Safe to Eat?

Updated on November 28, 2012
R.M. asks from Evanston, IL
6 answers

I found a brand new bag of frozen swai fish filets in the freezer. They have a "best by" date on them of 6 months ago. They are individually vacuum sealed. There is a little bit of ice inside the vacuum seal but very little. I opened one up and thawed it out, it smelled perfectly fine (like nothing) so I cooked it up and tasted it... tasted fine also. That best by date is bothering me though. Is this just for quality since it does not say "use by" or is it a safety concern as well? It has been in the freezer the whole time but we did have one power outage of about 3 hours during which time the freezer remained shut. Do you think the fish is safe to feed to my family tonight or should I wait a few days to see if I keel over first? lol

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A.P.

answers from Washington DC on

we regularly keep items in our freezer LONG past the best by date. Two things to keep in mind - it's a "best by", not a "rotten by" date.

Second, the best by date is an artificial guess at best. The worst that will happen is freezer burn, and that you can see before you taste. Otherwise, we freeze meat and use it up to 3 years later! We buy beef and pork straight from the farm and have used it (and tasted wonderfully) 3 years later. We've also kept store bought lunch meat, cheese and hotdogs for 2 years or more.

It's all good, but just keep an eye on the freezer burn. :)

5 moms found this helpful

B.C.

answers from Norfolk on

It is fine to eat.
The 'best by' date means it was at it's peak flavor 6 months ago.
It's very hard for fish to freezer burn when they are vacuum packed they way they do it now.
If you ate a fresh one side by side with it you might notice a slight difference in taste/quality.
You can have it for dinner and not worry.
I sometimes find a freezer burnt steak at the back of my freezer.
It's still good for making stew with.

3 moms found this helpful

C.V.

answers from Columbia on

It's just fine.

Go ahead and feed it to whomever you like. They're not going to keel over.

2 moms found this helpful

S.G.

answers from Grand Forks on

Frozen food that has been handled properly is always safe to eat. A three hour power outage with the freezer closed won't effect the safety, the food would not have thawed. It does start to lose flavour after the best before date. I would probably make sure it is nicely seasoned when you cook it in case the flavour has deteriorated, but even so, it is only six months so I am sure the flavour will be fine as well.

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L.C.

answers from Los Angeles on

Check with the manufacturer. They probably have a help line.

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S.G.

answers from Los Angeles on

It's probably just fine. It was frozen. You said it had no foul odor. And you ate it and didn't get sick yet.
I just saw an interesting story on those misleading dates on CBS Sunday Morning. Watch it here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50135402n

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