A THRIFTY mum is beating the cost-of-living crisis by disregarding sell-and-use-by dates of food and using her intuition to make delicious meals instead – saving at least £560 a year.
Dr Marianne Trent, 41, a clinical psychologist and founder of Good Thinking Psychological Services from Coventry, said she disregards how most people assess the fitness of their food because she was raised to 'not necessarily take the sell-by dates or use-by dates as a gospel and to use your eyes and your nose'.
She stressed: "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."
Explaining that she will never take the risk with meat and will always stick to its given dates unless frozen, Marianne, who is a big fan of freezing, said she has tried and tested methods to ensure the suitability of her food.
She is prepared 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.'
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"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."
Marianne is a big proponent of making the most of what you've got and thinks yellow sticker shopping isn't necessarily the best way to beat the cost of living crisis because it can encourage unnecessary buys.
She explained: "It's often lots of heavily processed foods, which isn't necessarily what I use in our family home anyway, but I will always have a look.
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"There's a recent Nationwide Building Society advert that has snippets of real people talking about the financial crisis.
"There's a lady in it who says that she uses a yellow sticker section and that she'd ended up buying baconaise. She said, 'I don't even know what baconaise is, but that's a right bargain.'
"I would actually say that that's not necessarily a bargain because if you didn't know what something was, then you're not really necessarily needing that.
"In terms of psychology, we shouldn't let ourselves be too swayed by what we see."
Marianne said that her thrifty ways are saving her money, but she supplements her approach to sell-by and use-by dates with meal prepping.
According to the mum, her methods save her at least £10 a week, and her food shops for her family of four cost between £70 and £120 a week – includes cleaning items like toilet roll.
She said: "Before I go shopping, I will make sure that I've planned out what meals were all in for that week.
"I try to plan exactly which meal I'm going to cook so that I'm only shopping for the specifics on my shopping list.
“Because if we do it impulsively, then we just randomly scattergun in the store and then we might get home and think, 'I spent a fortune but haven't actually got anything to cook meals with.'
"Having a little bit more planning can be really useful in just making sure that you're being as savvy as you can be."
While Marianne admits that she's registered for food waste apps like Olio and TooGoodToGo before, which offer unwanted food or food close to its best-before date for free or a small fee, she believes they aren't the most economical option.
She explained: "I saw someone's recently on Facebook – I think it was TooGoodToGo. It was from a corner shop, and she ended up with literally a whole table full of Jolly Ranchers, the American candy.
"I don't want a whole cupboard full of that. So yes, I'm pleased that someone will benefit from these apps, but that's not necessarily the way that we should be nourishing our bodies, just because it's free or cheap."
Marianne said she ultimately believes that Olio, in particular, would probably work well for people living in large communities who want to share food, something that she said she does when she cooks a large dish.
"If I cook a big pudding or something at home, then I'll often text my neighbours to see if they want any cheesecake or some crumble and they always do," she revealed.
But while Marianne is willing to use her intuition when it comes to the dates on her family's food, she does try and certain things as fresh as she possibly can.
She admitted: "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.
"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."
Marianne said that to her knowledge, she has never gotten sick from eating food that's past its assigned sell-by and best-before dates.
"I think the only time I've ever had food poisoning was from a slightly dodgy prawn sandwich that I bought from the shop," she said. "And that was supposedly in-date."
The mum said that while she knows a lot of people who aren't like her, she imagines that people who enjoy cooking from scratch will share her views.
"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," she admitted.
"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."
Marianne said that her family members now give her food that they don't want anymore, allowing her to make a decision about its suitability.
"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.'
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"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."
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