I'm surprised by the number of people who think food will turn into a lethal poison on the stroke of midnight on either of those dates.

We don't really pay much attention to the dates to be honest, as we buy so almost no processed food. The type of food that we do use that has them is generally pretty easy to tell whether it's ok or not, if you have a reasonable amount of common sense and a nose!

I'd call that bad stock management - I don't think it's widespread though is it?

Snap, food in my house rarely gets thrown away - it has to be rotting to go in the bin, but with a freezer it's not often it gets that far. If I had a garden it would get shredded for compost. Wasted food is one of my biggest pet hates, as is processed food. Do you know the UK consumes more processed pre-packaged 'ready meals' than the whole of the rest of Europe combined. That's a shocking statistic and it's no wonder we are turning into a nation of lard arses - when did we get to be so lazy?

Anyone been following that food show Eat Well For Less, so much on there I find very disappointing and I feel sorry for the kids.

For years, I've been looking at the contents of other people's shopping trolleys and so often seen people with kids in tow and just thought to myself that it should be recognised as a form of child abuse to feed them with some of the crap that they do in those volumes.

My modus operandus is usually to blank out other people as much as possible (especially in supermarkets), so noticing other trolleys is not in my make-up!

Yes me too!
As it happens, I am one of the lard arses you mention above, but not because my parents shovelled sugar filled shite into me as a kid!  That's my own doing (but not with processed muck, nor even a lot of sweet stuff) .  My daughter, though,  is thin as a twig, so I do practice what I preach with regard to my responsibility as a parent.