[HN Gopher] California bans sell-by dates
___________________________________________________________________
California bans sell-by dates
Author : noworld
Score : 172 points
Date : 2024-10-07 11:39 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.foodandwine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.foodandwine.com)
| lesuorac wrote:
| > To adhere with the requisite language outlined, any food
| products with a date label -- with the exception of infant
| formula, eggs, beer, and malt beverages -- must state "Best if
| Used By" to indicate peak quality, and "Use By" to designate food
| safety.
|
| I mean, personally a big fan. I recently started seeing "Packed
| on <date>" and like wtf does that even mean. Was the corn also
| picked on that date?
|
| Like these dates have been on products for as long as I can
| remember. Might was well have some rules around them finally.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| For me the one exception would be coffee. I'd much rather see a
| "roasted" date than some "best if used by" date.
| rising-sky wrote:
| I don't think this law forbids producers from adding
| supplemental dates? So a coffee container could conceivably
| have both dates
| kelipso wrote:
| Same. I only buy the ones that have the roast date because
| most of the best if used by dates are around a year after the
| roast date. Cannot trust that.
| ykonstant wrote:
| Sorry for the juvenile joke, but I cannot help imagining an
| assembly worker picking up the bag, shouting "ur mom's FAT!"
| and stamping "roasted on Oct 7 2024" :D
| ghaff wrote:
| There's frankly a huge variation between the OMG it was
| roasted two weeks ago and the OK it's only been a few months
| crowd.
| justin_oaks wrote:
| If I see a sell-by date, I only use it to compare between
| individual items. If there's a shelf with bread and two items
| have different sell-by dates, I choose the one with the later
| sell-by date.
| iwontberude wrote:
| I pick the older one to make sure the supply chain still works
| well.
| lubujackson wrote:
| User name checks out.
| derekp7 wrote:
| In the case of buttermilk, it only starts to get a good
| flavor some time after the date on the carton. So I will
| often pick the oldest one (which is easy, be cause they put
| the older cartons toward the front).
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Similar rule seems to apply to avocados. They sell them as
| "ripe and ready" and a week later they're still too hard to
| crush.
| akira2501 wrote:
| It's not incumbent on you to manage the supply chain. The
| people who are earning profits from servicing that chain have
| that responsibility. The entire system is best served if you
| operate with your _own_ best interests in mind.
| iwontberude wrote:
| I am smart enough to know that the food with expiration
| dates gets taken off the shelf and then some human being
| has to move it somewhere else if I don't take it. How does
| that not serve the system? I like being efficient and
| filling in gaps where it doesn't matter. Freshness
| differentials on shelves isn't worth it for me or the
| business.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > I like being efficient
|
| Sure, but selecting the oldest groceries on the shelf is
| not a factor, as it's not your efficiency you're
| improving.
|
| > filling in gaps where it doesn't matter.
|
| If the store is arranging its stock orders incorrectly
| then they should fix that. They have a much better
| opportunity to have impacts here than your gap filling
| ever will.
|
| Why don't they actually do this then? Because the 2% loss
| on waste can't be made up by the 5% additional cost of
| labor to "right size" the order perfectly every time.
|
| Finally it's only waste because we don't manage these
| outputs correctly and have a single dumpster where all
| "garbage" goes. Food recycling and city compost programs
| could close the rest of the loop far more efficiently
| than any of this.
|
| > Freshness differentials on shelves isn't worth it for
| me or the business.
|
| No, it's just the entire rest of the supply chain.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Agree that one does not have an obligation (first sentence)
| but disagree that pure individual self interest is best for
| society.
| kodt wrote:
| Yeah, I assume if it were to be sold by that date, then you
| still have time after that date that the product remains fresh.
| Is this not common sense to people?
| tivert wrote:
| Yes, but it's unknown _how long_ the product will remain
| fresh past the sell by date.
|
| Personally, I think everything should be labeled with both a
| sell by date, a best by date, and an expiration date, all
| right next to each other.
| delichon wrote:
| I wonder, do sell-by dates harm the bottom line of groceries due
| to more unsold perishable goods, or does that cost get passed
| back to the vendors? Either way this rule would seem to be
| advantageous to either the retailer or the wholesaler. Perhaps
| that helped to get it passed.
| Pat_Murph wrote:
| When I worked in a grocerie store.
|
| The bread guy took back the unsold breads and we were only
| charged for the sold ones and credited the unsold.
|
| This was in Montreal 20 years ago.
|
| Not sure how it is today and I have no idea in California.
|
| But since it passed I'm guessing it was thr same and now this
| would be an obvious advantage for the sellers since this would
| assure they sell everything.
| kaikai wrote:
| I worked in a grocery coop and it depended on the vendor. For
| some, they controlled how much stock we carried and would take
| back anything that didn't sell. For things that we ordered
| directly and chose how much to carry, we were responsible for
| expired food costs.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| This is something I have idly wondered. Where does the
| expired food go? Both "literally rotting" and "canned good
| safe for a decade, but we toss it after 12 months".
|
| Landfill? Animal feed? Some amount of charity for the
| salvageable items? A typical grocery store could produce an
| incredible amount of daily waste.
| AngryData wrote:
| It isnt uncommon for pig farmers to buy bulked spoiled or
| old food. I don't know how much that represents overall
| though.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| When I volunteered at a soup kitchen in Newfoundland, we
| got in just/nearly expired food fairly regularly. Some got
| used, some (fresh stuff) got frozen, some got tossed.
|
| Definitely a large amount of it went to perfectly fine
| meals. The cook was very skilled at making good meals with
| an odd selection of ingredients.
