The 'best before' challenge ... One man boldly goes beyond the use-by dates on his food



It is lunchtime and I am arguing with my wife. It is a big one. We are entering neighbours-can-hear-every-word territory. Something terrible has come between us: an uncooked piece of chicken. My wife Emily points out that it is six days past its Use-By date and shouts: 'It's gone off, idiot!'



She accuses me of trying to poison my stepson Felix, 16, who, like me, wants to eat it. I say she shouldn't believe everything she reads on the label. This makes things worse.



Welcome to an unusual experiment. For two weeks I have decided to eat increasingly out-of-date supermarket-food in an attempt to discover the truth about Use-By and Best Before dates, and prove that Britain is throwing out tons of perfectly good produce.



Taste the difference: Jonathan sees how much his food deteriorates as the Use-By dates go by

According to WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, we chuck out 6.7 million tons of food every year, most of it fine to eat. This year we will throw food worth up to £10 billion in the bin. That's £420 for every UK household.



I'm no Bob Geldof. I don't want to save the world but I would like to save the odd sausage. The amount we waste is immoral.



While we squander mountains of food, up to six million children below the age of five will die around the world this year from malnutrition, according to the United Nations.



One of the reasons for these figures is Use-By dates. Millions of us throw food out as soon as the relevant date is reached. This, after all, is what the Government tells us to do.



The Food Standards Agency (FSA) advice is clear: 'Don't use any food or drink after the end of the Use-By date on the label, even if it looks and smells fine ... using it after this date could put your health at risk.'



But how great is that risk? I played culinary Russian Roulette to find out.

DAY ONE



I eat two fried eggs on toast, both a day past their Best Before date. The FSA says Best Before, as opposed to Use-By, is more about quality than safety, so when the date runs out, it doesn't mean the food will be harmful. They make an exception, however, for eggs: 'You shouldn't eat eggs after the Best Before date ... they can contain salmonella bacteria, which could multiply.' The eggs, from Tesco, taste great.



DAY TWO



Feeling absolutely fine, I turn my attention to a Marks & Spencer Scottish-salmon fillet, two days past its Use-By date. I cook it thoroughly and it tastes exquisite. My wife says I am a moron and that when I get ill she will not be cleaning up.



Funnily enough, I do feel queasy in the next 24 hours. But only when I see more WRAP statistics. Every day we bin 4.4 million apples, 5.1 million potatoes, 2.8 million tomatoes and 1.6 million bananas. Not every week: every day.



You and I are partly to blame, of course, for buying too much. But so are the Government and supermarkets. When health chiefs urged us to eat five portions of fruit and veg a day, their motives were honourable but the consequences were unfortunate.



We now buy millions of tons of it but eat only a fraction: 40 per cent of the food we waste consists of fruit and veg.



Meanwhile, supermarkets offer enticing BOGOF deals: Buy One, Get One Free. BOTOA might be more accurate: Buy One, Throw One Away.



DAY THREE



I cook myself a large Sainsbury's 'Taste The Difference' steak pie, three days past its Use-By date. It's meant for two, but my wife won't let me give my leftovers to Felix, so I offer them to the dog, Monty. Normally the least fussy eater in the world, he declines. Perhaps dogs know something about expiry dates I don't.



DAY FOUR



Two excellent Tesco Finest Pork and Fresh Bramley Apple sausages, four days 'past it'. My wife says they smell funny.



The late Roy Jenkins was responsible for our system of food labelling. He was European Commission President when it issued directive 79/112, laying down rules about date marking on food. We adopted them in 1980.



In his day, however, the shelf life of food was shorter. Now, due to improvements in hygiene and food technology, the Use-By date can be three weeks away. Indeed, thanks to additives and preservatives, food generally lasts twice as long before it becomes 'date expired' than it did in the Eighties.



DAY FIVE



One Asda fruit cocktail trifle, five days past its Use-By date. I've been a big fan of trifle ever since I was a boy, and this is spoon-licking good. Gone in six seconds. Yum. And, more importantly, no after-effects.



No thanks! Wife Emily turns her nose up at Jonathan's aging titbits

DAY SIX



One Asda 'smart price' Chicken Breast Fillet. My wife, realising the meat was six days past its Use-By date, reacted like a vampire seeing a crucifix. I devoured it. Granted, it lacked a little tenderness, but that may have been because I had roasted the living daylights out of it. Ill-effects: none.



