# How soon after an expiration date should you throw out your milk?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-after-an-expiration-date-should-you-throw-out-your-milk/336687>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 21, 2005, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-after-an-expiration-date-should-you-throw-out-your-milk/336687 "2005-12-21T21:34:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-after-an-expiration-date-should-you-throw-out-your-milk/336687/21 "2005-12-22T18:32:15Z")

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Unpastuerized milk doesn’t turn evil when it sours, it just cultures into buttermilk. The cultures in unpastuerized milk tend to make it culture nicely, while the wild cultures in pastuerized milk just make it foul.

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**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-after-an-expiration-date-should-you-throw-out-your-milk/336687/22 "2005-12-22T20:25:58Z")

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> [@clairobscur](#):
>
> By the way, is milk that had begun coagulating, smelling, etc… actually unedible, or just seems to be?

It’s usually Ok- it’s just converting to Buttermilk or yogurt.

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