| kaikai wrote:
| We were college students; we ate it ourselves. We also had
| access to a commercial kitchen, and anything getting close
| to going bad we'd make into prepared food, which always
| sold really fast. We couldn't do that with our milk vendor
| though, because they would only give us credit for unsold
| AND unconsumed milk. We had to let the milk go bad, which
| was a huge waste.
|
| I also used to dumpster dive, and yes, grocery stores throw
| out a LOT of food. Some places would have bins for pig
| farmers to collect, most just threw it in the trash. I've
| been held at gunpoint twice for dumpstering. We had an
| ongoing battle with a manager for a Trader Joe's, who ended
| up pouring bleach all over the dumpster every night. It's
| wild what people will do in order to keep people from
| getting something they don't "deserve," even when it's
| literal trash.
| giardini wrote:
| kaikai says _" It's wild what people will do in order to
| keep people from getting something they don't "deserve,"
| even when it's literal trash."_
|
| But you haven't "stood in the other man's shoes" and seen
| it from his/her perspective.
|
| Businesses are strictly regulated. They are required by
| law to dispose of certain old/damaged/discarded foodstuff
| and are not allowed to sell it for human consumption.
| Likely a second company (and possibly a third, since
| storage and hauling may be done separately) was hired to
| store the food in a container and to haul the food away
| as trash. The company signed a contract stating so.
|
| Now you
|
| 1. entered his property (trespassed),
|
| 2. entered a dumpster (a second trespass possibly of a
| second business),
|
| 3. removed goods (theft), and then
|
| 4. passed/sold them to others (violating untold food
| laws)
|
| and then are surprised someone tries to stop you!
|
| Worst of all, consider if, while dumpster diving, you
| hurt yourself or even died? The food business would be
| sued and his insurance company would likely pay. You
| would have nothing to say about the decision to sue: your
| insurers and/or medical providers would pursue litigation
| against the food vendor even were you to oppose their
| actions.
|
| As you can see, in this interpretation there is no
| particular question of what one or another person
| "deserves". Rather it is a question of law, property
| rights and civic responsibility.
| kaikai wrote:
| I have seen it from their perspective, I'm not an idiot.
| I'm fully capable of seeing and understanding another
| persons perspective, and disagreeing with it. I reject
| the idea that allowing people to go hungry when there is
| a EXCESS of food available is a morally correct choice.
|
| Laws are rules created by people and we have the ability
| to change them. At the very least, we have the ability
| and moral responsibility to ignore them when they are
| unethical.
|
| Also, I have never sold dumpstered food or given it to
| anyone who didn't know it was dumpstered. I HAVE gotten
| injured dumpstering, and didn't sue anyone for it. I DID
| get sick once from dumpstered food, and didn't sue anyone
| for it (I've also gotten sick from eating at restaurants,
| and didn't sue them, either).
|
| For me, basic human rights and care for each other will
| always trump laws and property rights. And yes, I've done
| jail time for it and would do it again. I know that we
| won't agree, and don't need to change your mind. I do
| hope that you can understand the difference between
| knowing and understanding the rules, and blindly
| following the rules.
| throwup238 wrote:
| A lot of grocery stores donate it to soup kitchens thanks
| to the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of
| 1996. My local SoCal Trader Joes donated over $700k worth
| of food last year.
| coding123 wrote:
| Yet another surprise. I wish CA lawmakers would stop operating in
| the dark.
| LeFantome wrote:
| This all makes massive sense to me. The people in my life treat
| any date on food as an expiry date and throw out massive amounts
| of perfectly edible food. Also, people do not seem to have any
| concept about the rate at which different food products spoil.
| Some things can be used way past the dates I see. Others really
| are going off by then.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Meanwhile we have gotten rid of expiry dates here in the UK.
| And I have bought fruits and vegetables that all look fine on
| the outside but inside are rotten.
|
| Not only frustrating this then wastes my time and my money.
| Items do need expiry dates, sugar does not, fresh produce and
| vegetables do.
|
| However, educating that your food isn't instantly bad when it's
| gone pass would encourage people to waste less food.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It feels like the solution to this is some sort of in app
| mechanism to be able to submit evidence back to the grocer
| that the produce or other perishable was not in condition to
| be sold, and for them to credit your account accordingly.
| This saves you a trip back to the store. If they're selling
| perishables that have already gone bad, certainly, that
| sounds like a supply chain failure if they're offering that
| for sale which should be going right into the compost waste
| stream.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Save's a trip sure, but I'm out of a meal for the day.
|
| I make dinner on a day by day basis. What I mean is that I
| stop at the supermarket on the way home, buy what I need
| and then make dinner rather than stocking the ingredients.
| I find this method for me a good way to get out of the work
| mantra.
|
| Knowing I can make dinner and then drink to it with a glass
| of wine. So to get home, find out that X vegetable has
| expired now means I have to find time to take it to the
| store or throw it out and waste my money nor have the
| ability to make what I planned.
|
| If you order online, you can request a refund without much
| hassle but I don't do that.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Hard problem to solve for sure :(
| CoffeeOnWrite wrote:
| Put samples out
| kmlx wrote:
| > to submit evidence back to the grocer that the produce or
| other perishable was not in condition to be sold
|
| this reminded me of the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer
| tries to return fruit: https://youtu.be/IgZkMRfnomI
| getwiththeprog wrote:
| As Jerry says, with fruit the consumer takes the risk.
|
| I say, if you are buying bad fruit it is time to move on
| to a new grocer (and not a supermarket).
