Home cooks often take too much notice of the use-by dates displayed on foods, an expert has suggested.

Although they can be useful for children, the elderly and anyone else with a compromised immune system, they should not be taken as gospel, noted founder of Myzerowaste.com Rachelle Strauss.

"We need to get back to our senses - we look at something, we smell it and we tentatively taste it. We need to take back that responsibility for ourselves," she continued,

Ms Strauss highlighted that supermarkets are also to blame, mainly because they are so interested in the presentation of food that they will not display it if it is out of the ordinary.

She emphasised that they will throw it away "because it's the wrong shape, the wrong colour [or] it's got a tiny mark on it".

Articles in the Daily Mail and the Independent recently shed light on just how fresh certain produce is, with some items taking considerable amounts of time to make it to supermarket shelves.