best before dates

[bazil]

hi

i have a large bag of rice which is best before december.....how long do you guys think it should keep for

i figure it should be ok being that its dried

[Tay]

I wouldn't worry about the best before dates on dried foods such as rice and pasta. I have cooked rice which has been out of date by more than two years and suffered no ill effects. In fact, I have a large bag of rice with lots left, and have no idea of its best before date...

[Millymollymandy]

December what year? Best check it for weevilly food moth things and the tell tale little crumbs they leave. If it looks OK though, nothing to lose!

[dibnah]

trust the nose if it looks fine and smells fine I would have no problems eating it.

[2steps]

I always check for abvious problems (like the weevles or mould) and then give it a smell and if its ok eat it. same goes for anything, I've open up yoghurts a week out of date and theres been nothing wrong with them. I think it's silly that people, like my OH's sister will just throw things away because its past the best before date, without even checking. Comes back to the nanny state thing again - do we not even trust our own eyes and noses to tell us if it's ok or not?

[Welsh Girls Allotment]

My husband used to work in the Pot Noodle mine in Crumlin (yes it really exists) and was able to buy under/over weight noodles, we have some in the cupboard dated BBE Sept 1999 and if the fancy takes us we still eat them and they are ok strangely the sachets are a bit minging and go in the bin but the dried noodle part is fine.

[Andy Hamilton]

best before dates are just there to stop companies from being sued in my opinion. Most things do last much longer, I sometimes put rice and pasta into airtight containers and so don't know the dates on them. Only once have i had a problem with weavils and that was in a caravan.

[Merry]

I was involved in a `Growing Schools` programme a couple of years ago, where we gave seeds, equipment & guidance to try to get schools to grow food with the children.
It`s amazing the number of teachers who threw away the seeds we`d given them because the `sow by` year had gone.
I seem to remember reading somewhere about seeds that had been found in a pyramid or something that had germinated when planted!

[Wombat]

I depends.......

If there is oil in the product it can go rancid - be careful or you could wind up having a hearty ralph!

White rice will last almost indefinitely ditto for normal pasta - brown rice has oils that will go rancid, two minute noodles also has oil that will go rancidb - talking from expereince here

Nev