I upset my family sometimes by my casual attitude in the kitchen. Expiration dates are only a suggestion, I believe. Being old, I remember when there were no expiration dates and you just guessed, and my grandparents got by with an icebox. If the ice melted you just had to wing it. I took microbiology, and my philosophy is–that’s why you cook the food. When I had a baby I was fanatically vigilant– but now it’s adults and we can fend for ourselves.
That’s what I say, but I’m often the only one who will eat my cooking. Hey, more for me.
I do apply the smell test, and if doesn’t smell right I chuck it.
There’s no smell test for antibiotic residues, or for radioactivity. Some Japanese found out they had fed contaminated beef to their children before the government responded and pulled the meat from supermarkets.
But it’s all good, no danger to the public, don’t worry. Japan Times has a reassuring explanation. Does this pass the smell test?
If I eat something doubtful from my fridge, I’ll know fairly soon if it was good. The risks are short term and clear. Having radioactive Cesium in your body for a few months is a nuclear experiment on the population. The history of exposed populations– Hiroshima, Nevada, Chernobyl– is not reassuring. ‘No immediate risk’ is still the mantra. The Japanese public has a right to be concerned.
Kmareka.com 
Well,Nancy,we really share something-we didn’t have an icebox,but Mrs.Cohen downstairs did,and the iceman used to show with a huge rank smelling horse pulling a wagon,and he was a huge bald mustachioed guy who hauled in those big blocks of ice on his shoulder.
Mrs.Cohen also was deaf,apparently,and she had a radio the size of a Corvair that literally shook the building when she had it on.
I had a relative named Louis Orseck who was a “seltzer man” and he used to carry crtates of seltzer up many flights of stairs dozens of time a day for a living.
We saw the last of many things and I miss those days-not everything about them for sure-there were really bad things-but we lost a lot of good things too.
The old timers in my family routinely lasted into their 80’s and 90’s.
FWIW they never ate processed food.
I just realized that if the Fukushima hamburger never goes bad that would be really scary.
Irradiation is currently used to kill pathogens in food.
I’d sooner eat irradiated food than something containing listeria for example.
I subscribe to the same thinking and we get by just fine. I am often reminded of when I was a kid eating my tunafish sandwich from my brown bag at school. Yup, lots of lunches that today we would expect to be cooled. Perhaps that’s why we were thinner back then. LOL