How long do carrots actually last in fridge?

They begin to shrivel and or become slimy. You can always slice them and dry them to extend their life.

For me, a carrot needs to be very bendy, very wrinkled and growing sprouts to be considered too old to use. I cannot, for the life of me understand why they would put a 'best by' date on produce. That is just foolishness. And THANK YOU for understanding that those stupid dates can be ignored. It drives me crazy to hear that people throw food away once that date is past. So much food is wasted in North America that could be sent to people that are starving to death.

In professional kitchens, we buy carrots in 50lb bags. And they keep for quite a while. Figure that until the carrots turn green or get too 'hairy'(they do continue to grow) you are fine.

It's best to use them within a week.

years ago, people kept potatoes, carrots, onions and other root crops all winter long.

ALL fresh produce spoilage is quite evident.

If the carrots are NOT mushy, black, slimy, etc they are fine to eat. Even a bit limp is okay.

Fresh carrots should last about 4-5 weeks in the fridge.

about a week

A week or two, maybe more. Yes, dates are conservative because what they're really for is to protect the store, not you. If it's going black or bendy, then that's a carrot you might want to throw out. Or even just remove the black bits - the rest is probably still edible when it's been cooked.

Good on you for not falling for the date fetish! Buy loose vegetables, as I always do because I live on my own so packs are always too big, and there's no date on them anyway. So it's back to the good old way of what you did when there weren't any dates on anything. If it's going slimy, smelly, bendy, just not nice, then you can decide this is past it. Just use your senses.

I apply the same rule to packaged meat and I'm still here. I find that chicken leaks water after a few weeks in the fridge, and that's because water cooling is the most common way of cooling chicken after it's killed. So what you're actually buying includes a lot of water. I just dry it on kitchen paper and cook it thoroughly.

This is totally irrelevant but I noticed a question you asked a year ago which now I can't reply to - so I'm going to throw in my two penn'orth here. Wedding rings for men are a continental European custom which the USA has adopted. I'm British and we never did until recently, so the Church of England didn't even have a marriage service that included exchanging rings until 1980. My Dad never wore one, and Prince William doesn't, a point which got thoroughly discussed online 6 years ago when he got married. Really it just looks more equal to both wear a wedding ring, as opposed to just the wife wearing one to show "she's taken so hands off, guys!" Which is what it originally was, a sign of possession.

Indeed until 1882 in English law, wives couldn't make wills, because they couldn't own anything - it was all their husband's property. William Shakespeare's will famously left "the second best bed" to his wife, because it had to so she would have somewhere to sleep. The best bed would have been the one in the guest room.

When they start to go soft they are spoiled.

dude you're good. They can last like a month and a half, but always trust your sniffer