| PeterStuer wrote:
| It's not a failure. They use treatments to make the fruit
| _look_ fresh and shiny even when it is near gone.
| getwiththeprog wrote:
| Supermarkets also use ethylene to ripen many fruits (such
| as bananas) just before they put it out. It is so they
| can be picked green (unripe) to ship.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| With bananas this is fine, they can ripen at home. It's
| the limes, pineapples, and other fruit which don't ripen
| after picking which are the problem.
| achileas wrote:
| tbf I've never seen expiration dates on fresh produce in the
| US. Maybe some packaged salads and things (and it's never
| accurate, of course), but nothing fresh.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I think a packaging or production date would help this
| without causing people to throw out unspoiled food. (once
| they realize it's not an expiry date)
|
| I am not sure I buy it for fruit/vegetables though, since
| those are often sold unpackaged and unlabelled already.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| > Meanwhile we have gotten rid of expiry dates here in the
| UK. And I have bought fruits and vegetables that all look
| fine on the outside but inside are rotten.
|
| It's great! Now the supermarkets can blame us for waste.
|
| Fortunately, every supermarket does still have labels that
| show a coded date - so that their staff can remove products
| that are too old.
|
| If you search for the particular store online, you should be
| able to find their system.
|
| I shop in Sainsbury's usually. Their system is pretty simple.
| A letter shows the month (A = January, B = February etc.) and
| two digits show the day of the month.
| sahmeepee wrote:
| Thanks for this. In general I'm in favour of products
| removing the dates so that people don't chuck out perfectly
| good food based on superstition/misguided obedience, but an
| annoying side-effect is that if we have two unopened packs
| of the same product it's hard to know which is older. By
| sheer bad luck, an old pack could hang around indefinitely
| and go off.
|
| I was thinking a possible solution would be a simple
| numerical counter (e.g. days since 1 Jan 2000), which can't
| be easily decoded by eye, but allowed you to rank items
| easily by age.
| petercooper wrote:
| I'm glad someone else has noticed this. The quality and
| availability of fruit and veg at mainstream supermarkets has
| fallen off a cliff since COVID. It all feels far "older" and
| less fresh than it did, even when it's new out on the shelf.
| Traditional greengrocers are still fine, but tend to stock
| more local produce, so I'm wondering if it's Brexit or
| shipping causing the issue rather than expiry dates.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >However, educating that your food isn't instantly bad when
| it's gone pass would encourage people to waste less food.
|
| If there's a date then frankly I _don 't_ want to waste brain
| cycles thinking if something in the fridge or freezer has
| gone bad, unless it's so obvious I don't have to think much
| about it. If it's past, out it goes. I have enough crap to
| worry about already.
|
| If it means I waste money, that means I'm buying too much and
| that can be easily resolved.
| nfw2 wrote:
| My understanding from the article is that expiry ("use by")
| dates will still be needed, and sell-by dates are being removed
| because mean something different from expiry, but consumers
| (myself included until now) generally misunderstand this.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| > and sell-by dates are being removed
|
| Not removed. Reworded.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| No, removed. "Sell by" is not the same as the now mandated
| "Best if used by"
| slicktux wrote:
| Yes, you can safely eat food after "Best of used by" date but
| one has to keep in mind that there are chemical processes in
| place; one such example is rate of oxidation of food oils...one
| is literally eating highly oxidative food like chips but more
| so if it's been sitting for a while. Though not obvious, but
| the damage it's doing to your bodies cells can be pretty bad.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Just avoid those types of foods altogether.
| dawnerd wrote:
| And varies by brand. For example stuff from Aldi (their house
| brands) don't really last past the best but dates. Often will
| be spoiling before the date.
| ghaff wrote:
| I will throw out old dried herbs in particular and store
| replacement stock in the freezer. Also will replace spices when
| they get old and you can't smell them any longer. Most shelf
| stable food is still good for a decent time past its use by
| date. Though not forever.
|
| But, yes, I have relatives who will consider use by a hard
| deadline.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| While it's good to have an understanding of which things the
| date does and does not matter for, when it comes to judging
| these things, I prefer to lean towards caution. It isn't worth
| getting sick over a little food.
| elzbardico wrote:
| In Brazil products are marked with two dates: -
| Manufactured/Packaged by. - Valid until.
|
| The valid until is related to food safety and is regulated by the
| federal sanitary authority for each product by a federal
| standard. The "freshest by" is something that consumers have to
| infer by themselves probably as a midpoint between those two
| dates.
| bombcar wrote:
| Packaged/Manufactured date is the way to go; you can then even
| have "valid until" be implicit on most goods (that don't
| expire) and only physically labelled on things that go bad,
| like raw meat or vegetables.
| bko wrote:
| You know who hates food waste more than Gavin Newsom? Every
| greedy supermarket market executive that throws away 30% of their
| inventory. Especially when their profit margins are often in the
| low single digits.
|
| The article says there is no mandates on any types of dates. So I
| imagine these dates serve some purpose, otherwise they wouldn't
| be there. Laws like this often sound like they're helping but
| since no one is forcing the hand of retailers, so I would be they
| end up increasing costs. Maybe not food waste per-se, but some
| costs that originally tipped the retailers to have these dates in
| the first place.
| ihumanable wrote:
| Seems like the food producer would have a clear incentive to
| mark their products with sell by dates.
|
| If I'm making a food product for sale at retail and I can mark
| it "sell by" some date, consumers get confused and think it's
| no good after that date, the store that buys my food product
| will not want to keep it on the shelf because consumers won't
| buy it.
|
| The retailer has to discard the perfectly fine item and reorder
| from... me the food product producer and then I make more
| money.