Cooking, or the lack of it, is crucial in all this. Microbiologist Doctor Lee Humpheson, who runs a food-testing laboratory, says: 'There is a 100 per cent greater risk from food that hasn't been cooked or prepared properly, even if it is really fresh, than from food which is past its Use-By date, but which has been cooked and prepared properly.'

In other words, wash your hands when handling food, don't use the raw meat knife to spread butter and follow cooking instructions to a 'T'. Then, even though your sausages are, say, three days out of date, you will be fine.



Expiry dates are there for a reason, but, according to Dr David Jukes, a senior lecturer in Food Bioscience at Reading University: 'The longer you leave food after its Use-By date has expired, the more its bacteria will multiply, posing a greater risk to your health.'



But how do manufacturers decide on an expiry date in the first place?



When new products come on the market, tests are run to see at what stage bacteria in the food become harmful. More tests are then carried out, taking into account the effect of variables such as packaging, transportation and storage temperatures.



Dr Jukes says many supermarkets will err on the side of caution when deciding on an expiry date. 'Inevitably, the food industry plays safe. Use-By dates have a degree of safety built in, in order to protect the industry.' So how great is that degree of safety? Quite big, if my experience is anything to go by.

DAY SEVEN



One full portion (250g) of Tesco 'Healthy Living' extra lean steak mince, seven days past its Use-By date. For the first time, I am alarmed. The meat has changed colour. It used to be reddish but is now grey. My wife cooks it for 45 minutes and adds herbs and spices. Gorgeous, but slightly rubbery.



Dr Martin Caraher, an expert in food policy at City University in London, says: 'The supermarkets' main concern is the health of their customers but strict Use-By dates are also in their financial interests. If customers throw food away, they have to replace it by buying even more. Use-By dates can be a happy accident for them.'



DAY EIGHT



My first supermarket ready meal: Asda Chinese Chicken in Black Bean Sauce with boiled rice, eight days past its Use-By date. The sauce is bitter. This may be what it's usually like or it may be it's off: having never eaten this dish before, I don't know. The next day I feel great.



Ironically, my wife has stomach cramps after eating fresh fish. I can't help laughing.



As part of my investigation, I also want to highlight how much food is thrown out by supermarkets, as opposed to the customer. To this end, I meet Alf, an Oxford graduate in his 30s who is a 'Freegan' - that is, he lives off food that supermarkets throw out.



I join him on a food raid, or 'food liberation exercise'. We meet in a town in Kent just after the local Iceland and Sainsbury's have closed.



Minutes later, having rummaged through six bins, we've filled four carrier bags with cooked gammon steaks, ham, cheese, bread, cans of butter beans, pilchards, trifles (joy of joys), apples, tomatoes, a toad-in-the-hole ready meal, sausages, grapes (from Chile), carrot cake, sugar, yogurt, Scotch pancakes, pasta, chocolate and fresh mushrooms.



All of it is still in its packaging, much of it isn't even out of date: some has been thrown out because the packaging is slightly damaged.



Breaking the mould: Jonathan tucks in to out-of-date bread under his wife's disgusted - and worried - eye

DAY NINE



I ask Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson to cook what we raided (sorry, liberated). He makes pasta and pilchard bake, sausage and mushroom hash with a crushed butter bean topping and gammon steaks topped with cheese and tomato.



It isn't the stuff he serves in his restaurants - it's more like classy school food - but the fact that it cost nothing makes it taste even better.



Worrall Thompson says: 'You can tell when food has really gone off. Poultry gets sticky and slimy and smells a bit pungent. With fish, the skin goes dry, the eyes sunken, and the gills go brown. Fruit and vegetables go limp and yellow.



'You will often find me down the supermarket snapping up the half-price deals on out-of-date food.'



And what about Freegan Alf? 'In seven years of liberating food I have never been ill,' says the Raider of the Lost Bins, over forkfuls of Scotch pancakes with caramelised apple drizzled in yogurt.'



So how do retailers justify throwing out food not even out of date?



The body that represents supermarkets, the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said: 'Damaged packaging can expose food to contamination. Retailers work hard to minimise food waste .. . it is ridiculous to suggest retailers run up unnecessary costs by discarding products where they don't have to.'



Back home, time for another ready meal. Moussaka, fully nine days gone. I cook it for three minutes longer than the instructions say, just in case. Surprisingly scrumptious.



DAY TEN



A Marks & Spencer carrot and orange muffin, ten days past its Best Before date. Unlike yesterday's moussaka, the muffin is not scrumptious. It is stodgy and dry. But if you were on a hike and this was all you had, you wouldn't think twice.



DAY 11



Sainsbury's Lemon and Coriander Houmous, 11 days old. It is tangy, but that may be the lemon talking.



