Mum says she saves at least £560 a year by ignoring food's sell-and-use-by dates

One thrifty mum reckons she saves at least £560 a year by ignoring food’ sell-by and use-by dates, urging people to use their ‘eyes and nose'.

Dr Marianne Trent, 41, said she was raised to ‘not necessarily use the sell-by dates or use-by dates as a gospel’, meaning she often relies on her own instincts.

However, she said she never takes the risk with meat, meaning she always sticks to the given dates unless it’s frozen.

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Trent, a clinical psychologist and founder of Good Thinking Psychological Services from Coventry, said: "I'm not a food technician. I'm a psychologist, but I think we can empower ourselves to use the senses that our ancestors have used for many, many generations to keep ourselves safe."

She is happy to use food as long as 'it's not mouldy, and it looks the same colour as it did when it was freshly bought, and it smells okay.'

"I'll sometimes taste double cream actually," she added.

"If I want to have it cold on a dessert then I'll make sure that it's in date, but if I'm cooking with it, and it looks and smells ok, then I figure the heat is going to do the job of making it safe anyway."

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Trent loves making the most of what she has, believing yellow sticker shopping isn’t always the best way to save money as it can sometimes encourage unnecessary purchases.

But while her various thrifty ways are helping her save money, she also supplements her approach by meal prepping.

According to the mum, her methods save her at least a tenner a week, with food shops for her family of four costing between £70 and £120 a week, including cleaning items like toilet roll.

"Before I go shopping, I will make sure that I've planned out what meals were all in for that week,” she said, saying it can be ‘really useful’ in ‘making sure that you're being as savvy as you can be’.

Trent may be willing to use her intuition when it comes to dates on her family’s food, she does try to buy certain products as fresh as she can.

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"I would always look at the dates when I'm in shops and try to buy the longest date I can for meat or for milk,” she continued.

"I'm not a food safety expert. If somebody's immune-compromised and has health limitations or allergies, they're going to want to make different choices and the ones that I make for myself and my family.

"It's a case of just doing things that feel comfortable for you."

To her knowledge, she has never got sick from eating food supposedly past its best, saying: "I think the only time I've ever had food poisoning was from a slightly dodgy prawn sandwich that I bought from the shop.

"And that was supposedly in-date."

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She added: "I think that people who cook a lot from scratch are more like me, because when you do that, you're empowered to taste your food as it's going along.

"If you've got a bit of a dodgy pepper, that's a little bit funkier then you might want to eat a salad, it works wonderfully in a frittata and onions as well.

"If they are slightly softer than you might like, they still cook up wonderfully, or you can put them in the oven and roast them."

Trent said family members now give her food they don’t want anymore, so that she can make a decision about whether or not it’s edible.

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"They just think they're being helpful," she said.

"They'll often bring stuff to me and go, 'Oh, I don't really want to eat this, but I thought you might want to make a decision.'

"And tins as well. I don't think tins ever go out of date. There's probably tins from the 1940s that are good to eat. Whether I would eat it, I don't know.

"I'm just trying to use my senses, really to be sensible and make choices that feel safe and nourishing, and that aren't going to be too wasteful."