How many times have you gone to eat something, saw that the date on the label had passed and you just tossed the food in the trash, without a second thought?
It’s been a while since our last blog post about food waste, but as promised, this post is all about those pesky dates. Sell-by, Use-By, Best-By, Expiration—what’s the difference? Is there one? Will I get sick if I eat or drink things past the date?
The top selling product we carry is the Battenkill Glass Bottle Milk (with a name like The Hudson Milk Company, our top seller better be milk, don’t you think?). Battenkill labels their products with sell-by dates. We try to remind customers of this regularly, as we suspect there are many folks who dump this precious milk down the drain once that date has passed. Sell-by is most definitely NOT the same as expiration. Of course, any product will go bad before any date if it is not stored properly. But with the Battenkill milk, as long as it is kept properly stored (refrigerated at a temp ideally not higher than 36 degrees, and minimal exposure to artificial light) it will last well beyond that sell-by date. We’ve had milk in our house two weeks beyond the sell-by date that was perfectly fine.
Many of the dates currently in use by food manufacturers are designed primarily for quality as opposed to safety. This means that products beyond the date on their label may not be as fresh or as good of quality as they were initially, however they will not harm you or make you sick if you consume them. And sometimes there is no noticeable difference at all. True story—a couple of months ago I had cleared out my pantry. There were some items in there that were well beyond the sell-by dates (I am talking a year, plus!) and I did throw out quite a bit of food. That night I was making a recipe for dinner that called for refried beans. I had just tossed a can of refried beans that had a date of 3/2015. Yes, I did say 2015—that is not a typo! I had also just bought a can of beans, which I proceeded to grab for my recipe. After dinner, when I was cleaning up and rinsing out the cans to put in the recycling bin I realized, much to my horror, that I had used that can of beans from 2015. OH MY GOSH! And so the panic set in. I was waiting for someone to get sick. I waited and waited and waited. And guess what. We all survived! And nobody noticed a difference in taste in dinner.
Let’s get back to the milk. Obviously, it doesn’t last forever. I mentioned we have had milk two weeks past the sell-by date that was still fine to drink. What if it was four weeks past? Well, at that point it will be sour, but not harmful! According to Randy Worobo, a professor of food science at Cornell University, “It’s more of a sensory defect that we don’t like, but you are not going to get sick on it.” That distinct sour taste of aged milk is actually a byproduct of harmless lactic acid bacteria that feed on sugar in milk. If your milk does go sour, don’t dump it down the drain—it makes GREAT fertilizer in that backyard garden of yours.
So here is the lowdown on those dates and what they mean:
Use By: here in the U.S. this is simply a quality suggestion.
Sell By: Generally means the same thing as “display until”, which lets vendors know when a product should be rotated out of the store.
Best By / Best Before / Best If Used By: indicates the date until which the food is in its best quality. This should not be confused with the food being unsafe to eat beyond that point.
Expiration / Use By: This one is about safety—if a product specifically says “Expiration Date”, “Expires On” or “Use By”, it means you should not eat it past that date. There is only a small group of food that falls into this category: primarily ready-to-eat foods like deli-meats and prepared sandwiches. This is because these types of foods may contain bacteria like listeria, and are not cooked prior to eating.
On top of having a variety of labels that mean essentially the same thing, the dates are rather arbitrary. Some companies use a taste test to determine when, for example, the taste of a product begins to change. Some companies might use test labs to determine at what point quality begins to change. Some may use published data to get recommendations on the shelf life of products. And then some may just guess based on what other companies do. Essentially, there is no federal regulation surrounding these dates. Some states do have legislation regarding the dates on certain products, but even this varies widely from state to state.
The good news is that members of the Consumer Goods Forum, which is a network of 400 of the biggest consumer goods companies across 70 countries, have agreed to taking action and making changes to labeling. They have agreed to only use two labels: Use By, as an expiration date for perishable items, and Best if Used By, as a food quality indicator. In addition, they will roll out education campaigns to help the consumer understand the difference between the two labels.
It would be nice if there were some sort of regulations put forth that would standardize labeling, but until that happens this is a terrific first step.
The confusion surrounding these dates contributes to the food waste epidemic. They say knowledge is power, and in this case I truly believe it is. Rather than tossing something when it’s past the date on the label, use this knowledge to reconsider that action. Does the label say “Use by”, “Expires on” or “Expiration Date”? If not, then step away from the trash can and use your good ol’ senses to smell and taste and determine if it needs to go.
