
A change to the sell-by dates on food - daegloe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/16/a-barely-noticeable-change-to-how-food-is-labeled-could-save-americans-millions/
======
erpellan
This has been the case in the UK for many years. There's an actual regulatory
difference between 'use by' and 'best before':
[https://www.food.gov.uk/science/microbiology/use-by-and-
best...](https://www.food.gov.uk/science/microbiology/use-by-and-best-before-
dates)

~~~
jwdunne
This can generate a bit of confusion. Many won't eat anything past its best
before date, as though it's a use by date. Best before date = no guarantee of
quality after. Use by date = potentially poisonous after.

In fact, we have online stores that sell past best before date food at
ridiculous prices because retailers can't really sell them.

~~~
simplehuman
They could simply have used the terms "Unsure quality after" and "Discard
after"

~~~
flukus
Or "could be dodgy" and "will be dodgy".

~~~
danieltillett
Fellow Australian think we are going to have to explain to most of the rest of
the world what dodgy means first :)

Anyway shouldn't it be "might be dodgy" and "is dodgy"?

~~~
jwdunne
Except the British, or at least Mancunians. "Ugh tastes a bit dodgy" does not
sound foreign to me in any way.

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droithomme
The best thing about these dates is fancy high end stuff gets tossed in the
discount bin for 50-75% off when that date is imminent.

And based on my experience, yeah, it's not "best" at that time, but it's still
edible, not so bad, and maybe even pretty ok compared to fresh cheap stuff
filled with artificial flavors.

~~~
anon2264
Ive seen this in the UK Aus and NZ but never in the US. I wonder if it is
because US stores stick to a perhaps rational strategy where discounted items
cannibalize profits?

~~~
Cymen
It's in the US too however it's in lower cost areas. For example, a small
rural town in Wisconsin has a bargain store that often gets these kinds of
items from Costco and major markets like NYC and Chicago (it's obvious by the
ethnic grocery items). Obviously, one small store isn't enough to sell it all
so there must be quite a few of these spread out over the country in lower
cost of living areas where rent is cheap for low margin small retail.

------
mysterypie
The expiry date put on medicines are sometimes absurd. Certainly antibiotics
may break down, but why would aspirin have an expiry date that's only a year
or two away? It's a simple stable molecule that would probably last decades.
Anyone know what's up with that?

~~~
ridgeguy
Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid. When it's exposed to water vapor, the acetyl
group comes off and combines with water to make acetic acid, which is the acid
in vinegar [1].

This happens pretty fast. An open bottle of uncoated aspirin tablets can start
to smell of vinegar in a day or two, depending on the local relative humidity.

If you smell vinegar when you sniff your bottle of aspirin, toss the bottle.
Why? Well, the other hydrolysis reaction product (salicylic acid) removes the
outer layer of the skin and is used, for example, to remove warts [2]. Not
something you want in your stomach.

[1] [http://www.kii3.ntf.uni-
lj.si/analchemvoc2/file.php/1/HTML/S...](http://www.kii3.ntf.uni-
lj.si/analchemvoc2/file.php/1/HTML/SPEKTRA/kinetics2.htm)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salicylic_acid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salicylic_acid)

~~~
tossaway1
Isn't your stomach already extremely acidic...?

~~~
enknamel
Not all acids are the same. What's at play isn't only the amount of free
protons but also what else is disassociating. For instance, hydrofluoric acid
is considered a weak acid but it can severely burn (pretty slowly but it will
get you) or even kill you. The fluoride group will consume the calcium ions in
your blood and possibly send you into cardiac arrest.

------
huangc10
In case you missed it (since there are a lot of quotes being thrown around in
the article...), the new standard will be either:

"Use By: (date)", or "Best if Used By: (date)"

However, the article still claims there are no guarantees of adoption.

~~~
sarreph
> "Use By: (date)", or "Best if Used By: (date)"

Since one contains the other, seems like this could be open to packaging
errors. Much better to use an alternative verb for 'best if used by', i.e.
'display until'.

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majewsky
Germany uses the wording "Mindestens haltbar bis", which roughly means "good
until at least". Yet despite using the "at least" wording, a lot of people
still throw out their yogurts that are one day over the date.

~~~
wink
Yeah, but I've seen it much more often with meat and sausages that people are
(over?)cautious.

Then again yoghurts months after this date still looked and smelled fine, but
at some point even I start getting wary :)

~~~
inferiorhuman
The nifty thing about dairy, at least, is that the human nose is very adept at
determining spoilage.

------
reitanqild
My brother - who is a chef has - has already told me to hunt for the oldest
beef I can find in the shelves.

Oh, and one of the largest grocery chains here has now started agressively
pushing anything that is about to expire by cutting the price in half and put
it on display in a designated fridge.

Market segmentation I guess but for those who care to check it is often lots
of good food at a nice price.

