A couple of days ago I had an upset stomach and it didn’t seem to be related to the cold/flu I have just had. It was probably something I ate.

I cast my mind back to the previous day’s meals and thought the problem might have been the chocolate chip cheesecake squares I had made because the shortening I had used to make them was a little past its best-before date. Well, a few months past to be honest. I am notorious for letting things linger a little too long in my fridge. Just to be sure, I ate another cheesecake square. After all, I still had a whole panful and I wasn’t going to throw it all out if it wasn’t the problem.

A few hours later, my body had not reacted badly to the cheesecake, so that wasn’t it. Phew! To be on the safe side, though, I did throw out what remained of the shortening.

Then, I cast my mind back to the other foods I had eaten and remembered that I had air fried some frozen fish and chips, but they didn’t seem to present a risk. At the same time, however, I had eaten some salad. It was made up of spring mix, cucumber, and celery. The spring mix was a couple of days past its best-before date, so I threw it out along with what was left of the cucumber. The celery was still pretty sturdy, so I kept it.

It dawned on me then that I had not checked the best-before date of the Ranch salad dressing and, sure enough, it was so old it was on a government pension. I am too embarrassed to tell you what its best-before date was.

That got me going on a clear-out of my fridge. It isn’t always easy to find the best-before dates, but I found most of them. I discovered several items that were destined to add to my shame, then I dutifully emptied them out down the drain.

One item, Tabasco, has only a lot number on the side which is no use whatsoever. When I bought a new bottle this morning I discovered that the best before date is on the box! What use is that? No-one keeps the box. Being resourceful, and because I know I will forget when I bought it, I taped the box flap to the new bottle.

All of this sorting, discovering, and throwing out gave me a headache, so I dug out my bottle of Advil from the bathroom drawer. Guess what? Yup, it was older than the Ranch dressing. A lot older. I still haven’t thrown the Advil out, though, because frugal-me thinks that the best-before dates probably don’t matter so much with headache pills. However, newly date-conscious-me thinks they should go in the bin. We are still having that conversation.