Theresa May apparently scrapes mould off the top of jam and uses the newly ‘exposed’ jam nestling beneath.

This highlighted the way colossal amounts of perfectly useable food are dumped simply because they have reached/exceeded the ‘Best by’ or ‘Use by’ dates.

My eldest daughter firmly adheres to these. I was brought up in the Second World War when most food was rationed and there weren’t such idiocies as ‘Use by’ dates on food.

I well remember seeing my mother taking bacon from under the mesh meat-safe (nobody had a fridge) and scraping fly-eggs off before frying it for breakfast.

In those days of rationing you couldn’t dump that bacon, go to the shops and buy more, as it was our week’s ration.

We all have, stuck on the front of our faces, a ‘Mark 1 Odour Detector’ - a nose.

This wonderful bit of kit allows us to detect odours either fragrant or foul and is ideal for detecting whether food is ‘on-the-turn’ or still perfectly safe to eat.

The one food I take absolutely no chance with is chicken. The slightest whiff and it’s binned.

Campylobacter is a particularly nasty disease carried by chickens and that whiff could be the indication needed that it’s dodgy.

So, start using your ‘Mark 1 Odour Detector’ rather than believing those silly dates!

Philip Roe,

Roman Avenue South,

Stamford Bridge