~~~
robk
if it's the same price why would you want the oldest beef!?

~~~
reitanqild
In case you really wonder:

Because 1. some ageing is good for beef and 2. often beef isn't aged enough
when it enter the shelves.

------
gydfi
Sonetimes the dates are inaccurate, but I've always been impressed by the
ability of milk to go from totally fine to weird-tasting on precisely the use-
by date.

------
voxic11
It's nice to see an example of self regulation working once in a while.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Another example is MPAA movie ratings. Since they decide which ages are
appropriate for the movies that they license local theaters to play, theaters
prohibit kids from sneaking into R-rated movies, even though it isn't against
R law.

It's a shame self-regulation doesn't occur more often.

~~~
slg
The MPAA rating system might look like a success from the outside but I think
a lot of people familiar with it would disagree. It is wildly inconsistent and
the rules that it does follow are mostly arbitrary (one "fuck" is ok, but two
isn't) . The process of getting a film rated is not very transparent and
getting a film re-rated can be prohibitively expensive for low budget films.

~~~
ptaipale
On the other hand, government rating systems can get hilarious.

Here in Finland, VHS and DVD distribution of program materials were rated for
audiences (does it suit children or not, etc) by a government agency. They
wanted to raise money for the government. So, even if a program was rated for
VHS, distributors couldn't use the same rating for DVD distribution; they had
to pay another fee to get the DVD rating. Without government inspection,
movies had to be distributed with K-18 (X-rated) label.

Eventually, one of the distributors got fed up when they were told to pay yet
again for the new rating of "Little House on the Prairie", the nostalgic
1970's family series classic. The distributor simply said no, and decided to
sell Little House as an X-rated DVD release. Supermarkets had to verify that
buyers had photo ID and were over 18 years old. Parents were told it's
forbidden to show the series to their children (it had been on air in prime
time in 1970's and many remembered it fondly).

Everyone started to laugh at the government rating agency, and they gave up
and changed the regulation.

~~~
Symbiote
I met someone who worked for the British equivalent, the BBFC.

She said every release had to be submitted for classification, since they
often contained different material -- a slightly different edit of the main
film, or "extra features" which occasionally needed changing, such as where
the director's interview "The Making of Fluffy Bunny Adventures III" had him
cursing about something.

~~~
Piskvorrr
British Broadcasting F*ck Commision?

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Eh? British Board of Film Classification

------
bigtunacan
When it comes to food I go by look, smell, and taste. The dates don't often
mean much. I've had bread that grew mold a week before the sell by date and
I've had bread that didn't a week after the date.

------
tremendo
Ah another reminder I am old, and thankful I got to learn the lost art of
using my senses, and appreciating food that although not useful for winning
photography awards, it was still yummy. Yes, I'm one of those that gets
frustrated when I see someone throw away a banana because it had a softer spot
on one end, or "ew, too many freckles". I am from a past that will never
return. While I'm here, I'll miss it.

EDIT: I should mention that I prefer buying non-packaged food, so I still
trust my senses better than any "sell by" or "best before" labels.

~~~
rangibaby
It's one of the superpowers I got from being poor back in the day. The "sniff
test" always makes my wife and her family laugh :-)

~~~
rectangletangle
The human olfactory system is the product of millions of years of evolution,
it's highly adept at detecting food that's no longer edible. Nature doesn't
come with labels, that's why the smell of inedible food is so obvious and
fowl.

~~~
DanBC
You can smell meat that is rotting. You can't smell most bacterial
contamination, and some of these can be fatal.

For example, fresh chicken will smell fine, but a lot of it (in Europe) is
contaminated with campylobater.

[https://www.food.gov.uk/science/microbiology/campylobacterev...](https://www.food.gov.uk/science/microbiology/campylobacterevidenceprogramme)

> We carried out a survey of campylobacter in chicken on retail sale in the UK
> between May 2007 and September 2008, and it reported that campylobacter was
> present in 65% of the fresh chicken samples tested. A European Union
> baseline survey carried out in 2008, and published by European Food Safety
> Authority in March 2010, showed the UK estimated prevalence for
> campylobacter in broiler batches (caecal contents) was 75.3% and 86.3% in
> broiler carcasses (skin samples). These results were above the weighted EU
> mean prevalences of 71.2% and 77% respectively. There was a wide range of
> campylobacter prevalence across members states varying from 4.9% to 100% in
> broiler carcasses and from 2% to 100% in broiler batches.

~~~
Piskvorrr
True, but that's the reason why you don't see "raw" recipes for poultry:
properly cooking the meat kills whole classes of bacteria prevalent in it.

------
mjevans
As a consumer I only want to know two things...

    
    
        1) Use By (if properly stored)
        
        2) Best By (a guess about quality, should be BEFORE above)
    

Note that both of these are /best case/ outcomes. Food can and frequently does
go bad before then. An example that comes to mind is highly pasteurized milk.
IF SEALED and STORED PROPERLY it can indeed live to that date. However I've
also noticed that it tends to go bad at roughly a fixed time after unsealing,
even if it's well before that date.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"You've noticed"? It's printed on every pack of UHT milk I've seen: 'After
opening, refrigerate and use within x days'.

UHT isn't some magic process that allows milk to sit in an open container for
months.