|
| I imagine the food retailers are happy about this and the food
| manufacturers are probably unhappy.
| bko wrote:
| I think you can come up with a lot of scenarios in which any
| one person is happy or not happy. But in complicated systems,
| it's impossible to know exactly and you have to rely on
| market forces to work these things out. The problem is people
| coming in without any humility and trying to tinker with the
| system and getting shocked when there is unexpected
| consequences.
| ntlk wrote:
| Not sure whether it was the removal of best before dates or
| Brexit, but fresh food and veg in Britain is often already
| rotting in supermarkets. So now instead of the store throwing
| out loads of produce past its best, I have to do it when I get
| home and realise that yet again one in each pack of 3 onions is
| rotted.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| How were they labeling the produce before? Individually? Or
| by the box?
|
| I haven't seen dated produce, but maybe it's hidden.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Been seeing that in the states too. A lot of old produce, but
| I blame high prices not moving it fast enough.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > I have to do it when I get home and realise that yet again
| one in each pack of 3 onions is rotted.
|
| I have always been under the impression that the entire point
| of pre-packaging produce like avocados, apples, and garlic is
| to mix items that are bad which no one would buy in with some
| good items so you can still sell the bad ones.
|
| This seems to have always been the case in California - where
| you can generally get good produce.
| ntlk wrote:
| Fair, although previously I'd buy the same three packs
| without issue.
| rsynnott wrote:
| The UK hasn't banned them, though some supermarkets did
| voluntarily remove them. Brexit's a relatively likely culprit
| for imported stuff; the extra paperwork really
| disincentivises JIT delivery (and in particular _really_
| disincentivises mixed contents containers).
|
| Though it'll get worse. The regime for imported fruit and veg
| is still in transition, with a lot of stuff that the UK was
| supposed to bring in in 2021 recently delayed til 2025.
| skybrian wrote:
| You're right that the dates serve other purposes. The
| incentives aren't as simple as avoiding wasted product.
|
| Shelf space is valuable. Food that expires is inventory that's
| _not selling_ for some reason, or it wouldn't be on the shelf
| long enough to expire. It's taking up space that could instead
| be used for other inventory that _does_ sell well. So even
| inventory that doesn't expire at all will get put on the
| discount rack to get rid of it, or finally thrown out if
| doesn't sell even at a cheap price.
|
| The best way to avoid waste is to only buy food that actually
| sells, the quicker the better. Easier said than done, though.
|
| Also, even greedy supermarket execs need to worry about their
| store's reputation if they sell people food that doesn't taste
| right too often.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The grocery industry is heavily monopolized. No where more so
| than on the west coast. They don't care about their
| reputation because there mostly is nowhere else for you to
| legitimately go to.
| skybrian wrote:
| Nearby: Safeway, Lucky's, Target, Trader Joe's, Ranch 99,
| Costco, Walmart, Cardenas, Pak N' Save, and I'm sure I
| missed some. Also, a lot of Asian food marts that aren't
| chains. That seems like quite a lot of competition?
| akira2501 wrote:
| Safeway is owned by Albertsons. So is Lucky's. There are
| 58 total Ranch 99's in the USA. Costco requires
| membership up front. Cardenas is owned by KKR. Pak N Save
| is a subsidary of Safeway and also owned by Albertons.
| Walmart is not a grocery store.
|
| So, no, not a lot of competition.
|
| You really should look into grocery M&A's over the past
| few years. This is all easy to see if you care to
| _actually_ look.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Especially when their profit margins are often in the low
| single digits.
|
| This is a little misleading, since a lot of their product on
| their shelve isn't paid for until 60/90/180/365 days after
| receiving it, and generally suppliers set aside money to help
| cover shrinkage. And they'll often agree to take back unsold
| goods.
|
| There's a reason that so many of the largest companies in the
| USA are/were retailers. Borrowing something worth $100, then
| selling it for $103 may be low margin, but it scales incredibly
| well.
| guelo wrote:
| Why do you assume the legislators didn't talk to industry
| executives? I'm sure they did and all these issues were
| discussed
| ewoodrich wrote:
| > The law prohibits the use of _consumer-facing_ sell-by dates,
| and also requires standardized language for date labels.
|
| It appears that it does not preclude tracking sell-by for
| internal inventory management purposes (such as with a handheld
| scanner already used in grocery stores for various purposes, or
| possibly some kind of opaque but human readable code), just to
| avoid customer confusion including it explicitly on the
| package.
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| I wonder, if someone purchases and eats a spoiled food item that
| would have had a sell by date before the ban, will they have
| legal standing to sue the state? I assume this is different than
| expiration date?
| brudgers wrote:
| If you seek an informed opinion, ask your lawyer.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Let's hope this catches on elsewhere!
