Past Due

Last night on the news, and today on a local news website, I saw a segment about "past due" foods, and what is/not safe to eat past the due date printed on certain foods.

My girlfriend grew up on a farm. Her parents own a chain of organic food stores on the east coast. She had a ton of knowledge on the 'behavior' of the shelf life of food she brought with her, and boy have I learned a lot from her!

The phrase I learned to get away from saying, let alone thinking about, was "go bad". As in, "well we need to eat (food item) or else it will go bad."

A common misconception about the shelf life of foods, especially dairy and 'whole' products (whole, as in little or no preservatives), is that the 'best by' or 'due' date printed on most foods is a hard date that designates spoilage.

The best example I can come up with is when you are buying milk at ANY grocery store. Whether you buy organic milk or not, there is a printed date on the milk carton or jug. Have you ever been shopping for milk and noticed a lot of a particular date that is in the near future? Have you then proceeded to find the milk with the date furthest out? Chances are you have, and depending on the type of milk you buy you probably need not worry about the date coming up on the milk so soon.

If you have a recently purchased carton of milk that has been recently opened (say, 1 week or so), and the 'due' date came up, give the milk a sniff-- it should smell fine. If it does, then taste it-- I'm sure it tastes fine. That's because it IS fine... there is nothing wrong with it!!

If that doesn't make any sense, then I will spell it out: The dates printed on MOST foods are guidelines for when best to use the food by. It doesn't mean that on or the day after that date the food has 'gone bad'.. it just means you must use discretion in deciding whether or not the food is up to your quality for consuming.

No longer do I simply throw out a can of yogurt barely past the date printed on the can. No longer is milk instantly 'bad', even 2 days after the date on the jug. I don't find myself getting rid of eggs, even 2-3 weeks past the date printed on the egg carton. I won't even get into the shelf-stable stuff. ;)

Anywho-- It's no surprise to me to see this pop up in a few articles while the economy is bad. We, as Americans, waste SO much food. Ask anyone that rotates dairy at a grocery store and I'm sure they will tell you about the gobs of product they pull from shelves every few weeks.

The moral to this post is: If you are a consumer whore, you definitely look at ways to be fiscally responsible with the money you spend on consumables.

Dates printed on foods aren't hard and fast.
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I can't find the link to the darned article.. that's what I get for being a lazy bum!