[dfwgator]

The five-second rule is about to become the 5-week rule.

[ansel12]

It is about time that they tried to educate the idiots.

Many people seem totally clueless about food, and they just throw it out unopened and unused.

[BitWielder1]

What is the cost, economic and humanitarian, of people getting sick or dying from eating bad food?
Seems like penny wise and dollar foolish to me.
Outright dangerous actually. Not worth it.
We are not that poor. Not yet anyway.

[Farmer Dean]

The sad fact is,a lot of people are too stupid to manage the contents of their refrigerators.

[C19fan]

Do you actually believe people waste 36 pounds of food a month? According to the Dept AG Americans eat 164 lbs of food a month. So someone is claiming Americans are wasting 20% of their food in a day of refrigeration and microwaves?

[novemberslady]

This will work out well for the supermarket nearby that’s constantly selling things past the dates.

[rigelkentaurus]

stupid government - aren’t they the ones that require expiration dates on everything in the first place?

[cripplecreek]

Useless for me.

I’m a conservative and don’t waste much of anything.

[KarlInOhio]

Hold your nose and just eat it. Even if it is 18 months past the expiration date.

That chicken still has a couple of good months left on it. I'll pull it back out of the trash and put it into the refrigerator.

[BuffaloJack]

It is smarter to toss foods that are questionable than to risk a repeat of the Ohio church dinner Botulism disaster from a few days ago.

[MrB]

More food is wasted because the wasters didn’t pay for it in the first place.

[ansel12]

I just used a can of peas yesterday with a “best by” date of February 2009. and the tomato sauce that I used was ‘best by’ 2012, and that is because I think that I am out of my ‘best by’ 2008 tomato sauce.

[Old Sarge]

I have known for a LONG time that a lot of the expiration dates are bogus.

It simply forces the consumer to re-buy food that is actually still good.

My daughters went on an expiration-pitching orgy a few months ago - and a lot of our stash vanished overnight. It wasn’t a game-ender, but it hurt the effort...

[BookmanTheJanitor]

Thank goodness the government is here to teach us about waste (rolling eyes).

[4yearlurker]

I believe this is about food stamp bums but one size fits all. Easy come easy go.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Sorry...I/we don't waste 36 lbs. of food per month. We eat things before they spoil, vac seal and freeze them if we can't and do some creative things with leftovers ...if there are any.

The only thing we toss is things like bones, coffee grounds (which I have thought of using a second time, maybe) and chicken fat. Most get composted.

36 lbs. Puhleeze.

[camle]

i don’t believe the average american wastes over a pound of food every single day... no way

[Sequoyah101]

We are trapped in an insane asylum.

[Bob434]

and this coming from an agency that dines on nothing but the best and most expensive foods thanks to we he people-

Let’s see- we can save perhaps millions of dollars by requiring people in government to eat at soup kitchens, and out of dumpsters where the food is ‘smelly but safe’ Heck, Ill even have an app designed to show where the best dumpsters are-

[W.]

Could this also be a ploy to cover the waste from the school lunch program? Or is that figure only meant to cover discards from expiration. I don't care about dates, my nose is the final inspector, and I don't get sick here. Eating out is another matter, entirely.

Also, if one plans well [ha!] one wouldn't have things hanging around in the fridge to go bad in the first place. Just saying--I finished off the last of the sauteed mushrooms that have been in the fridge over a week, and they were fine. I keep my fridge very cold, it makes a big difference in longevity...