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| It likely will. Unfortunately, California laws tend to be de
| facto national laws for consumer goods, because manufacturers
| don't want to make one version for Cali and one for the rest of
| the US.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| _WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State
| of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other
| reproductive harm._
|
| Meanwhile in Maine, you're questioning the sanity of
| Californians.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Why ban such dates? I would want this data if I am a consumer.
| Sure the food may not be expired yet, but it may go bad sooner. I
| don't understand why California feels the need to continuously
| pass hundreds of bills and impose so much control.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| > Why ban such dates?
|
| They're not being banned. The wording must change to "best if
| used by" if it's not about food safety.
| tivert wrote:
| > To adhere with the requisite language outlined, any food
| products with a date label -- with the exception of infant
| formula, eggs, beer, and malt beverages -- must state "Best if
| Used By" to indicate peak quality, and "Use By" to designate food
| safety.
|
| "Use by" is dumb, it's too close to "Best if Used By." If there's
| a safety issue, the term should be "expires", "expires on", or
| something like that.
| brightball wrote:
| I remember seeing a sell by date on salt. It was at that moment
| that I started questioning the process.
| etrautmann wrote:
| As another poster mentioned, it likely refers to the
| packaging - either degredation of materials used or the
| effect that has on the contents (moisture ingress, oxidation,
| etc).
|
| For salt, that seems somewhat silly, but not enough to make
| me fundamentally distrust the rationale
| nick3443 wrote:
| Sell by is entirely unrelated to quality though. It's just
| how often they think they can get away with. Like the
| recommendation on a box of baking soda... Put it in your
| fridge and change it every 30 days. No thanks.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Pretty sure that's the recommendation to deodorize your
| fridge, not related to the baking soda's shelf life. The
| other side of the box says "keep in a cool and dark
| place".
|
| It does seem to go "flat" after a few months regardless,
| even when the expiry date is 2 years in the future.
| MrDarcy wrote:
| There's a whole controversy over this specific issue. For
| decades they recommended 90 days in the fridge to keep it
| fresh.
|
| Then they switched to 30 days recommendation to goose
| sales.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's not how long they can get away with, it's how long
| they are willing to listen to complaints about it.
|
| A sell by date makes perfect sense on salt. No packager
| wants to be responsible for material that sat on someone
| else's shelf for years and years.
| kergonath wrote:
| I think it all makes sense when you consider that the
| sell by date is the date at which they'll stop accepting
| responsibility. And the "best before" dates are just
| guidelines.
| Maximus9000 wrote:
| I've seen it on vinegar too.
| alwa wrote:
| Have you ever bought an old cardboard tube of salt? The last
| time I did was in a tropical location. Somehow over the years
| it had acquired the scent of wet rot, and the relentless
| cycles of humidity had effectively recrystalized the contents
| into a rock.
|
| Luckily the packaging had started to biodegrade, too, so it
| was easy enough to scrape off the fiber fuzz and hammer down
| the inner salt rocks into something useful. Better than
| nothing! But I wish I'd been able to buy it by its sell-by.
|
| (Spoken as a skeptic of deadlines of all sorts, and one who
| routinely ignores food safety. I still think the dates are
| mostly silly, but that type of instance reminds me why it's a
| hard problem: even if you're not a dastardly wastemonger,
| choosing the "right" date depends heavily on handling and
| climate and factors beyond your control--unknowable at
| production time.)
| schwartzworld wrote:
| How do you know this happened as a result of the sellby, as
| opposed to being improperly stored? The package could get
| wet at any point.
| alwa wrote:
| I suspect it was exactly a function of improper storage
| (and that it would last forever in a cool dry place).
|
| My broader point, I guess, is that the appropriate date
| to sell something by depends so heavily on factors
| unknowable at production time that it's hard to guess.
| But also that apparently-shelf-stable goods can in fact
| degrade.
|
| And I guess that it's kind of weird and unnatural the way
| modern industrial packaging/processing have trained us to
| expect that a given product should be interchangeable
| with any other until an arbitrary date.
| Simulacra wrote:
| I think people will adjust to the new language but not update
| their schemas, which means their behavior will not change.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| "UNSAFE TO USE AFTER"
| engineer_22 wrote:
| "DO NOT CONSUME AFTER"
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| It's bad if you're a search engine. It's not as bad if you're a
| human who is capable of parsing natural language semantics.
| tivert wrote:
| > It's bad if you're a search engine. It's not as bad if
| you're a human who is capable of parsing natural language
| semantics.
|
| I am a human capable of parsing natural language semantics,
| and "use by" is terrible. It's one of those completely
| unexplained commands you often find in instructions. _Why_
| should I use it by that date? If you 're not a mindless drone
| who just unquestioningly follows instructions, the total lack
| of reason creates a lot of space to decide to do something
| else. For instance: without consulting California food
| labeling legislation (which, I admit, Californians all carry
| around the statute book those regulations several times a
| day), it's reasonable to interpret "use by" as "best if used
| by," for instance.
|
| They should use clearer language _because they can and have
| no excuse not to_.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| I suppose that "use this before" and "this is best if used
| before" would be preferable.
|
| The compromise here is to keep printing as short as
| possible. I think the greater issue is that these
| statements don't point to any trivially available
| authoritative definition.
| tivert wrote:
| "expires on", "not safe after", or "unsafe by" are not
| meaningfully longer. These aren't telegrams, they're not
| paying a penny a character. If they're willing to mandate
| the phrase "best if used by," they can mandate something
| clear than "use by" for safety issues.
|
| They have no excuse.
| hentrep wrote:
| Here's the actual USDA article describing the difference between
| "sell by, "use by", and "best by" terms:
| http://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-...
|
| I don't have time to find a source that supports this, but I
| understand that these dates also refer to the durability of the
| "food safe" container/packaging. Ever drink water from an
| unopened plastic bottle that has been stored for awhile? That
| taste is not from the water decaying or otherwise breaking down.
| guelo wrote:
| Those cheap plastic water bottles should be banned. They're one
| of the greatest sources of micro plastics in our bodies. (Not
| to mention unstudied nano plastics)
| lupusreal wrote:
| They can't be anywhere even close to synthetic textiles.
| debit-freak wrote:
| Presumably you're not chewing on or eating from synthetic
| textiles. Meanwhile an enormous amount of food is shipped
| in, and even _cooked in_ , plastic directly.
|
| Of course you're right in the sense that when it comes to
| our general environment textiles produce far more
| environmental microplastics than most other sources.
| Particularly in our water systems.
| relaxing wrote:
| ...water systems that supply our drinking water.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I think synthetic fabrics shed very small particles into
| the air every time they are disturbed, eventually wearing
| out entirely. We breath a lot of that in. Clothes,
| furniture, sometimes even bed sheets; these all shed
| fibers into our living spaces.
| tradertef wrote:
| Or car tires..
