stayed with a co-worker for a while, and I found the food I put in his refrigerator was going bad very quickly. Over a period of several weeks I was surprised at how much food I was throwing out. So I picked up a kitchen thermometer at the store and checked the temperature and found that it was about 45 F, or 5 F higher than the recommended high setting for a home refrigerator. At 45 F milk can spoil twice as fast as it does at 40 F, and 36 F is really optimum for longer food keeping.

When I mentioned it, my friend said that yeah, he was trying to keep his electric bills down, and he noticed the refrigerator didn't run as often when he chose a higher setting.
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Old 12-12-2012, 03:46 AM
 
Location: Near the water
8,237 posts, read 13,464,619 times
Reputation: 3899
Quote:
Originally Posted by OpenD View Post
Their WHAT date? Their SELL-BY date? Their BEST-BY date? Their USE BY: date? Their EXPIRATION: date?

This is the distinction that many consumers are so foggy about. They see a date, any date, and act as though it means FOOD GOES ROTTEN ON: date. But it mostly means something very, very different.

And if you're going to eat those peas this week or next, what difference does it make anyway?
I am not sure what your end goal is here. I am not buying what you are selling, as I believe you to be incorrect. Several of us have had similar problems and while you certainly have your opinion as to the "good" dates it does not negate that their is a problem. There is no fog here.

Last edited by sundrop; 12-12-2012 at 04:05 AM.. Reason: Typo
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