From takeaways and supermarket deliveries to recipe boxes and ready meals, our relationship with the food we eat is more disconnected than ever.

While there’s still unpackaged produce to pick from, many of us now opt for packaged food, whether that’s apples wrapped in plastic or tomatoes packaged in a punnet. And instead of using our senses to tell us when these fresh foods are off, we tend to rely heavily on the dates displayed on the packaging.

All of this is contributing to a growing problem – food waste. In the UK alone, we waste 4.5 million tonnes of edible food every year, which is enough to fill 38 million wheelie bins or 90 Royal Albert Halls. 

Best before dates are one of the major contributors to this problem. By relying on the dates displayed on our food’s packaging, we’re losing our understanding of what ‘off’ food actually looks like – and wasting hundreds of pounds of food in the process. 

It’s for this reason that some supermarkets are now removing best before labels from their fresh foods. Earlier this month, Waitrose made headlines after announcing it was going to remove the dates from nearly 500 of its fresh foods from September, in a bid to encourage shoppers to use their “judgement”.

And Waitrose isn’t the only shop to have done this – in July, Marks & Spencer announced it would be removing best before dates from 300 fresh food products, and Tesco removed 100 best before dates back in 2018.  

With more and more shops removing these dates – and a cost-of-living crisis pushing us all to reduce the amount of food we waste – now’s the perfect time to reconnect with your food and learn about how to use your judgement.

So, to help you get started, we spoke to Helen White, special advisor on household food waste at the campaign group Love Food Hate Waste, to find out more about how to hone your food skills. Here’s what she had to say. 

If you want to reduce the amount of food you’re wasting, understanding the difference between best before and use by dates is absolutely crucial.

While best before dates are a quality marker, use by dates are all about safety. It’s for this reason why you should never ignore a use by date – after the date shown, that food is no longer safe to eat, and you should throw it away. However, when it comes to best before dates, you can get a bit more lenient.

“All best before dates do is tell you that that food is at its best before the date shown – it’s still going to be OK afterwards,” White explains.

“Foods with a best before date tend to be longer lasting – you’ll find these dates on some fresh produce, but you’ll also see them on frozen items and canned goods. And these foods can still be good to eat days, weeks, months or even years after that best before date, depending on what it is and how it’s been stored.” 

Because best before dates are just an indicator of quality, you’ll need to rely on your senses to tell when a food is actually off. This may occasionally be before the best before date – for example, if soft foods like raspberries or blueberries get squashed during transit, they may start to grow mold – but for the most part, it’s likely to be days and weeks afterwards.

“If a food has gone ‘out of date’ (aka, its past its best before date), you can check it for taste and quality and use your judgement to determine if it’s still good,” White says. “This means you can have a look at it, have a smell of it, and have a taste of it, and you can make that decision.”

White continues: “The Food Standards Agency always says if something is mouldy or rotten, don’t eat it. But apart from that, it’s up to you to decide.” 

While each food will look different when it’s ‘off’, looking out for soft patches and signs of discolouration is a good place to start. However, just because a part of a fruit or vegetable is damaged, doesn’t mean you need to toss the whole thing.

Let’s take potatoes, for example. While older potatoes may start to sprout or develop softer patches, you can simply cut these parts away and use the rest of the potato. Same goes for carrots – if there’s a part on the surface that looks a little dodgy, simply cut it off or peel the whole thing.

You can also revive some foods that might be on their way out – if items like some salad or celery are wilted, simply pop them in some ice water and they should regain their rigidity pretty quickly. 

The method of ‘sniffing’ milk to see if it’s off is pretty widely known – but what other ways can you tell if dairy products like milk, cheese and yoghurt are safe to eat?

Of course, if any of the dairy products you have in your fridge still have use by dates, you should abide by that rule. But if not, it’s up to you to use your judgement to decide whether it’s still OK to eat.

Again, this could involve smelling it or taking a closer look at the texture (just make sure to shake or stir any yoghurt or milk before making this judgement). 

If you’re used to rifling through the supermarket shelves for the product with the latest best before date, the idea of shopping without any dates might seem a bit daunting. So how else can you tell which products are the freshest?

According to White, it’s pretty simple: “All you need to do is use the same judgement you’d use in the home – does it look good? Does it feel firm? Does it smell good? 

“I think we’ve lost our connection to food, especially because a lot of it is wrapped or pre-packaged, and we don’t always think to pick things up and have a look.” 

When it comes to reducing the amount of food you throw away, one of the best things you can do is pay attention to how your food is being stored – and that includes the environment inside your fridge.

“Something simple that you can do in the home to make foods last longer is keep your fridge at the right temperature (below 5°C),” White explains. “We estimate that millions of UK fridges are too warm by at least two degrees, and if your fridge is too warm, you’re going to be knocking life off of your foods from the very start – they won’t last as long – and it makes things potentially unsafe.”

While everyone has different opinions about what should and shouldn’t be kept in the fridge, White recommends putting almost all fresh produce in there. 

“There are only three fruit and vegetable products that shouldn’t be kept in the fridge,” she says. “These are bananas – because they’re sensitive to temperature and will go black – whole pineapples and onions. The advice on potatoes has even changed – storing them in the fridge will make them last a lot longer.”

Another way to ensure your food stays fresh is to use your freezer. While most packaging will advise you to freeze something on the day of purchase, it’s perfectly fine to freeze something right up to its best before or use by date, White says.

“If something is getting close to its date and you think you might not use it in time, freeze it,” White recommends. “If you’re nice and organised, you can freeze it on the day of purchase, but if you’re running out of time, you can freeze it right up until the use by date. Both Love Food Hate Waste and the Food Standards Agency are happy to advise people to do that.”

She continues: “Simply put, by freezing it you’re simply putting a pause on that date – and you can defrost it when you’re ready to use it again. Just make sure you use it within 24 hours of defrosting it, because that takes the date off pause.” 

For more information on how to reduce your food waste, including how to store different types of foods, you can visit the Love Food Hate Waste website.

Images: Getty