I was germophobic my entire life up until like a year or two ago where I kinda got over it and stopped giving a shit, but I’m still incredibly paranoid about food expiration, even when the best before day hasn’t been reached as is 1-2 days away.
Many years ago (I was there) expiration dates were useful and only on products that would actually expire–mostly just milk, cheese, and meat.
Then, I think it was Budweiser came up with the “born on date” marketing campaign for beer. Since then, on anything that doesn’t actually expire, like beer, it’s been used to prompt people to throw away perfectly good food, so they’ll hopefully buy more “fresh” food.
It’s been going on for so many years, we now have at least two generations who have been duped into believing them.
There is no “expired”, only “improperly fermented”. Sure, it could be very bad, but then you should’ve paid attention to it in advance, respect the nutrient and all living things who brought it about.
Could you explain your suggestion that there’s a correlation between one’s subjective awareness of a food item’s nutritional content and it’s objective fitness for human consumption over time? These things seem entirely unrelated to me.
There is nothing subjective here, it’s knowledge of biochemistry and manufacturers use of good practices. Of cousre, this is impossible on large scale production, yet you could be sure that your local milk providers milk will just become something else upon curdling, and your local butchery vacuum sealed bags are as clean from pathogens as their line and are good far beyond expiration date, but will change. And that things were stored correctly and are not blooming with thermophiles inside. I do not mean nutritional content, I only address industrial labeling and its purpose. And things that could not possibly be regulated, and have to rely on community (in many forms, from “lets love each other” to “I will break your face if you burn me, pal”). Eating expired stuff is an act of trust, whether it is trust to chance and supernatural, or trust of community that builds cultural value, is a whole different question.
Then you can always inoculate food yourself before expiration, but then it counts as cooking I guess.
I believe in expiration dates, my dogs do not.
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Expiration dates have a lot of leeway.
Yeah this is me.
If it’s on or after the last day I need to leave it in the fridge for several weeks until I’m in the mood to acknowledge that it’s dead.
My partner does believe in use-by dates but she has very poor situational awareness and is just oblivious to the concept. Recently she tried drinking a flavoured milk that had been in the fridge for a few months.
Was it flavored when she put it in the fridge?
Joke’s on you - I’m not in a relationship.
They are estimations. I do give them weight in the to eat or not to eat decision, but I also use my own senses.
Oh they’re real. They’re just arbitrary most of the time.
There are different types of dates in the US. Few things have expiration dates, which means it can be dangerous (or, for medication, ineffective) after that date. Most things have “best before” dates, which means the company has tested the product that far from its production and found it still met the quality standard.
The problem is that the FDA requires that testing and that every product have such a date. People have mentioned salt, which is inert, having a date, and that’s probably the most ridiculous example, but there are lots of things that have super long shelf lives beyond the best buy dates. Honey, soy sauce, bottled water, and vinegar being examples that come to mind.
Old plastic bottled water can have chemicals from the plastic leached in to it that you wouldn’t want to ingest though.
True, but unless you know what conditions the bottles were in it’s not worth messing with one bottled 3 years ago.
Like when people keep water in thier car and it goes crazy hot in the summer.
Right, and doing that can make it go above levels even before the best buy date. But bottled water that isn’t allowed to get really hot doesn’t have a known expiration.
Do they ship those bottles in climate controlled trucks? Are there regulations requiring that the plastic bottles never reach excess temps when stored/during commercial transport?
No clue. Not making any claims other than that there’s no known expiration for water that’s not subject to excess heat.
A lot of food doesn’t even have an expiration date. It’s more common on a lot of foods to have a sell by date, which is not the same thing as an expiration date, and some foods are even just labelled with a packaged date, which is hopefully always in the past. Otherwise you’ve got bigger problems than spoiled food. MREs are especially notorious for this.
That being said though, I’m still usually the one throwing food out. At some point you just have to admit you’re not going to eat it, and no one wants your dubious opened packages or half eaten leftovers. It’s just gonna have to go eventually.
I recognize that “best by” dates are mostly bullshit, but I’m also a firm believer in “why risk it?” Especially for food where you can’t tell if it’s gone bad, like canned goods. I don’t fuck around with botulism.
These do not sound like mutually exclusive perspectives. Why not both?
i’m the person that understands the conflict of interest between companies and the creation of their own expiration dates.
In the US, expiration dates aren’t a thing. The date on the product is just the last date the company will guarantee it meets their quality standards.
With one exception. Baby food/formula. Those companies do not fuck around with the dates, because they got regulated.
Are you sure you do? Expiration dates are a factor when buying food, longer shelf life usually boosts sales.
Source: worked for a time making machines specifically for enhancing the shelf life of a specific product.
