Unsalted Butter & Expiry Date

Snitchcat · Jul 13, 2019

Cooking experts, could you provide a little help, please?

I have a block of unopened unsalted butter in my fridge. The expiry date was Jan 2019.

Can I still use it, or should I throw it out?

Thank-ee!

cornflake · Jul 13, 2019

Use it. I don't think I've ever looked at a butter expiry date in my life. Depending on what you want it for, and how it's wrapped, you might want to scrape/slice off a bit of the outside -- it's not bad, but if it's wrapped in like, wax paper inside a box, there's probably been some air got to it and the outside may look darker and taste a bit old.

If you're like, cooking with it, I'd not bother.

Snitchcat · Jul 14, 2019

Thanks, Cornflake.

I double-checked if it smelled or tasted funny. But it was okay, so used it in cinnamon rolls.

Thanks again! (^_^)

MaeZe · Jul 14, 2019

Not much of a cook but I am pretty good at knowing what one can eat past the exp date. You can smell and taste rancid butter. If it smells okay, then it is fine. You can also taste a tiny bit, it won't hurt you to taste a bit of rancid butter.

And I like Cornflake's idea of scraping off the surface if it's only beginning to go bad. You can always do that with cheese when it starts to get moldy.

AW Admin · Jul 14, 2019

Butter kept cold won't go rancid for years. Many years.

Irish bog butter is edible.

Snitchcat · Jul 14, 2019

Thank you, all.

I made cinnamon rolls. Although triangles might be more accurate.

Maryn · Jul 14, 2019

This awakens a pet peeve I have. (One of a great many.) The expiration, best by, and use by dates on our food products are pretty unnecessary. Food will tell you when it's gone to the Dark Side, by smell, texture, taste, appearance, something.

Butter kept cold lasts forever. Yesterday I baked, which I rarely do any more (thanks, Weight Watchers) and my butter expired in 2017. I've used eggs eight or ten months after they expired, the only precaution being to crack them into a cup in case one is bad, so I don't sully whatever I'm making. I haven't come across a bad egg in decades, though.

Maryn, old enough to remember no dates on anything

be frank · Jul 14, 2019

Maryn said:
I've used eggs eight or ten months after they expired, the only precaution being to crack them into a cup in case one is bad, so I don't sully whatever I'm making.

Put them in a bowl of cold water. If they sink, they're fine. Stand on end, they're getting stale. Float ... they've gone bad.

Alessandra Kelley · Jul 14, 2019

AW Admin said:
Butter kept cold won't go rancid for years. Many years.

Irish bog butter is edible.

Fascinating.

And yet, ew.

be frank said:
Put them in a bowl of cold water. If they sink, they're fine. Stand on end, they're getting stale. Float ... they've gone bad.

Cherries are like that too. Every once in a while some sort of bug larva gets into a few of our cherries from the tree out front and the quickest way to find 'em is to put the cherries in a sink full of cold water. The good ones sink, the buggy ones float.

RedRajah · Jul 14, 2019

One of the (many) cooking pet peeves I have with my husband is him being anal about throwing out perfectly good food the day it allegedly expires.

The other big one is him using my steak knives to chop carrots

Snitchcat · Jul 14, 2019

RedRajah said:
The other big one is him using my steak knives to chop carrots

:O :O

Snitchcat · Jul 14, 2019

Maryn said:
This awakens a pet peeve I have. (One of a great many.) The expiration, best by, and use by dates on our food products are pretty unnecessary. Food will tell you when it's gone to the Dark Side, by smell, texture, taste, appearance, something.

Butter kept cold lasts forever. Yesterday I baked, which I rarely do any more (thanks, Weight Watchers) and my butter expired in 2017. I've used eggs eight or ten months after they expired, the only precaution being to crack them into a cup in case one is bad, so I don't sully whatever I'm making. I haven't come across a bad egg in decades, though.

Maryn, old enough to remember no dates on anything

Oooh! Great info, thank you! Means I can make Cheesecake end of next week!

- - - Updated - - -

Alessandra Kelley said:
Fascinating.

And yet, ew.

Cherries are like that too. Every once in a while some sort of bug larva gets into a few of our cherries from the tree out front and the quickest way to find 'em is to put the cherries in a sink full of cold water. The good ones sink, the buggy ones float.

Definitely doing both of these tests. Thank you for the information!

cornflake · Jul 14, 2019

I always do the floating egg test -- you can just stick one in a juice glass or whatever, add cold water, and if it floats, toss. Good eggs don't sink like lay flat on the bottom, they do have a tiny air pocket, so bob a quarter inch or so above the bottom, but bad ones have filled with gas and float like cooked ravioli.

