dmodemd

Bought a minimeal yesterday DEN-BWI and noticed the salami (or whatever it is) was dated use by 1/4 - 4 days past due. I ate it anyway Its 24 hours later and so far so good

So I looked on the box itself and faintly impressed on the bottom is a date which said 12/16! ...which I presume is the packing date...

Im not one to complain so I didn't but you may want to check those dates before you pop it open.

Surprising for coming out of a hub... they must have quite a backlog of those meals!

Lee

itsme

You presume that 12/16 was the packing date AND that it was 12/16/05.

In any event, don't be too preoccupied since most types of food "poisoning" would have caused symptoms by now, and salami, a preserved meat, might be less risky than other kinds of meat. I recall that as campers 50 years ago our parents would send us salamis as part of the food packages from home and we would keep them a long time in our bunks without obvious ill-effects.

(BTW, since you saw the date and elected to eat it anyway, it might be argued that you assumed the risk.)

IceTrojan

Where's your compensation?!

itsme

You think they should send him a 12/17 one with a bon appetite from Glenn Tilton?

IceTrojan

That, and a SWU, is in order

goingsomewhere

I suspect it's probably due to bad rotation of the older boxes. Instead of first in, first out, they went first in and was forgotten until now.

I wonder what's the compensation about this one.

ButIsItArt

...and maybe a thank you card from the septic engineer who flushed the lavs on the flight the OP was on -- just like what happened to jrblack on another thread

itsme

OK, a meal date stamped 12/17, a bon appetite from almost-out-of-BK-$20M-richer Glenn Tilton, and an SWU with 1/31/05 expiration date.

ClipperClub

We've had quite a few snackboxes with outdated items lately. We are happy to exchange them if you let us know (UA crew). We have reported it, but the company wants us to give some excuse about that only being the 'sell-by' date.. ..... isnt that the same thing on the aircraft?

Caloy

Well there is no way that I would eat outdated food, whether I had paid for it or not. I'm not going to take a chance and hope that it's ok. As ClipperClub mentioned above, exchange it for a fresh snackbox. Maybe if enough passengers do this, then the company won't have to come up with "excuses" to tell the passengers that object to expired food being sold.

itsme

Maybe instead of those wimpy snackboxes UA should consider selling MREs (Meal Ready to Eat), what troops in the field get. Their shelf lives go out years, so little likelihood of "expiration," and each one packs thousands of calories to meet the energy and nutrient needs of combat troops.

mahasamatman

If you drink diet drinks, watch for the expiration date on those cans, too - aspartame decomposes into formaldehyde (or a reasonable facsimile). Speaking from experience, expired Diet Dr. Pepper is one of the foulest tasting things ever. I've had expired Diet Pepsi on UA flights - not quite as bad but still disgusting. I've found most FAs don't even know there is an expiration date on diet drinks, so you need to do it yourself...

Festus

Yuck, snack boxes are gross when they're "fresh," let alone stale...

IceTrojan

They probably taste better... and are self heating! ^

Sneezy

What's it gonna do? Go bad?

Funny story about expired food:

Back in my USN days, I served my stint as Wardroom Mess Treasurer. During that time, I was responsible for buying food for all the ship's officers. (We "bought" our food from the ship's supply officer, so it's not like we had much choice as to our menu - same as everyone else on board, but we had to pay for it with our own funds...)

Well, one time I noted some of the cooks putting a box of salad dressing into the wardroom supply closet, and saw the date on the box. This would have been in 1987 or so, and the expiration date on that case of salad dressing bottles was something like 1982 or so.

Now, go to the supermarket and check out the expiration date on salad dressing. I'd bet that since it's now 2006 you might see some 2008 and maybe even 2009 bottles (at least you would have twenty years ago...).

So that case of dressing was old. The bleu cheese dressing had turned from creamy bluish-white to some shade of tan with a slight greenish tinge with chunks of dark brown in it. I never knew an unopened bottle of dressing could go bad and turn that color.

I told the cooks that there was no way we'd accept that salad dressing and that they were to return it to whatever pit of Hell they found it in. They said OK and I left it at that.

Lo and behold, at dinner that night I spot one of those bleu cheese bottles on the table. But as far from where the senior officers and captain sit as possible. I approached one of the cooks about that, and he said the supply officer overrode me and said that we were stuck with it.

So I put that bottle right in front of the Captain's seat.

The cooks weren't happy, but that was one of the few times I ever pulled rank, because I wasn't exactly happy either.

The ship's captain wasn't too happy with the supply officer. After dinner, the supply officer started trying to "reprimand" me for "subverting the order of a superior officer", or something like that, although in this situation there wasn't much he could do. It's not like he could complain to the ship's captain about what I did.

I told the supply officer in no uncertain terms that the ship's wardroom absolutely would not pay for that "food" and that he had to take it back. He said there was no way I could make him take it back since we had already "bought" it.

I said "OK, I'll take care of it", went to the back of the wardroom where the storage closet was, went in, grabbed the case of decade-old salad dressing, and headed for the door - to the weather decks.

That case went right to the bottom of the Atlantic.

So if you ever get attacked by a three-eyed, two-headed shark while you're swimming in the Atlantic Ocean near Charleston, SC you know who to blame.