Daily Dose of Common Sense

The milk in your fridge has passed its expiration date, but you drink it anyway. The deli meat “use by” date has gone by, but the meat smells okay enough for a sandwich. In a bad economy, everyone is looking to make things stretch further, which could include the food in your fridge or pantry. In fact, Listeria poisonings in the British elderly are on the rise, presumably because of a depression-era reluctance to let anything go to waste. Learning about food expiration dates and the language used on products can help you determine when to eat it or when to throw it away.

The Lingo

• Expiration Date: This is the last date a product can be used or consumed. After this date, it’s proceed at your own risk.
• “Sell By” Date: This date tells the store how long to display the product for sale. This date is stamped by the manufacturer as a guide for when the product is at its maximum quality. For some time after this date, the product is still edible. However, it just might not be as fresh.
• “Best if Used By” Date: This is similar to the “sell by” date. Used as a measure for maximum quality, not as an expiration date.
• “Born on” Date: This is the date the product was manufactured. Generally, this date is found on beer, which can lose quality after three months.

People throw out a lot of good food because they don’t understand the dates and terminology that manufacturers use. While it’s better to be safe than sorry, you can make your grocery bill stretch further by knowing how to handle your food. Here is a great chart of Food Storage Guidelines from Gourmet Sleuth.

The experts all agree to let common sense prevail. If it smells bad, or is questionable, throw it away. Here are some quick guidelines:

Perishable Meats, Fish, Seafood – pay attention to sell by dates. For best quality it is best to buy those products before the sell by date particularly with meats, poultry and seafood. That being said, many of these products are still edible for several days after that date. See the chart.

Dairy products - Liquids such as milk and cream are more perishable than solid products like sour cream, yogurt and cheese. See our “how long to keep” list for more specifics.

Canned Goods – because the dating conventions on most canned goods are “obscured” I use a basic rule of thumb to rotate out my canned good stock within 1 year. Exceptions: if the top looks “bulged” or darkened or rusty I toss it out. Many canned goods are fine past one year but start to pick up a “canned” taste and quality does degrade.

Dry Goods – Flour, sugar, salt, etc.  These products do not expire and even the quality is not severely impacted with age. Exception: if the product has a high oil content it can go rancid (like rice). Just give it a sniff. It if smells rancid, toss it. Also products like baking powder lose their potency so keep this rotated approximately every 6 months.

Photo courtesy of Flickr: danksy.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.