Posted on 07/29/2022 10:45:03 AM PDT by Daffynition
...**Avoiding unseen food hazards is the reason people often check the dates on food packaging. And printed with the month and year is often one of a dizzying array of phrases: “best by,” “use by,” “best if used before,” “best if used by,” “guaranteed fresh until,” “freeze by” and even a “born on” label applied to some beer. **
(Excerpt) Read more at getpocket.com ...
Is that Stilton? I’m a St. Agur fan myself.
(My wife says it smells like feet;) and yet, so delicious.
People think of them as expiration dates, or the date at which a food should go in the trash. But the dates have little to do with when food expires, or becomes less safe to eat. I am a microbiologist and public health researcher, and I have used molecular epidemiology to study the spread of bacteria in food. A more science-based product dating system could make it easier for people to differentiate foods they can safely eat from those that could be hazardous.Costly confusion
The United States Department of Agriculture reports that in 2020 the average American household spent 12% of its income on food. But a lot of food is simply thrown away, despite being perfectly safe to eat. The USDA Economic Research Center reports that nearly 31% of all available food is never consumed. Historically high food prices make the problem of waste seem all the more alarming.The current food labeling system may be to blame for much of the waste. The FDA reports consumer confusion around product dating labels is likely responsible for around 20% of the food wasted in the home, costing an estimated US$161 billion per year.
It’s logical to believe that date labels are there for safety reasons, since the federal government enforces rules for including nutrition and ingredient information on food labels. Passed in 1938 and continuously modified since, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act requires food labels to inform consumers of nutrition and ingredients in packaged foods, including the amount of salt, sugar and fat it contains.
The dates on those food packages, however, are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Rather, they come from food producers. And they may not be based on food safety science.
For example, a food producer may survey consumers in a focus group to pick a “use by” date that is six months after the product was produced because 60% of the focus group no longer liked the taste. Smaller manufacturers of a similar food might play copycat and put the same date on their product.
More interpretations
One industry group, the Food Marketing Institute and Grocery Manufacturers Association, suggests that its members mark food “best if used by” to indicate how long the food is safe to eat, and “use by” to indicate when food becomes unsafe. But using these more nuanced marks is voluntary. And although the recommendation is motivated by a desire to cut down on food waste, it is not yet clear if this recommended change has had any impact.A joint study by the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and the National Resources Defense Council recommends the elimination of dates aimed at consumers, citing potential confusion and waste. Instead, the research suggests manufacturers and distributors use “production” or “pack” dates, along with “sell-by” dates, aimed at supermarkets and other retailers. The dates would indicate to retailers the amount of time a product will remain at high quality.
The FDA considers some products “potentially hazardous foods” if they have characteristics that allow microbes to flourish, like moisture and an abundance of nutrients that feed microbes. These foods include chicken, milk and sliced tomatoes, all of which have been linked to serious foodborne outbreaks. But there is currently no difference between the date labeling used on these foods and that used on more stable food items.
Expiration dates could be more meaningful if they were based on scientific studies of a food’s rate of nutrient loss or microbial growth.
Scientific formula
Infant formula is the only food product with a “use by” date that is both government regulated and scientifically determined. It is routinely lab tested for contamination. But infant formula also undergoes nutrition tests to determine how long it take the nutrients - particularly protein - to break down. To prevent malnutrition in babies, the “use by” date on baby formula indicates when it’s no longer nutritious.Nutrients in foods are relatively easy to measure. The FDA already does this regularly. The agency issues warnings to food producers when the nutrient contents listed on their labels don’t match what FDA’s lab finds.
Microbial studies, like the ones we food safety researchers work on, are also a scientific approach to meaningful date labeling on foods. In our lab, a microbial study might involve leaving a perishable food out to spoil and measuring how much bacteria grows in it over time.
Scientists also do another kind of microbial study by watching how long it takes microbes like listeria to grow to dangerous levels after intentionally adding the microbes to food to watch what they do, noting such details as growth in the amount of bacteria over time and [when there’s enough to cause illness].
Consumers on their own
Determining the shelf life of food with scientific data on both its nutrition and its safety could drastically decrease waste and save money as food gets more expensive.But in the absence of a uniform food dating system, consumers could rely on their eyes and noses, deciding to discard the fuzzy bread, green cheese or off-smelling bag of salad. People also might pay close attention to the dates for more perishable foods, like cold cuts, in which microbes grow easily. They can also find guidance at FoodSafety.gov.
Jill Roberts is an associate professor of global health at the University of South Florida.
Note to Daffynition: green cheese is bad, not Blue Cheese.
[[Humans get sick with listeria infections, or listeriosis, from eating soil-contaminated food]]
Hmm, We eat veggies straight out the garden- fresh picked- while working in the garden- always have-
[[the date at which a food should go in the trash]]
Is 2-3 years past expiry date too long for things like mustard?
They say Twinkies have no expiry date- but i had a box in the cupboard that we forgot about and it was a few years old- opened the box, and the packages were nothing but disintegrated bars - a fine powder- - I shoulda tried to get my money back lol
i’ve got an unopened 6 pack of budweiser cans with a born on date 09-11-2001...
The best use date on the package of shredded cheddar cheese read 3 Sep 22. By the time I opened the package this morning, the cheese was blue and sad. Not on my omelet.
For poultry, pork, and beef someone should develop a plastic wrap that senses microbial germy stuff and lights up a stop sign picture on the package.
I like Venezuelan Beaver Cheese, myself.
Heat matters
In that same category are: eggs, artichokes, snails, Rocky Mountain Oysters.
Feel free to add to the list
if only i could find a case of black label beer lol- Eyuck!
Don’t be dissin’ snails. Pretty soon we’ll be happy to have them as a side dish with the bugs we’re supposed to get used to eating.
You can use it in the garden to catch and kill slugs and snails. It really works!
"There are snails on her plate. Now get them out of here before she sees them! You would think that in a fancy restaurant at these prices you could keep the snails off the food! There are so many snails there you can’t even see the food!"
don’t want to open them...
bad juju...
you do recall what happened on that day don’t you?...
“They say Twinkies have no expiry date”
i always joked that anything made by Little Debbie were the perfect foods to stock a bomb shelter with because of the amount of preservatives they contain ...
I used to be a connoisseur of canned soups. The last time I bought a can of soup was ~$1 on sale in 2015. I still have a few cans left. The same soup is pushing ~$4 a can today.
If there’s no green fuzzies on it, it’s OK.
They say Twinkies have no expiry date- but i had a box in the cupboard that we forgot about and it was a few years old- opened the box, and the packages were nothing but disintegrated bars - a fine powder- - I shoulda tried to get my money back lol
~~~
Complete conjecture on my part, but I suspect the old school twinkies used to have some hardcore preservatives in them, and after they started to develop an infamous reputation in the last few decades for lasting forever, they subtly changed the recipe.
Alternatively, The put more preservatives in cereal products now than they used to. I remember when a loaf of bread wouldn’t last 4 days without getting stale, and growing mold within a week, even if you kept it packaged tight. These days I’ve seen bread last over two weeks.
Most vegetables last a lot longer, probably due to genetic modifications. I remember when a head of lettuce wouldn’t last 3 days in the refrigerator without turning brown, at least around the edges. The darned things last weeks now.
These seem like a good thing on their face, but I suspect we pay for it in other ways.
Food could be sitting in a processing plant undated until shipped, then dated as it goes out the door.
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