No, I would toss it after that much time.

I’m usually pretty brave, but I’d toss it.

I wouldn't risk it.

It’s not liverwurst . . . but I’d skip anyway

Ew. No.

I'm the queen of if it's good, it's good, but you can't do that without an intact sniffer. Hermetically sealed, cooked deli chicken, which is what I think you have there, generally can be fine after its sell by date. That's not an eat by date. The companies err on the side of caution, and the dates are generally about before which you can get a refund if it's bad, rather than a true expiry date after which the food becomes instantly dangerous. I promise you, if your sniffer were intact you'd be able to tell that four months past the date it would have turned. I've smelled many a packet of chicken and turkey sandwich meat, and I know. I've never had any trouble with past the date if it smelled fresh and appetizing. The $5, or whatever it cost, is NOT WORTH taking a chance on if you can't smell it. And as others have said, the eww factor can be your guide here.

If I had no sniffer, and things were a bit dire - say you’re thirty miles up a dirt road and that deli chicken is the only protein in the van - then I’d go by feel (any slimey-ness?) and then by taste (nibble a little bit) and finally by experiment (wait a couple hours to see what that nibble does).

If things were more dire - the deli chicken is the only food in the van - I’d salt it heavily, wait as long as I could, then rinse the salt off and eat).

If things were even more dire - the van is broken down - then I’d shrug my shoulders and eat it.

I am not sure if it is because I was raised in a Chinese culture, or because I was raised with disregard for food safety, or both, but I tend to ignore refrigeration for cooked foods.

You know how shops in Chinatown have roast ducks just hanging there, all day? Like that. When I was little, after the big elaborate family meals, the platters were just left out on the counter and you’d eat from them the next day and, less commonly but not never, the next day. (I’m careful with uncooked food, I hasten to add, in case any of you ever come over for dinner.) And I’ve had food poisoning only once in my life.

This is unscientific, but I believe that exposure to bacteria etc is good for you. Within limits - I’m diligently getting my Covid vaccinations - but I think kids should get dirty and eat slightly sketchy stuff, to build a robust biome.

When my dad and aunts/uncles grew up in China in the 1930s and 40s, they sometimes lived in what we’d consider terribly unsanitary conditions. My dad and aunt walked to school and drank from the rice paddies on the way, rice paddies fertilized with, um, you know. They both had very robust GI tracts their whole lives, then my aunt had some procedure that involved antibiotics that eliminated much of her gut bacteria, and she says she’s been prone to stomach problems and food reactions ever since.

But you are, I expect, 15 minutes from a grocery store. Toss it!

They need a stronger gut biome! Like Na-Na!

May 2024?

Toss it.

This is what the company says in their FAQs:

How long after I open a package of Land O’Frost® lunch meat is it still good?

Kept under proper refrigerated conditions: Once opened, please consume within 7 days and within the sell by date written on the front of the package. If unopened, please consume by the sell by date written on the front of package.

Next question: How do you not check your meat drawer for five months?

No company will tell you to eat it past the guaranteed date. That would open them to legal nightmares that the whole idea of a sell by date saves them from. Sometimes the food goes off before the date. People who can't tell need to be extra cautious even then.

I agree with John's if you're isolated and hungry stages to a certain extent, but the last step, absolutely not: If you're that hungry and depleted, if the food is tainted, you will suffer far more than the food value of your intake, and you'll lose hydration, strength and any of the wellbeing you might have had to seek rescue. They call it ”food poisoning” for a reason! That said, the cooked food on the counter is another story. If it was cooked at wok temperatures, and the family are as fastidious about utensils as the chopstick wielding Asians I know, and if there aren't insects and animals polluting the food, the risks are much lower than the rules might imply, But it's the lack of addition of bad bacteria that's at play, not so much the stomach strength. In the old days, in everybody's old country, while it's true that people in general had stronger immune systems, it's because those who didn't, died. But true that the kids should be exposed to dirt and animals and all, within reason, to develop their immunities.

I would toss it. Hubby would eat 😋

On immune systems. My grandfather was an electrical engineer, running powerplants in China. In the 1930s he was sent to the US to tour and learn from American powerplants. He was very impressed with the US and vowed to move his family here someday. In his suitcase, when he returned to China, was a bottle of sulfa powder, which was pretty new in America and unheard of in China or among Chinese bacteria. My aunt, the one who drank rice paddy water, said that precious bottle of powder kept the family alive through the privations and disease of World War Two. Still, I like to think that we, using the term in an elastic sense, made it through because we have strong immune systems, which I have endeavored to pass on to my children via relaxed food safety and dirty pastimes, despite the interference of SWMBO whose father owned a commercial cleaning company and considers cleanliness the Prime Directive.

Usually lunch meat like that gets discolored and/or slimy when it gets old. So the sniff test isn't always necessary.

I am the champion of "if it looks good/smells good, it's still good."

And if you had put that package in your freezer, I'd say you're ok.

But in this case, I'd toss it. This kind of thing does not last forever in the fridge, probably not more than maybe about a week past its sell-by date. It needs to be eaten or frozen by then.