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't personally normally buy bottled water but the
| alternative is probably to go back to glass which means
| higher consumer prices, increased fossil fuel consumption for
| transportation, etc.
| hurpdurpdurp wrote:
| Why not aluminum cans? There's still some plastic in there,
| but you can mostly recycle them, they must be fairly cheap,
| and they're quite light. As an added benefit they stack
| higher in transit with less extra packaging, at least if
| they're shipped like beer.
| ghaff wrote:
| I literally just saw those for the first time. As I
| understand it they're still plastic lined and the energy
| efficiency depends on how much recycling takes place. It
| depends if eliminating plastics is what you really care
| about or not.
| sureIy wrote:
| I wish regulators stopped trying to be poetic and just use
| clear English.
|
| What's "best by?" You need to write "do not eat after." Nobody
| needs to be explained what that means.
| _visgean wrote:
| But thats the point, none of these actually mean that you
| cant eat it after te cutoff date.
| ghaff wrote:
| That 5 year old box of unopened crackers will almost
| certainly not hurt you but they may not taste very good.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| "Clear English" is using as few words as possible.
| sureIy wrote:
| If they make sense yes, but _clearly_ people don 't
| understand this.
|
| When safety is on the line, the goal can't only be "as few
| words as possible"
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Here's something to blow your mind: Most Americans are
| not literate.
|
| Yes, I'm serious and I say that as a fellow American. We
| are not literate.
|
| So use as few words as possible and a date. Honestly we
| could probably do without the words, just the date.
| teddyh wrote:
| Is minified code easier to read? No. It's the same with
| regular language; shorter sentences are not always more
| comprehensible.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| The likelihood an American will read something decreases
| with each word written.
|
| Seriously: We hate reading. The fewer words the better.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| "best buy" is pretty plain English. It means the manufacturer
| beleives the product will be at its best up to that date.
| Fuzzwah wrote:
| But you submitted "best buy" rather than "best by". Sort of
| invalidates your point.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I wonder if Best Buy use best by dates.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I don't pay dates much mind. If it looks good, smells good, and
| tastes good I eat it. We are pretty adept at smelling and tasting
| spoiled food.
| bombcar wrote:
| The real danger is leeching packaging materials, which is
| pretty minor.
| causal wrote:
| Botulism can be present without any smell or taste
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Pretty low risk though. It requires a low-oxygen environment
| so mainly canned foods are the risk and overwhelmingly home-
| canned food that isn't heated properly/long enough.
|
| But yeah, don't eat food from damaged cans.
| anon291 wrote:
| Botulism is a concern with canned food which have no real
| sell by date. Moreover, if botulism was in there during
| canning it's there on day one and day 1000.
| Lev1a wrote:
| Over the last few years here in Germany many, many food
| products have gained a little note next to the "MHD"
| (Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum, [1]) which says something like "oft
| langer gut" ("often viable for longer") or "ansehen, riechen,
| probieren" ("Look, smell, try").
|
| And IIRC the EU is also debating the removal of MHD from staple
| foods that are shelf-stable for years, like dried pasta,
| uncooked rice etc. Normal sugar already doesn't have an MHD,
| although jam sugar is marked with the year of manufacture since
| they have other compounds in them as well beside the sugar
| itself.
|
| Where i work all all the food that's simply past its MHD gets
| collected every morning by the Red Cross for food banks ("Die
| Tafel"). Obviously if a foods container is damaged or it's
| rotted fruits/veg or it would be unsafe to consume for another
| reason [2], that stuff gets thrown out (into bins collected for
| biomass processing).
|
| [1]: pretty sure it's the same as "best (if used) by date"
| since products from abroad are sometimes marked "BBD <date>"
| instead of "MHD <date>" (at least on the transport packaging).
|
| [2]: like lazy customers not putting frozen or cooled foods
| back but leaving them elsewhere in the warm store, something
| which REALLY aggravates me.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > We are pretty adept at smelling and tasting spoiled food.
|
| Ah.. so you have not experienced an injury or enough aging to
| compromise your ability to do this?
| sdo72 wrote:
| I find food in the US contains too much toxin that harms the
| body. They have a lot of synthetic chemicals and preservatives.
| Many of which have very bad long term damages to the body. Even
| with these labels, sometimes it doesn't really tell the whole
| story about the ingredients. Most of the food that sits on the
| shelf for weeks shouldn't be consumed.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Most of the food that sits on the shelf for weeks shouldn't
| be consumed.
|
| Salt? Flour? Oil? Oats? Rice? Garlic? Black pepper? Most ground
| spices? Nuts? Beans? Honey? Vinegar? Quinoa? All of these can
| reasonably sit on a shelf for weeks. I guess none of these are
| safe to be consumed, all just "toxins".
| sdo72 wrote:
| That isn't most, and I mentioned synthetic chemicals &
| preservatives.
| vel0city wrote:
| Pretty much all oils are processed foods. Vinegar is a
| preservative and is a processed food. Most salts are
| processed and are common preservatives. Flour is a
| processed food.
