Immediately frozen, it can last 3-4 months. Ground meat, on the other hand, should be cooked on the day of purchase. Frozen beef, 6-12 months and frozen chicken, a year. Chicken should be cooked a day or 2 after purchase. So long as it does not develop an off colour or odour, refrigerated cheese can be salvaged by cutting away “2.5 cm around any mold.” Raw beef or pork can sit in the fridge 3-5 days after purchase. Retailers are also not permitted to tamper with best before dates.ĬBC offers the following general “rules of thumb” for handling dairy and meat, presumably with guidance from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Health Canada (HC). While it is legal to sell products in Canada past their best before dates, it is not legal to sell products after their expiration dates. Some can become dangerous to consume after their expiry date.įurther, best before dates are voluntary on packaged goods with shelf lives longer than 90 days. The nutrients in fortified foods and active substances in medication (particularly prescription drugs) degrade over time. “Expiry dates” are mandatory on “fortified” foods and medication. Me, I’ve seen that chart, but I never thought that it applied to my purchase.
This chart is meant to help consumers determine how long meat is safe to consume from the date it is packaged. “Packaged-on” dates are mandatory on meat and co-ordinate with a chart that is displayed at meat counters. The fact is that those of us who wander the aisles of the mega-mart rarely stop to consider that there are actually three types of date codes, stamped, stickered, or written (sometimes scribbled unintelligibly) on food packaging: Best Before dates, Packaged-on dates, and Expiry Dates.Īccording to the CBC piece, “Best before” dates are mandatory on packaged goods with a shelf life of 90 days or less. I just came across an interesting piece from the CBC entitled “Is my food still safe after the ‘best before’ date?” It is filed under Food Safety: Recession Tips, and was published several days ago.
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