Tidy the Store Cupboard Challenge Day 2: Basic use-by dates

Day 2 of the new Tidy the Store Cupboard Challenge is all about Use-By dates. Not to be confused with the less essential ‘Best Before’ dates, Use-By dates are far more important and they’re about food safety.

Today’s quick activity is to check though the dates on your foodstuffs and make sure there’s nothing that’s gone off, then we’ll use the dates to do some organising.

Here’s the very speedy checklist for today’s to-do list, which should only take a few minutes:

• Go through your main cupboards and shelves, checking all the Use-By dates on the packaging.
• Safely dispose of anything that’s obviously not safe to eat any more. Ideally, put it into a food recycling bin.
• Don’t forget to check worktop canisters, spice racks, and so on.
• Some foods need common sense, for example rice or pasta just beyond its date might be fine as long as it’s been kept in a cool, dry place.
• If you find any foods that are getting close to their Use-By dates, put them to one side for today. We’ll be working out how to use them up later this week.
• Put the rest of the items back into your cupboards and onto your shelves.
• If there’s anything that you’ve had to dispose of that you use regularly, add it to your groceries list.
• Finally, empty the food recycling bin if it’s getting full.

There you have it, a relatively simple task you can easily get out of the way. It’s amazing what you can find lurking at the back of those shelves that you might have forgotten about.

Yesterday was the quick cleaning day and it didn’t take too long, apart from the bit where a few drops of cooking oil had run down the side of the bottle and on to one of the shelves. Picture proof above that I really did clean it up.