Forum Topic

No smell or taste

I know covid has made people suffer from this horrible lack of 2 senses - I have had this for 5 years- obviously not  Covid but due to another virus-   Now supermarkets want to stop the end of sell by dates on many products- they said ‘smell’ the product to say if it is safe - great !!!   Makes so many people more worried about what to eat.

Helen Bamberger ● 1614d15 Comments

I had a big long piece of sealed emmental cheese that was found at the back of the fridge. It was 3 months out of date,no mould,smelt fine and duly eatedn on crackers. I never take any notice of dates these days but the number of people who cant smell cant be that high against the ammount of good food thrown becasue people go by dates. I get where they are coming from

Julian Pavey ● 1614d

It's certainly not great if you don't have a good sense of smell and we all lose some of it as we age.  I saw the news in relation to yoghurt,  but surely they won't be able to do it for that many products?

Nora Watkins ● 1614d

Yes I used to be the same and eat things which were slightly out of date but now I am much much more careful - been ill a few times with things which were out of date- also many more people having this awful situation-  I think it a bad idea to stop 'sell by date '  too dangerous

Helen Bamberger ● 1614d

The article on the BBC website says the Co-op is planning to sell items past the 'best before' date, not the 'sell by date' which is quite different.

Karen Foster ● 1614d

Sell-by dates are being replaced by best-before dates in many cases. We will still know what's freshest.

Susan Kelly ● 1614d

Thankyou - that sounds better - when they said 'smell it ' it sounded dangerous

Helen Bamberger ● 1614d

I wonder if this is an attempt by supermarkets to cut down on the food that is reduced in price as it nears its sell/use by date.

Keith Iddon ● 1613d

One can by cynical but the truth is that best by dates by many premier brands were well before they needed to be, it increases sales no surprise there. items like cheese we have often had after sell by date. The food waste in this country is shocking, whilst I sympathise with Helen the majority of the population can smell. The price of food waste is extreme not to mention the profit brands make so whilst a small % may have a challenge with smell it’s a price worth paying to reduce food waste. Helen I suggest depending on the food type try other methods or stick to best before. This is a fantastic initiative.

Jayne Thorburn ● 1613d

Helen you have my sympathy. My husband lost his sense of taste after treatment  a while ago. Thankfully it slowly came back and is pretty much back to normal. He said it was the most awful experience

Maggie Dodge ● 1613d

Thanks Maggie - yes it’s not much fun !

Helen Bamberger ● 1613d

https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/best-before-and-use-by-datesIt's USE BY that you should be most concerned about.BEST BEFORE generally means that food may not taste as good after that timeEXCEPT (EGGCEPT) in the case of eggs which for some reason were put in the Best Before  category but even at that date point most can consider cooking these thoroughly eg baking in a cake or hard boiling instead of throwing out as soon as the date is reached.Masses of good food is thrown away and wasted in the UK by people who may have become unnecessarily date obsessed by these dates!  It is made worse here by the amount of ready made meals and pre-washed and pre-prepared food we eat in the UK which are going to have Use By dates rather than Best Before dates.  Some people are obviously going to have a greater challenge.More important is the storage of food eg don't leave your fresh chicken on the back seat of the car in the sun while you go out to lunch...  Get it from one fridge or freezer to another quickly.  It's more important for some things to be kept cold than others!  Other foods eg apples just keep longer and wrinkle less if kept cool.Also once opened food doesn't keep as well or as long - so that huge packet of sliced ham may not be such a good deal if you are not going to eat it all within the two or three days once opened that it says on the packet - once you turn it over.  Some packets of fresh food say eat within 24 hours once opened!Make sure your fridge is cold enough and avoid leaving the door open.  "What are you doing in the fridge?"  "Looking for something nice."  Not all nice things need to be refrigerated or looked for there!An awful lot depends on how we manage particularly any fresh food that we have.  We also can't control (or have little control) how it is treated before we buy it.  Fresh food is better fresh but overbuying can lead to more waste...  Check out the Love Food Hate Waste website for lots of info and make the freezer (if you have one) your friend to extend the life of many foods.  Having a Use-it-up day once a week instead of always eating just what you fancy helps to keep control of any food stocks.I still taste a little of the milk from the bottle rather than just sniffing it because I learnt years ago that the milk stuck to the rim at the top of the bottle can be sour when the rest isn't!

Philippa Bond ● 1613d

Eggs are one of the easiest things to check. Put them in water: if they float, save them to throw at your enemies.

Susan Kelly ● 1613d

Thanx Susan - useful to know- I can think a few people in the gov I could do that with !

Helen Bamberger ● 1613d

That's how we used to tell how old eggs were before we bought them from the shops all date stamped and Best Before marked.  When my grandparents kept hens they didn't always lay them in the laying boxes where they should and you would find the odd hen's egg under a bush.  If a hen's egg was off when you cracked it you could smell it throughout the house (no help to you Helen unfortunately) but when they were too new we had to keep them (I can't temember how long) because when you cooked them the white didn't set.  We've had the salmonella outbreak since then and I'm a bit more wary.  Out of date and I'll use them for cakes and pancakes, hard boiled ie cooked through and not soft boiled and poached.I can only find recent info re dates re Morrison's and milk which is a very informative article.  It is too easy now to turn up other countries' info on the web.https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/news/160315/morrisons-aim-to-end-waste-by-removing-expiry-dates-on-milk/'Sell By' itself is used to help retailers with rotation of stock which of course is never helped by customers mixing the dates up in a search for items with the longest date on them.  And some of those dates are in such small print!Sell By is also used colloquially as it was by my father to tell me he wasn't expecting to be around for ever when of course I couldn't imagine him not being there.Since losing taste and smell has been identified as a symptom of Covid there are many more articles about good ways to deal with it.  These used to be more about dealing with it as a result of chemo or radiotherapy.  So it may be worth re-visiting the subject to see if there is anything new that would be useful.

Philippa Bond ● 1612d

I found some marmite and treacle in the house of an older relative, 1972 give or take. Both fine. Though a tin of baked beans of similar vintage had exploded.

James Tickell ● 1611d