|
| The reasons why Twinkies are so shelf stable are largely
| the same reasons why flour or rice or olive oil is shelf
| stable.
|
| Better be careful of those chemicals like sodium chloride
| and dihydrogen monoxide.
| sdo72 wrote:
| > Salt? Flour? Oil? Oats? Rice? Garlic? Black pepper?
| Most ground spices? Nuts? Beans? Honey? Vinegar? Quinoa?
|
| Sure, if you are assuming Americans are mostly eating
| these things daily.
| vel0city wrote:
| Twinkies are made up almost entirely (by mass) of the
| things listed above. The only major thing missing is
| sugar.
| sdo72 wrote:
| Should you check the ingredients again? that's your
| definition of most?
| vel0city wrote:
| Twinkies ingredients, minus the less than 2% (was saying
| _most_ by mass):
|
| Sugar, Water, Enriched Flour, High Fructose Corn Syrup
| (sugar), Tallow (animal fat/oil), Dextrose (sugar, from
| the HFCS), Egg
|
| Twinkies are >98% sugar, flower, oil, with a little bit
| of egg.
|
| You could substitute the tallow with other similar kinds
| of oils if you wanted, like say coconut oil.
| teddyh wrote:
| I think it's the same as "chemical". When something's
| bad, it's a chemical. When something's good, it's not.
|
| I.e. nobody knows what "processed" means, they just know
| it's bad somehow.
|
| (Re-post of
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27397900>)
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Depending on who you ask, flour isn't food.
|
| I consider them crazies in the same vein as vegetarians who
| judge whether something is a vegetable based on how cute it
| looks.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Salt? Flour? Oil? Oats? Rice? Garlic? Black pepper? Most
| ground spices? Nuts? Beans? Honey? Vinegar? Quinoa? All of
| these can reasonably sit on a shelf for weeks.
|
| They're probably full of things that are bad for you too.
|
| Your salt is full of microplastics (https://www.nationalgeogr
| aphic.com/environment/article/micro...). Your oats are full
| of chlormequat. Your spices are full of heavy metals
| (arsenic, cadmium, and lead), and the same is true for
| vinegar, nuts, beans, and rice. Most honey sold in stores
| isn't real honey but comes from China and can be filled with
| chloramphenicol and other illegal animal antibiotics. Almost
| all of the extra virgin olive oil sold in US stores is fake
| and can also be contaminated with phthalates. Around half the
| garlic sold in the US comes from china and according to some
| this is Communist Sewage-Garlic, and a threat to national
| security (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67662779) which
| can also be covered in chemicals (the common claim is methyl
| bromide is used although I haven't seen anything to back that
| up)
|
| The quinoa sitting on your shelf seems the least likely to be
| toxic or bad for you, but you might want to avoid it for
| other reasons (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/j
| an/25/quinoa-g...)
| vel0city wrote:
| You're not wrong. The safest play is to not consume
| anything.
| kergonath wrote:
| None of these issues have anything to do with shelf life,
| though.
| ghaff wrote:
| Or months plus. Flour probably gives better results for yeast
| breads in the weeks timeline but the average household isn't
| buying a new bag of flour every couple weeks.
|
| I do keep nuts in the freezer for the most part.
| kergonath wrote:
| > All of these can reasonably sit on a shelf for weeks
|
| Or for years, in a proper cupboard.
| torgoguys wrote:
| > To adhere with the requisite language outlined, any food
| products with a date label -- with the exception of infant
| formula, eggs, beer, and malt beverages -- must state "Best if
| Used By" to indicate peak quality, and "Use By" to designate food
| safety.
|
| Infant formula is required federally, so OK. Eggs are an oddly
| specific one, but I guess I can see it (although I'd wonder why
| some other products like milk, or meat might not be similarly
| required). But why beer??? Legit question--I don't drink so maybe
| it's obvious and I'm just a knucklehead.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| Beer certainly is an odd one! Some (craft) craft beers will age
| gracefully -- improving, even -- for _years_. Industrial
| lagers... _not so much_.
|
| I scored once with an imported (Belgian) craft beer at the
| local supermarket, heavily marked down price because the sell-
| by date was approaching. Some days later, marked down by half
| again because the date had passed. Needless to say, I bought
| all I could carry.
| crowcroft wrote:
| This is a tricky one, because at some point you need to think
| about the integrity of the product's packaging, and how well
| it's been stored.
|
| Craft beer *in a can* will not age gracefully. Even in a
| bottle, while it will probably be fine, how much light
| exposure are the bottle getting, have they been left out in
| the sun at any point etc.
|
| Best before dates, hard expiry dates (if required), and
| ideally including a packaged on date would be a pretty ideal
| amount of information.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| It depends on the beer type as well. Malty strong beers age
| well. Hoppy beers don't because the compounds are volatile.
| Malty beers benefit in flavor from continued breakdown of
| their chemical compounds, hoppy beers don't.
| _JamesA_ wrote:
| I never thought of it that way but IPA's always taste off
| to me.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| > Malty strong beers age well. Hoppy beers don't because
| the compounds are volatile.
|
| > IPA's always taste off to me.
|
| That sounds contradictory to what I've heard about IPAs:
| that they were created because the normal beers the
| British had at the time wouldn't survive the journey to
| India, so they added a lot more hops and called it India
| Pale Ale. Based on that, I'd expect them to age better,
| not worse, than other kinds, but I'm not a beer person
| and this is just secondhand knowledge that I've never
| bothered to verify.
