Hooray For No FDA!

Although this kid is enjoying his temporary settlement in Northern Ireland, cost cutting measures must be taken in daily life to save enough cheese to produce myself in unchartered ground in a couple months. We have already spoken of frigid sleeping conditions to cut down on the energy bills, now lets talk about food. Expired ones.
Some people religiously adhere to expiration dates. I have a certain brother in law that I am pretty sure wakes up at midnight to go downstairs to rid the fridge of any “danger” that is now 2 minutes over the recommended consumption date. Well actually to be honest I think he throws it out 2 days before expiration, but you get my drift. I mean really, is the "Best By" date just a friendly suggestion or does stuff really turn into inedible matter at the stroke of midnight?
For those who throw culinary caution into the wind, a wealth of savings can be had by developing an inability to read or care about mostly arbitrary expiration dates. Born a picky eater, it has only come to me recently to consume just about anything. This combined with having apprencticed under notorious deal finder Matt Kopp (I am pretty sure he used to bring his own price sticker gun to the store in addition to purposely denting cans one day to return to buy them in the damaged goods section the next day) has made pragmatic eating the trend as of recent. Ever see something at the grocery store that expires the next day and wonder what is to come of the food the next day? Well here in Belfast the good Arabic family that runs Bestsellers Grocery either nabs the stuff out of the dumpster at the regular stores or buys these goods for next to nothing and puts them on display in their own store. Either way, I don't really care as long as I can continue to be able to buy canned good for 15 cents and pounds of bacon for a Pound.

The place is freaking amazing. Name brands galore, all with varying lengths of dates past that I try not to look at. Obviously the meats, cheeses, and milk have to be consumed in a timely basis, but other than that whats 2 weeks on stuff that is expired by 20 months? See that yogurt? Well it wasn't pro-biotic before, but it certainly is now.

The biggest delimma of today was when I stumbled upon a commercial size tin of stadium-grade Nacho Cheese. Although it would have taken me a month of daily nacho eating to finish it, I sat and comtemplated how for £1.50, it may just be worth trying out.

Having a dinner party tomorrow with expired taco shells, enchilada sauce, and salsa. Will let you know if anyone dies.

Good for a long while,
Brian