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Checking expiration dates has become a routine part of grocery shopping. If, say, a carton of milk is expiring in three days, we grab one that has a longer shelf life. The only time it makes sense to buy a product that’s soon to expire is when the price is reduced.
But what happens to the dozens of cartons of milk that are no longer safe to consume in a few days, at least according to their expiration dates? We might be more conscious about where our food comes from now but perhaps we also have to pay attention to where the food we don’t buy goes. Expired products only have one final destination: landfills.
If you’ve seen or read about dumpster diving, then you may already be aware of the overflowing food waste from leftover or unsold products behind retail stores. In the US alone, retail stores account for 16 billion pounds of food waste every year. One of the reasons Americans throw away so much food is the confusion created by food date labels. Here’s a secret food manufacturers don’t want you to know: expiration dates don’t mean foods are no longer safe to eat.
A Brief History of Expiration Dates On Perishable Goods
‘Best if used before’, ‘use by’, ‘packaged on’, ‘sell by’, and ‘freeze by’ are some of the dated labels we check before purchasing the food we eat. The terms can very per country and even per state but when a perishable good hits its indicated expiration date, merchants dispose of them. This common practice is making food waste even more difficult to curb.
The practice of stamping these dates on the food we buy can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution. When machineries were invented, factories sprouted left and right. Agriculture and food production became more and more industrialized, which meant family farms were slowly replaced with corporate-owned farms. Communities no longer had to rely on their local farms for produce when they could go to supermarkets that had more options and stocks.
With food produced at a pace never seen before, consumers worried that they couldn’t finish them faster than they would spoil. At this time, refrigeration in supermarkets and in homes was a nascent thing, so goods like meat and dairy did go bad, resulting in food waste.
Also around this time in the 1930s, it’s rumored that mafia boss Al Capone shared this growing concern when a family member got sick from drinking spoiled milk. Legend has it that it was the Chicago-based crime lord who lobbied to make expiration dates mandatory to curb health problems caused by bad food. Though others have said that the reasoning is made up and Al Capone simply found another industry to profit from. Nonetheless, expiration dates were in the public consciousness. Consumers wanted to to have information that would help them buy the freshest goods and, ironically, minimize their food waste.
What Expiration Dates Really Mean
Whether or not a mob boss was really involved in making expiration dates mandatory, at least in the US, one can’t deny that it has become common. These labels are an important factor in our purchase and consumption of perishable goods. However, expiration dates and the many terms they come in don’t mean what most consumers think they mean — and it’s worsening the food waste problem.
In reality, expiration dates don’t indicate when food spoils and don’t have much to do with safety. Instead, these labels are concerned with maintaining the freshness of the food and encourage consumers to eat them before the quality decreases.
From a corporation or producer’s standpoint, this practice makes sense. You want to attract and satisfy consumers with the freshest goods. Most foods are indeed tastiest when they just came out of the industrial-sized oven, which will create a lasting impression on the consumer. They’re more likely to repurchase goods based on their latest experience with it. If they were to eat a bag of chips that, while perfectly safe, are no longer crunchy, they might not buy the product again. So that bag of perfectly edible chips contribute to the tons of food waste we’re already burdened with.
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Food manufacturers have a variety of ways to figure out what dates to stamp on their edible products. From science-driven studies like microbial challenges to mathematical modeling tools, these tests ultimately help determine the possible expiration dates of perishable goods. Focus groups are also key in the research process, particularly when they want to determine what quality they want to maintain based on consumers’ preferences.
However, they actually print earlier dates on the product just to make sure they’re not cutting it close. In addition to maintaining the quality of food they sell, companies want to avoid any liability with their products. Or else Al Capone might haunt them from the grave.
Food Dating and Food Waste
Just to be clear: printing expiration dates is not standardized by the USDA or the FDA. Only infant formula is actually federally mandated to indicate an expiration date — not meat, poultry, dairy, fish, or vegetables. The food dates you see on food are most likely printed due to state legislation or industry standards. Food dating is just so widely practiced that we’ve started to believe expiration dates are the end-all of food. Oh, this loaf of bread reached past date even if there are no visible signs of mold? Off to the garbage can it goes!
And therein lies the big problem: when we throw something that’s perfectly safe for consumption, we unnecessarily and unknowingly contribute to food waste. In fact, more than 80% of Americans throw away food because of the confusion around labels. Bread is the most wasted perishable good in the country, followed by other grain products, milk, and potatoes. Fresh produce, such as fruit and vegetables, are discarded by retailers and consumers because they’re too unpleasant looking. Even if foods aren’t really expired or rotten, they become food waste due to the culture we’ve built around consuming them.
To have such a massive amount of food waste, especially goods that are still safe to eat, is criminal at a time of rampant food insecurity. Some states won’t even allow food retailers to donate goods to homeless shelters or food banks if they have reached (or are about to reach) their past date. If you won’t eat it yourself, why should the less fortunate eat it? is indeed a compelling argument.
But perhaps we should eat food that’s reached its expiration date. Food waste is a multi-faceted problem that isn’t going to vanish when we eat more expired food but it’s a start. In fact, lawmakers have been looking at making food dating a standardized practice by introducing the labeling laws, such as the Food Date Labeling Act of 2021. They aim to make labels clearer and reduce the number of terms used to, essentially, two. ‘Best by’ or ‘best if used by’ indicate when a product’s quality starts to decline but is still safe for consumption. A ‘use by’ date, on the other hand, is a more accurate expiration date, which signifies that it’s time to toss something out.
Should You Still Eat Expired Food? The Answer Is Likely Yes.
Having more definitive labels means retailers don’t have to discard food unless they’re actually expired. But part of the effort of minimizing food waste is left in the hands of consumers. We can’t simply rely on standardized labels to tell us when food is still safe to eat. We also have to trust our senses.
Do you see signs of spoilage, like bacterial or fungal growth? Perhaps a shiny film on your meat? Does your milk smell or taste rancid? If you answered no, then something is most likely still safe for you to eat even if the expiration date says it isn’t. Educating yourself as a consumer on the signs of spoilage can help you further minimize unnecessary food waste.
The fact that there is no federal legislation for printing expiration dates apart from baby formula is telling. Consuming food that has passed its best before or sell-by date is not a safety issue and is not likely to get anyone sick. Lawmakers are hoping to make this practice more standard in an effort to minimize food waste, as well as curb food insecurity.
While product labels are still useful for food like unpasteurized milk, deli meats, and ready-to-eat meals, we don’t have to follow food dates as if they’re binding law. We should rely on our senses too. When in doubt, don’t throw it out just yet and contribute to food waste! Inspect it, smell it, taste it, if necessary.
