To Throw Away Or To Not Throw Away?

Is the milk unsafe or just past the peak freshness? credit to info.abcr.com

Have you ever opened the fridge, looked at the expiration date on the milk and realized that it has past? First thought that probably goes through your head is that the milk has gone sour and it needs to be thrown out, but does it?

A study was recently published by TIME magazine that stated that consumers are prematurely throwing away food because of the confusion of what the use by dates actually mean. According to the Natural Resources Food Council and Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic, consumers mistakenly take the expiration date as a safety guide, when in reality the expiration dates on food are only used to indicate when the farmers think that the food will be at its peak quality. Furthermore, the expiry dates on food are not related to any food poisoning, which means that once the date has passed, it does not mean that the food is inedible. For example, a carton of eggs may have an expiry date that lasts a week after purchase, when in fact they can be consumed for up to five weeks after purchase. According to this new study, 90 percent of Americans throw away food because of this misconception.

Wasted food due to miscommunication of expiry date credit to www.myessentia.com

Now I thought to myself, “How many times have I spilled milk down the sink just because the label said it was expired?” and to answer my own question, too many times. To combat this misconception, I think it would be a far stretch to completely eliminate the use by dates, and the authors of this article agree.

The way that the authors of this article think that this problem could be resolved is to have a country wide standard as to how the food dating system should be. This would involve standard dates and wording that is used to help all Americans understand that this date is about quality, not safety. I think that this would be a strong step toward eliminating the millions of pounds of edible food that are thrown away just because of miscommunication.

Here are a couple of tips to help you decide whether the food past the expiration date is safe to consume.

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/19/health/sell-by-dates-waste-food/index.html?hpt=he_t2