Lived to tell the tale!

I'm sorry but I would not of eaten the soup - 2013 is way too long ago for me. But you can bet that Mr R would have been happy to eat it even after I told him about the BB date!

I'm still using custard powder from 2016. It's still fine. I don't give much credence to use by dates. If it looks okay and smells okay then I use it.

'Best before' usually implies to me impaired taste/stale rather than unsafe. "Use by" suggests the food is likely to be unsafe to be consumed.. however in our house that depends on look/smell of food!

I go on the assumption that all dried foods are safe to use, if they still look all right.

Tinned meat and fish is a completely different prospect IMO and I throw them out unopened if they have escaped my notice until after the BB date.

Tinned vegetables are probably all right, but I don't really see the point in running a risk.

Anything that has stood too long in the fridge, I offer the cat. If he turns up his nose, it definitely is not fit for human consumption.

Oh dear. I could not have eaten it. And if I had I would be wondering now what damage it has done to my inside!

If it doesn't smell off, hasn't got mould on it and doesn't taste fizzy, it's fine. All a plot to make us but more.

Yesterday at lunchtime I cut a small area of mould from my mature cheddar before eating it with oatcakes.
Since 4pm yesterday I 've been thinking that I should not have done so!

I actually had an unopened block of lard in my fridge. Checked the date - 2015. Looked and smelt fine. No sign of anything being off! Used it to make some pastry. We were fine.

I doubt very much that any damage would be done to any insides!
I don’t recall dates being on any foods when I was growing up and Little wold have been chucked out unless it was obviously off. Dried food keeps well and, if you look out for weavils, I don’t see the harm. I’m sure I’ve eaten a few of those in my time too.

Would I run the risk of food poisoning over a stock cube...out of date yoghurts etc etc. No way. Absolutely not worth it to save a few pounds

However did we manage before these dates were added to every blooming bit of food we buy?

I am more cautious with Use By dates, but I don't stick to them religiously. I use eyes, nose and common sense. No piece of meat knows that on the stroke of midnight on a certain date, it has to kill anyone that consumes it beyond that point.

Best before dates are largely just a source of amusement, when I see how long I've had the thing without using it up.

I use the 'smell by' test rather than the 'sell by date' - if it smells OK it is OK.

About a fortnight ago I ate some lovely Lindt dark chocolate dated 2011. Still here with no adverse affects (I think!)

I made a tuna pasta bake the other week. Date on the can of tuna was 2011! It smelt and tasted fine, so I used it. No ill effects whatsoever. I did hide the tin though!

Canned food should be fine as long as the can isn't dented or rusty. It will last much longer than the best before date. Even use by dates are an approximation as they allow for people's fridges not being as cold as they should be or shopping being left out for a while before being put away, so if you transfer things to a properly cold fridge quickly they will probably be fine for much longer. The smell test is most reliable for these items. Like the OP I have used out of date stock cubes and survived - they are very high in salt in their concentrated form so bugs won't survive long in them. I rarely look at dates and have occasionally noticed things many years past the best before date that I've recently used with no ill effects. Much of the food waste in this country is the result of people religiously following the dates on packets rather than using their common sense and sense of smell! The only think I am loathe to risk is fish and seafood as this has quite a strong smell even when fresh and I'm not sure I'd be confident to recognise if it was off, however I'm probably being over cautious in this case. Living on a low income I buy much of my food from the reduced section of the supermarket and sometimes if there are two tempting bargains I keep one for the next day but will always save the 'least risky' item.
I worked for many years in a quality control lab testing blood products. All our stock had expiry dates on the labels but at the end of the expiry period we simply retested samples and provided the products met the required standard they were re-labelled with a new date. Sometimes the potency was slightly lower after storage so the labelling would indicate that. They were much too valuable to throw away.
In the same way vegetables which are past their best before date may be less nutritious than fresher ones but they won't do you any harm - they just provide slightly less vitamins. But they won't provide any nutritional benefit in the bin at all, except maybe to the rats on the landfill site!

Wouldn’t worry me one bit!

I'm another that has no regard for best before dates. We don't eat meat though, however the ' Use by ' date for foods like fresh fish or shellfish I would have regard for.

Wouldn't worry me either. I'm sure my larder has lots of seasonings, flavourings and tinned foods beyond their best by dates because I don't do a lot of cooking and things just seem to hide at the back of the cupboards. But I'd rather use them eventually than waste them.

After my FIL died in 1993 we found a lot of dried foods and tinned foods in the basement of his house, most of them prewar. Some still had labels some didn't. I opened a tin of dried milk (dated 1949) which still looked and smelt fine and made hot chocolate with it! It was delicious, quite creamy and rich. No ill effects and we're all still here to tell the tale!

As a youngster, I was a butcher so ignore BB dates and use my own judgement. In fact, most meats improve with age. Supermarkets are advertising well-hung meat. Powders and the like may lose their colour but otherwise fine. If you want convincing, just look at a bottle of water where the contents have been around for millions of years but suddenly have a use by date!

I was discussing this with eldest DD as I had a small feta cheese salad in the fridge 2 days past the B.B. date which I was fine to eat but which she insisted on throwing out in tones of horror!
I must confess I tend to use the look, smell test myself if it’s boarderline especially as I am vegetarian so meat or fish don’t come into it,and have rarely had an upset stomach from any food, in fact the last time featured food in a cafe!

What did we all do in the old days before all these use by, best before dates came into use.

We examined the food, we smelt the food, and if it looked ok, we ATE the food.
So let’s all just use our common sense. Shall we?

I found my children were the worst about out of date food declaring in high drama that I was trying to kill them if they found the packaging. Now they are buying their own food it seems that it suddenly doesn’t matter

I assume it was not a cold soup. Providing it is simmered for 5 minutes, almost everything is safely edible regardless of sell by date.

This is the joy of making your own preserves, in my case chutney and jam. No sell by dates to worry consumers unduly. I will happily eat jam and chutney that is four or five years old and it often improves with age.

Understandably there are varying views on the 'Best Before' subject but perhaps what should be concerning us more is the 'Once Opened Use Within' labelling. When it comes to sauces/cream cheese/mayonnaise etc. we rarely remember the exact date things were opened, especially if several of us are using. I'm considering keeping some sticky labels and a pen near the fridge. Does this worry anyone else?