

Food expired? Don't be so quick to toss it - tokenadult
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/19/health/sell-by-dates-waste-food/

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joelle
"Eggs, for example, can be consumed three to five weeks after purchase, even
though the "use by" date is much earlier."

This grosses me out. Especially given the number of food-borne illnesses in
this country every year I'd much rather be safe than sorry. And spend 3 bucks
on some new eggs.

[CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people)
gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of food-borne diseases.]

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Avshalom
I suspect though can not prove that the majority of food born illnesses come
from foods which are not cooked prior to eating or are mishandled after
cooking.

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crazygringo
> _" This is about quality, not safety. You can make your own decision about
> whether a food still has an edible quality that's acceptable to you."_

> _" It's a confusing subject, the difference between food quality and food
> safety. Even in the food industry I have colleagues who are not
> microbiologists who get confused," she says._

Great. I should make my own decision... when even people who work in the
industry get confused.

What the heck do I know if food has an "edible quality" or not? I'm not the
food scientist here. Just put the goes-bad date on it.

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specialist
Perishables should list when they were packaged, created, whatever. Then I can
decide how to use the eggs (for example). Less than a week? Fried eggs with
breakfast. 2-3 weeks? Hard boiled eggs. Longer? Cookies and cakes.

~~~
H3g3m0n
That might be fine for a carton of eggs or milk but most things now days have
heaps of ingredients in them.

The problem with this is you have to know enough to be able to make that
determination.

How long does a ingredient last, when in a specific type of container at a
specific temperature (ie shelf vs refrigerated vs frozen), when prepared in a
specific way (ie eaten raw, microwaved for a few minutes, cooked at a high
temperature for an hour)? Now figure it out for every ingredient in the
container. For all your food.

Some of them can be Food Additive E1424.

How does a specific preservative effect the life time of ingredients.

Even if I had a massive lookup table it would be a pain.

EDIT: Here in Australia "used by" indicates the health and safety: "use-by
date, in relation to a package of food, means the date which signifies the end
of the estimated period if stored in accordance with any stated storage
conditions, after which the intact package of food should not be consumed
because of health or safety reasons."
[http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2012C00762](http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2012C00762)

We also have best befoure for quality. And baked on/for dates for bread.

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zck
Of course, food companies have some incentives encouraging them to keep the
dates early and confusing:

* If some food is beyond a date printed on the box, and someone gets sick, the person eating it thinks it's their fault for eating it past the date.

* If some food is eaten, and it just isn't good, the company has an out in saying that the food is past its date -- the initial reason for "best by" dates.

* People throwing out more food means that people buy more food.

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brd
I hadn't realized how little regulation there was around packaging dates. I
never cared much for following the dates anyway but I'm still surprised to
hear how meaningless they actually are.

Just another case of the FDA being an incredibly disappointing regulatory
body...

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tedunangst
You want the FDA to sit around and decide when a box of crackers is too stale
to be tasty?

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DanBC
Why can't the FDA mandate labelling from a narrow range of options?

"Use by" for food that will cause illness if eaten after that date; "best
before" for food that becomes less tasty but not dangerous after that date.

([http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/food-labelling-
ter...](http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/food-labelling-terms.aspx))

~~~
tedunangst
As a practical matter, I don't think a set of similar sounding but technically
different definitions will change consumer behavior. It could even say
"totally safe but slightly less delicious" and I bet most people would throw
it out.

