I strictly respect the Best By date on the following:

• Beef and fish
• Sausage of all kinds
• Chicken (may allow for 1-2 days after BB)
• Soft cheese (brie)
• Pork

I pay attention to Best By on these items, but it’s more for curiosity. It won’t keep me from eating:

• Milk, surprisingly. Smell test is key here. But max tolerance is ~3 days post-BB. We go through an insane amount of milk in a week, though, so we rarely need to test this.
• Crackers
• Bread
• Cereal
• Chips
• Olives
• Condiments (ketchup, mustard, BBQ sauce, and so on)
• Pasta

Discrepancies, addendums, and complications:

• Fish and ground beef that had a Supersaver Grocery Card Discount on it demands extra suspicion; I only move forward with cooking and eating these items if they pass a strict smell test. Really they should be cooked the same day they’re bought.
• Freezing things, esp. meats and fish, complicates BB calculation. Our frozen meats and fish don’t last in the freezer too long — I’d be surprised if something’s in there for more than 3 weeks. Thus, I have a general idea in my head of how long it sat in the fridge before we repackaged it for the freezer, and how long it’s been out of the freezer and defrosted. My goal is for the adjusted dates to come in a few days prior to when the BB date would’ve been. I offer this example. Chicken bought at Sam’s Club has 8 days until it hits BB date. It sits in our fridge for two days before we muster up the energy to wade through chicken juice and separate everything into individual ziplocs and toss it into the freezer. So, when it’s frozen there are 6 days left. It sits in the freezer for a month, then we pull it out in the morning and put it in the fridge to defrost. That day doesn’t count ’cause it’s still mostly frozen. The next day the timer starts again, ticking down the number of days left. So if we take it out on Monday morning, then Tuesday means there’s 5 days left, Wednesday 4, Thursday 3. Except it’s been frozen for a month. That has to count for something, right? So I penalize it a few days. Tuesday becomes 2 days left, Wednesday becomes 1 day left. If it’s been defrosted and sitting in the fridge for 3 or more days, it is highly suspect.
• Leftovers suffer from a severe dropoff in desirability the longer they sit. For me, leftovers are 100% desirable at next day. At +2 days, it’s already down to about 40%. At +3 days, it’s probably 20%. At +4 days, it’s judged solely by my desperation.
• Anything on the BB border that I’m really craving but am also suspicious of will be subjected to an ungodly amount of microwaving. Especially sausage.
• French fries immediately expire once cold.
• Same goes for Blooming Onion/Awesome Blossom.

I sound like Howard Hughes, don’t I.