Sell-by, use-by and best-by dates do not indicate whether a food is safe to eat, or even if is still tasty. But many people \u2014 people far older than Trey \u2014 believe that they do: Fifty-four percent of consumers say eating food past its sell-by or use-by date is a health risk, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. A 2011 survey conducted by the Food Marketers Institute found that 91 percent of consumers occasionally discarded food past its sell-by date out of concern for the product\u2019s safety; 25 percent said they always did so.<\/p>\n
\n
Food waste has reached record levels. In the United States, an estimated 40 percent of food is thrown away. It happens at the farm, in transport, at supermarkets and in people\u2019s homes. Last year, a study estimated that the average American family of four wastes $1,560 worth of food annually.<\/p>\n
Clearer expiration dates on food cannot alone solve the problem. But a new report, co-authored by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, argues that revising the convoluted system of date labels would be a simple and straightforward way to slash food waste.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have now is an ineffective, ridiculous system that isn\u2019t serving anyone,\u201d says Dana Gunders, a staff scientist at the NRDC and one of the authors of the report, set to be released Wednesday. It costs manufacturers money. It costs consumers money. It leads us to throw food away unnecessarily.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n
Date labels come in a dizzying variety of forms. A production or pack date typically designates when a product was produced or put in its final package. Sell-by dates provide information to retailers about how long to display a product. Best-if-used-by typically indicates a date after which the food will no longer be at its highest quality \u2014 as defined by the manufacturer. But the meaning of those terms varies from product to product, and even among manufacturers of the same products, because there is no industry agreement on definitions and on which labels should be applied to which foods.<\/p>\n
The NRDC-Harvard report makes several recommendations aimed at cutting down on the confusion and reining in food waste. It suggests making sell-by dates invisible to the consumer. Those dates are designed to help retailers manage their stock; they offer no useful guidance once the consumer brings the food home. Instead, the authors recommend a uniform dating system with clear language. Wording such as \u201csafe if used by\u201d is clearer than \u201cuse by.\u201d \u201cPeak quality guaranteed before\u201d is better than \u201cbest by.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report also suggests that dates should no longer be used on items that don\u2019t deteriorate as much over time, such as chips, pretzels and beef jerky (which probably never goes bad). In its place, manufacturers might put the more useful \u201cbest within XX days of opening,\u201d which would better guide consumers on how to judge the food\u2019s freshness. The authors emphasized that any language should undergo consumer testing before being placed on packages.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese ambiguous dates are a clear failure of the law which has led to a proliferation of labels that mean nothing,\u201d says Emily Broad Leib, the director of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and a co-author of the report. \u201cHelping consumers to make better decisions is a tangible thing we can do\u201d to reduce food waste.<\/p>\n
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Do you or does someone in your household periodically purge your refrigerator and cupboards of food that is past its expiration date?\u00a0 It turns out, those dates on food have nothing to do with whether or not it\u2019s still safe to eat.\u00a0 Confusion over \u201csell-by,\u201d \u201cuse-by,\u201d and \u201cbest if used by\u201d dates\u2013and the complete absence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2783,850,2784],"class_list":["post-16659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","tag-food-expiration-dates","tag-food-purity","tag-wasting-food"],"yoast_head":"\n
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