Taste it.

Hi! I don’t know the answer, if butter were hard to get (yes, I’m less picky about “bad” food now) I’d probably cut away the edges and taste it. Although, that’s really old.

Hope you don’t mind me tacking on a similar question. Unopened Havarti, best by Jan 10. This year 😉. Not sure if the white dots were there when j bought it. I’m thinking cut away the edges and go for it?

I would probably use both. Guessing the butter edge is freezer burn so I would cut off that part. Fats are solids so inside should be good. (maybe)

The cheese will be good me thinks. Just cut the edges off all around. I've done that. If I find I have too much cheese, like now, I package in food saver portions and freeze.

No food expert here but I do know green mold on bread and pink on cheese is not good.

The funny color of the butter was probably oxidization. If it doesn't look or taste rancid, it's fine. Butter keeps. Fat keeps, in general. Until it gets rancid, and rancid is obvious.

FOAS, cheese was invented as a way to preserve milk. The while is probably mold. Scrape it off. The sheese should be fine. It might have ripened and gotten a stronger flavor, but if it tastes like cheese rather than spoilage, it's fine. I've cut away a lot more mold than that and saved most of the cheese. With Havarti, or any holey cheese, do also clean out the openings, or cut away a bit more. I don't have experience with red mold, but that is supposed to be really bad. If you see red, do look it up. That might make the cheese inedible. I don't know. White or blue/green, just scrape or cut it away.

Butter does contain moisture, and it might have developed a bad taste or gone stale tasting or rancid, so I also would taste it to help me decide.

Mold on cheese is often no big deal - I just scrape or pare it away, but sometimes the mold can permeate the cheese and give it a moldy flavor - another taste test would be in order, IMO.

Tasting either of these things shouldn't be harmful - tho I might rinse my mouth to remove the taste and keep the stuff from going down my throat if it's bad...

I have to cut the mold off the cheddar before my husband sees it. I have cut the mold off since I was a little girl and all our married life, until he got it out of the frig a couple of months ago. He went yuck, I said, "Oh you just trim it off." He wouldn't touch the grilled cheese sandwiches that he had been eating for years, lol.

ETA: The butter should be fine and I wouldn't even trim. Even margarine will turn different color if exposed to air, but it doesn't taste different at all.

Well, the old butter definitely does not taste as good as the fresh butter, but it doesn’t taste spoiled. I think I’ll only use it is I’m desperate. Ive been trying to use up stuff that is nearing the end of its useful life. Yes, I would cut the mold off the cheese and use it.

The butter is fine.... if it isn't up to snuff to spread on toast as it's own stand alone taste, use it up in cooking. But do use it up sooner than desperate. And if you got fresher butter, better to use this stuff up before using the fresher- FIFO rules.

The cheese is also OK. Just scrape or trim it. Real block cheese is ok... though if it were a bag of shredded cheese molding I would discard it. Shredded cheese often has other additives and molds icky IMO.

Yes to tossing the shredded. I do buy shredded, it is quick! However, I freeze the leftovers.

I stock up on butter when on sale. Take it out of the carton & freeze the cubes in mylar zip loc bags. The bags I use are recycled Aldi crouton packaging. Well cleaned, of course, I don't want all of my butter to taste like garlic. I have months old butter that tastes fine & the color is uniform. Haven't found any with the dark edges. (Manual defrost freezer)

I'm bad about buying cheese and then losing it in the depths of the fridge. I do agree about pitching moldy shredded but block cheeses, I scrape and go.

Dedtired, I agree with Beesneeds. If the butter just tastes like refrigerator smells, use it in cooking things that aren't delicate. I mean, not a buerre blanc, but it should be fine even for eggs. The absorbed smells aren't harmful, and if use it with tasty foods, you shouldn't notice it.

I've never seen the hard bits that Linda mentioned on Havarti, but it could happen. I usually find them in Gruyère. If the white stuff is soft and smeary, it's probably mold. Vacuum packed cheese can develop mold--I've seen it often because I tend to keep cheeses in the fridge rather than freezer. The mold spores have to be in there when the wrapper is sealed, but there are plenty enough in the air, where there's cheese, that that's not improbable. Some cheesemakers are better than others about keeping the mold out.