~~~
mjevans
As a followup:

I checked the milk in my apartment's fridge. My room mate's only lists a pull
date and has no other handling instructions (not even to refrigerate). The
milk I am buying /now/ happens to mention, in otherwise completely ignoble and
normal looking text in an out of the way area, to refrigerate and use within 7
days of opening, but not past the printed date.

I would hazard that most consumers have read the directions on milk /maybe/
once, if at all, and have been operating on prior behavior since then.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"My room mate's only lists a pull date and has no other handling instructions
(not even to refrigerate)"

I'm not sure where you live but, if in the US, you room-mates milk packaging
is contrary to FDA regulations. See this doc:
[https://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/GuidanceRegulation/UCM209...](https://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/GuidanceRegulation/UCM209789.pdf)

Section 4, paragraph 3, point 2 says that milk subject to 'aseptic processing'
(defined earlier in the same doc, as milk that can be stored without
refrigeration in a hermetically sealed container) must be labeled with the
words 'keep refrigerated after opening'.

------
teekert
The nose knows people! Just smell and look, I have eaten many past due things
and scooped of layers of fungi. I have never been ill from it, 34 years and
counting.

Sure, be careful with chicken and turkey but yoghurt for example, come on,
it's basically a bottle of bacteria already and the smell is hard to ignore
when it actually goes bad.

~~~
folli
I generally agree, but be careful with moldy food. Some mold species produce
mycotoxins that can be quite dangerous (e.g. aflatoxin can induce liver
cancer, some mycotoxins can't be degraded and build up in the liver).

Simply removing the fungi is not enough, since the toxins diffuse into the
food matrix (e.g in jam, yoghurt). An exception is mold on fruits and
vegetables, there you can cut out the affected areas, the toxins can't diffuse
across the cell walls.

~~~
folli
Because everyone likes references, here's a good start for further reading:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC164220/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC164220/)

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wtvanhest
Off topic, but what is wrong with this site? The top bar is moving around and
as a reader, I cannot use the top of the browser as a line to read. It is
extremely frustrating.

------
carlob
I once bought some Camembert in France which, instead of having an expiration
date, had a date to determine the ripeness of the cheese e.g. "Eat this cheese
30 days after this date if you like it ripe and runny".

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agumonkey
I learned not long ago that fresh meat is not really good; it has to be held
for some time to reach its best point.

Few centuries ago it was even a delight to let the meat "rot" a little more.

~~~
alkonaut
I have seen some meats with a "best after" date as well as the regular date
markings. Makes sense.

~~~
agumonkey
I found it funny to think that people in "non civilized" eras knew that fairly
well, while I never even considered the idea.

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everybodyknows
"In fact, it's totally fine to eat a product even well after its so-called
expiration date."

Not so, unless lost nutrition and bad flavor are totally fine. Americans eat a
lot of moldy nuts, rancid olive oil, and stale coffee. Just Google for the
expert opinions on these foods, and compare to what you read on the label of
any mainstream, high-volume product on the shelves.

~~~
maus42
>stale coffee

I'd say consuming stale coffee _is_ totally fine. The only certain way (that
I'm aware of) to get coffee that won't be stale is to grind the beans just
before use, and I certainly do not have patience for that. I buy packaged
coffee even if my hipster-y friends disapprove.

For a regular coffee drinker, a far more useful way to improve the taste of
coffee is to remember to wash the pot of the coffee machine more regularly.

~~~
steveax
The clock starts ticking on coffee as soon as it's roasted (green beans last a
long time). Grinding accelerates the degradation as more of the coffee is
exposed to oxygen (nitrogen flushed containers help here). Coffee off its peak
isn't harmful, but is less flavorful.

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bbcbasic
What about wine? That should have a best after?

~~~
NamTaf
Certain beers do; particularly the lambics. They'll have a 'best after' date,
or a 'best before' with 20 years in the future.

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KSS42
My goto website for this is : eatbydate.com

~~~
grzm
I've had [http://stilltasty.com](http://stilltasty.com) recommended to me as
well.

