I’ve had to study this in depth, and the majority of “best by” dates are meaningless trash invented by the company. That suggest “maximum freshness and flavor!” A totally subjective measure.
Do you really trust PepsiCo / FritoLay to put dates on chips that give you the last possible time to eat the product? Or dates that nudge you to eat product faster?
Now make them make the date printed on bread legible. I hate it when the printer is misaligned so the date goes completely off the loaf, or when it’s black text on a black background.
It would be nice to see better oversight on these things.
It bans the use of “sell by” labels on food packaging, which experts say act as a guide for retailers on how long to display products on the shelves but are not an indicator of whether they are still safe to consume. Now, manufacturers selling food in California must use two standardized labels — a “Best if Used By” label for peak quality and “Use By” label for product safety.
This is a good change that improves labeling for customers.
And exactly the same we have here in Denmark.“Discard after” or “do not consume after”would be better for actual food safety, much more direct and literal. But there are plenty of times I’ve eaten something after the “use by” date - not a long time after, but the food was still good.
The problem is that you cannot guarantee a date for which something may go bad. It would end up still being a freshness date, because you can guarantee that. Semantics, I know, but could you imagine someone suing because a can of tuna was still edible despite its “do not consume” date?
I’d like to have a label that detects if the food is still good. That would be nice.
Now if only the consumers could read
The industry gets a lot of leeway with “phrasing”. Most people don’t know that “best by” and “used by” was two different things.
If you have to trick people, then it should be illegal.
Thank goodness. I always wanted to buy stale chips and bread that starts getting mold on it a few days after I buy it.
