Chilled food goes off, we all know that. But what makes it go off? Bacteria?
The answer will surprise you. Since 'use by' dates were first put on chilled food, refrigerator manufacturers have been forced by the government to include a small, but expensive device, called a clock.
This clock
knows the time and date at any given time, and communicates with the food from the minute it is put in the fridge.
Say for instance, that a piece of cheesecake is use by 5th August. At 10.00pm, the fridge warns the cheesecake that it is due to go off soon.
By 11.30pm, the cheesecake is waiting in anticipation for the midnight hour. Given the cue on the stroke of midnight, the cheesecake rapidly goes off.
The purpose of this system, is to increase the food that is sold (we all buy more than we need), by making it go off, before you have time to eat it. The removal of preservatives in recent years has helped this further. (There were almost no preservatives in 2003).
This way, food companies sell more food, and the government earns more revenue from VAT.
My idea is to find the clock system in the fridge, and remove it, using a screwdriver, hammer, or whatever you have to hand. That way the food doesn't know when to go off, and it can be kept longer. Better still, fool the clock into thinking it is last week, this will have obious implications for the cheesecake, as it will think it hasn't been made yet, but allow it to last a week longer.