DAY 12



One portion of Tesco 'Traditionally sliced' runner beans, 12 days past their Use-By date. They are more than acceptable.



DAY 13



Today I had planned to eat a bread roll 13 days past its Best Before date but I'm now feeling cocky about not getting ill, so I up the stakes. Enter some Hovis brown bread, three-and-a-half weeks past its Best Before date. Except it isn't brown. It is mottled green. And smells of socks. I toast it and smother it in butter and marmalade. It is crunchy and tastes just like toast should, although during one mouthful I detect a hint of pepper.



DAY 14



Emboldened, I end my experiment on Day 14 with a bowl of Kellogg's Sultana Bran cereal, nearly three months past its Best Before date. Not very crisp but eminently edible.



It is over. Despite eating food that was increasingly out of date every day for two weeks, I have suffered not a scintilla of tummy trouble.



Friends, family and colleagues are impressed. The FSA are not. Their spokeswoman, describing my experiment as 'really risky', says: 'You might have been OK eating these products, but others could have become seriously ill.



'We are not taking a nanny state approach. Our advice about Use-By dates is just that: advice. But it comes from peer-reviewed scientific studies. A non-scientific experiment conducted by one person is unlikely to be representative of the public as a whole.'



Fair enough. But I am not suggesting everyone eats food past its Use-By date. That would be irresponsible. Children, pregnant women, ill people and pensioners may be especially susceptible to the bacteria in it. What my experiment does show, however, is that a lot of that food may be safe for the rest of us to eat.



And we should, arguably, never waste food simply because of the Best Before date. As the FSA guidelines acknowledge, it almost certainly won't make us ill, it just won't taste as good. Even if it is (relatively) ancient.



Last week Felix, intrigued by my experiment, proudly presented me with an empty packet of Walker's salt and vinegar crisps which Granny had given him. The Best Before date? May 17, 2003. 'Chewy, but OK,' was the verdict.



Past Its Sell-by Date: A Tonight Special is on ITV1 on Friday, June 13, at 8pm.





My out of date diary



DAY ONE: Two Tesco eggs, one day past their Best Before date.



DAY TWO: One whole Marks & Spencer Scottish salmon fillet, two days past its Use-By date.



DAY THREE: Three-quarters of a Sainsbury's 'Taste the Difference' Top Crust steak pie (serves two), three days past its Use-By date.



DAY FOUR: Two Tesco Finest Pork and Fresh Bramley Apple sausages, four days past their Use-By date.



DAY FIVE: One Asda fruit cocktail trifle, five days past its Use-By date.



DAY SIX: One Asda 'Smart Price' Chicken Breast Fillet, six days past its Use-By date.



DAY SEVEN: One full portion (250g) of Tesco 'Healthy Living' extra lean steak mince, seven days past its Use-By date.



DAY EIGHT: Asda Chinese Chicken in Black Bean Sauce with boiled rice, eight days past its Use-By date.



DAY NINE: M&S meat Moussaka, nine days past its Use-By date.



DAY TEN: One M&S carrot and orange muffin, ten days past its Best Before date.



DAY 11: Sainsbury's Lemon and Coriander Houmous, 11 days past its Use-By date.



DAY 12: One portion of Tesco 'Traditionally sliced' runner beans, 12 days past their

Use-By date.



DAY 13: One piece of Hovis original wheatgerm bread (toasted), three-and-a-half weeks past its Best Before date.



DAY 14: One bowl of Kellogg's Sultana Bran cereal, 12 weeks past its Best Before date.





How the law relates to Sell By dates:

The 1996 EU food labelling directive requires perishable foods - dairy products, fish and meat - to be marked with Use By, giving the date up to which food remains safe for consumption. It is illegal to sell food past this date.



A Best Before date - which can be day and month, month and year, or just year - must be given by law for non-perishable food, i.e. dried or tinned. Food used before this date will be of best quality, although it is not illegal to sell food, except eggs, past this date.



Each manufacturer is responsible for providing Use-By and Best Before dates based on their own scientific studies - observing time taken for food to grow bacteria - backed up with published data on similar foods. Dates can differ between manufacturers.



Safe thresholds for bacteria before it causes poisoning, established from studies involving human volunteers, are set by the European Food Safety Agency.



The law does not state length of Use-By dates.



'We monitor via auditing that shows up anomalies but we do rely on manufacturers to be honest,' says Trading Standards officer David Pickering.



Firms can be fined up to £5,000 for a 'Food labelling offence'.