I was at the farmer's market (where I get eggs from a small producer), and the woman in front of me asked the woman how to tell if the eggs were bad, because the farm egg cartons don't have expiry dates. The farm woman was like, 'eggs last like... months and months, those dates are stupid.'

There is some stuff to be careful of just btw -- like cooked rice -- that can be actually bad even if it looks and smells ok, and there are 'rules' like hard cheese with mold just cut off, bread with mold toss the whole thing, not just the slice, because the spores have contaminated the entire bag/loaf, you just can't see it yet, but in general, yeah, dates are ridiculous.

Ari Meermans · Jul 14, 2019

The U.S. doesn't really have food safety-labeling regulations at the federal level, though some states do have additional regs. Food labeling came about in the '70s primarily because consumers wanted to know what is in our food. Expiration dates and "Best By" dates are about peak freshness. After those dates, you might notice a decline in freshness and taste but it doesn't mean it's not safe to consume—cereals and baked goods, for instance, can be expected to start going stale but will remain edible for quite a while before mold sets in. We still have to use our good sense and the tests mentioned above for foods which are susceptible to bacteria and fungus . . . all those types of nasty little critters.

ULTRAGOTHA · Jul 14, 2019

RedRajah said:
One of the (many) cooking pet peeves I have with my husband is him being anal about throwing out perfectly good food the day it allegedly expires.

We went months not having to buy milk because a lady at the school Wife worked at would toss the half pint milk cartons on the SELL BY date (!). Wife would come home with a whole bag full most days. Ridiculous. EXPENSIVE for the private school, too.

Dairy that isn't opened lasts a long, long, LONG time. Sell by and use by are useless dates.

We once bought 24 pounds of butter at $0.59 per pound at an Easter loss leader sale. It lasted over two years (in the freezer).

MaeZe · Jul 14, 2019

I always buy cheese on sale and freeze it, same with bread because only one store has the bread I eat and I don't go there often. If you warm the cheese just a hair past room temperature before you put it in the fridge it stops it from coming out crumbly.

AW Admin · Jul 14, 2019

ULTRAGOTHA said:
Dairy that isn't opened lasts a long, long, LONG time. Sell by and use by are useless dates.

Make sure it's pasteurized.

Lavern08 · Jul 14, 2019

Maryn said:
...The expiration, best by, and use by dates are pretty unnecessary. Food will tell you when it's gone to the Dark Side, by smell, texture, taste, appearance, something - Butter kept cold lasts forever.

Yeah that ^

Snitchcat · Jul 14, 2019

*happily notes down all the advice* (^_^)

Thank you.

Snitchcat · Jul 14, 2019

cornflake said:
There is some stuff to be careful of just btw -- like cooked rice -- that can be actually bad even if it looks and smells ok

Cooked rice is definitely okay if it's been in the fridge overnight or left sealed in an airtight container. But anything passed that, and you have to toss it -- bacteria and mould are a problem. And the cooked rice reverts to raw rice. Re-cooking that after 2 days is inadvisable.

cornflake · Jul 14, 2019

Snitchcat said:
Cooked rice is definitely okay if it's been in the fridge overnight or left sealed in an airtight container. But anything passed that, and you have to toss it -- bacteria and mould are a problem. And the cooked rice reverts to raw rice. Re-cooking that after 2 days is inadvisable.

As long as it was cooled right away and not left out on the table or whatever for an hour or more before cooling -- which is I think what a lot of people don't think about w/something plain like rice. It's an outlier thing, because the spores aren't necessarily killed by cooking, and can be really dangerous, and not something you can tell by smell or taste.

mccardey · Jul 14, 2019

be frank said:
Put them in a bowl of cold water. If they sink, they're fine. Stand on end, they're getting stale. Float ... they've gone bad.

You don't have to do this if they're already hatched, though. Because chicks is how you tell if they're already hatched. .

be frank · Jul 14, 2019

mccardey said:
You don't have to do this if they're already hatched, though. Because chicks is how you tell if they're already hatched. .

Hmm. You make a good point.

be frank said:
Put them in a bowl of cold water. If they sink, they're fine. Stand on end, they're getting stale. Float ... they've gone bad. If they start swimming, they've gone to chook.

mccardey · Jul 14, 2019

be frank said:
gone to chook.

is my new favourite expression for anything past its use-by.

ETA: And it's also the name of Helix's new rock band.

cornflake · Jul 14, 2019

Wait, isn't that how you figure out if the chicken is a witch?

Unsalted Butter & Expiry Date

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