# Salad Dressings – expiration dates



## applecruncher

I know there’s a difference between “sell by” and “expiration date” and “best used by”.

I make many of my own dressings for salads.  Sometimes I buy a few bottled salad dressings.  I was cleaning out the frig recently and was surprised to see I had several bottled dressings which hadn’t been used often and were overdue to be thrown away.

Do you check the dates on salad dressings?  (Many people don’t.)


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## Kadee

Yes I do, I also make some dressings,however when buying them I check the sugar content it's a bit of a shock when you realise how much sugar sauces,dressings contain


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## Fern

A lot of good food is wasted big time because of throwing it out after the use by date. Usually there is nothing wrong with it.


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## SeaBreeze

I check the dates, but there's many things I use that I'm not fussy about expiry dates.  If the salad dressing has been opened for a long time, I'll throw it out, especially if it's a creamy one like Ranch, Creamy Italian, etc.  Even a French I'll toss if it's been expired for awhile and opened, I'll usually smell it.  Even if they're unopened in my cabinet and expired by much, I'll smell and taste a little to judge whether it's usable. We use packaged, canned foods, etc. well beyone the expiration date.


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## applecruncher

SeaBreeze said:


> I check the dates, but there's many things I use that I'm not fussy about expiry dates. If the salad dressing has been opened for a long time, I'll throw it out, especially if it's a creamy one like Ranch, Creamy Italian, etc. Even a French I'll toss if it's been expired for awhile and opened, I'll usually smell it. Even if they're unopened in my cabinet and expired by much, *I'll smell and taste a little to judge whether it's usable. We use packaged, canned foods, etc. well beyone the expiration date*.



This is similar to what I do.  I have packaged things on my shelf now that are way beyond the exp/best used by date.  The dressings I threw out were way overdue for the trash.

I'm super strict about milk.  Waste or not I'll dump it before the date, but I only buy pints or sometimes quarts.  I just can't tolerate milk that's going bad or doesn't smell right _to me.
_


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## SeaBreeze

I can't drink milk that's near spoiling for sure AC.  We don't drink it, but I buy pints of 2% milk to make eggcreams, with hershey syrup, milk and seltzer water...so sometimes we don't even use it all before I'm trashing it.


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