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| The amount of hops in the beers from that story were
| about as bitter as a common blonde ale.
|
| The modern IPA is nothing like that anymore. Also its the
| aroma compounds of hops that breaks down so fast, not the
| bittering aspects.This is why you can store a Russian
| imperial stout (high hop bitterness, low hop aroma, very
| high abv) but not normally a double/triple IPA (high hop
| bitterness, high hop aroma, high abv) and defiantly not
| age a normal IPA or session IPA (high hop aroma, low
| abv).
|
| *Some overly malty double and triple IPAs will age into a
| nice barley wine if given enough time.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| The hops are somewhat antibacterial, so they can help
| against contamination, but the hop flavors break down
| over time, and light and oxidation are what "skunk" a
| beer.
| hollandheese wrote:
| Sours (non-kettle) age extremely well. A decade out they
| can taste even better than when fresh. You'll possibly
| have to recarbonate them though.
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| "Craft beer _in a can_ will not age gracefully. Even in a
| bottle, while it will probably be fine, how much light
| exposure are the bottle getting, have they been left out in
| the sun at any point etc. "
|
| A modern beer can, on a newer canning line, is superior to
| a bottle in every single way. This debate about bottles
| being better than cans is from years ago. Cans and
| especially the canning machines have come a very long way
| in the last 15 years. That is one of the many reasons why
| almost every brewery is slowly switching to cans.
|
| In regard to aging beers, there are a many important
| factors. The biggest enemy in aging a beer is oxygen.
| Oxygen gives beer a cardboard, paper flavor or a very
| raisin-y flavor, eventually it makes the entire beer taste
| like soy sauce.
|
| As you mentioned zero light in a can so no skunking,
| although brown bottles stored in a dark cool place don't
| experience much of this. But clear, green and other bottles
| do. Bottle caps slowly leak oxygen in over a very long time
| and is why you might see a oxygen absorbing material in the
| under side of some bottle caps.
|
| On the flip side one majorly common way a can will go bad
| in aging is from a seal alignment issue. This is especially
| common in smaller breweries as automated seam inspectors
| are quite expensive. The seal will visually look great. But
| if you tear it apart and measure the folds its quite common
| for them to be a little bit off, which can slowly leak out
| carbonation and in oxygen.
|
| I'm a huge fan of packaged on dates for beer.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| Come on it has nothing to do with the industrial scale at
| which the beer is created it has to do with which ingredients
| malt, hops, etc.
| bilekas wrote:
| I'm actually super curious about that too, as far as I know
| pathogens cant live in beer, so I don't know how it can go bad.
|
| I wonder though if local brewery's or more artigianale brewing
| processes are different and maybe could be a bit riskier ?
| vel0city wrote:
| > pathogens cant live in beer
|
| Depending on the beer there might be live yeasts in it.
|
| Beers can still go bad. Not always from a "not safe to
| consume" but often at least a "not going to taste very good
| anymore" kind of thing. Beers will end up oxidizing, the
| stuff in the beer will degrade over time, etc. Not all beers
| age well, some need to be had within a certain period of
| freshness.
|
| Generally I prefer a "born-on" date for beer.
| bilekas wrote:
| A born date is a nice idea actually, they do it for wines
| so it would transfer easily. When you say beeds end up
| oxidizing, could this kind of activity cause maybe a
| reaction to say an aluminium can for example ?
| vel0city wrote:
| Most aluminum cans have a plastic lining inside of the
| can. Assuming the lining was undamaged and applied
| properly, it should prevent the beer from reacting with
| the can for a long while. Usually, the oxidization is
| with the oxygen which was already dissolved in the beer
| during brewing (important to have some for fermentation)
| but depending on ingredients oxidization can happen
| without the presence of molecular oxygen.
| theptip wrote:
| Plenty of undesirable stuff can live in beer.
|
| Brettanomyces will make your beer taste phenolic. Lactic Acid
| Bacteria will sour it (Lactobacillus and Pediococcus are two
| common contaminants).
|
| Oxygenation will gradually make the beer taste like
| cardboard.
|
| Hop aromatics degrade rapidly, heavily hopped beers are best
| within a month of brewing.
|
| Very few beers get better over time (generally sours and
| stouts), most are beginning to degrade immediately and fall
| off a cliff within a year.
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| undesirable yes, but it wont be life threatening.
|
| Also as you probably already know brett, lacto and pedio
| are desirable sometimes.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Craft brewers that aren't doing it as a hobby are using
| industrial process controls and working for a highly
| repeatable flavor.
|
| The flavor going off is the main concern with beer.
| manwe150 wrote:
| The text of the law seems to be specific that the beer
| exemption (and other alcohol) is about a permission to put the
| vintage (year month, etc), since alcohol are expected to change
| over time even after bottling (some better some worse) so
| consumers would desire that information even though it does not
| conform to the normal "use by" or "best by" relevant to other
| products (any other placement or use of a date on a label being
| what is made illegal by the law)
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Beer is pasteurized or else full of live yeast cultures. It
| doesn't go "bad" per se in the sense that it will hurt you, but
| some beers taste bad beyond a certain point. Hoppy beers lose
| flavor in ~90 days or so after bottling. Mass-market beers
| "skunk" if they are exposed to light and the UV causes certain
| compounds to break down. Strong unpasteurized malty beers like
| porters and stouts can age for literally years in a cool dark
| place, and it smooths the flavors out.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Strong unpasteurized malty beers like porters and stouts
| can age for literally years in a cool dark place, and it
| smooths the flavors out.
|
| Had a coworker who made this phenomenon into a yearly
| gathering. We would bring beers of our choice, bury them in
| his back yard, then drink and grill/smoke meats. Next year he
| would dig up the previous years burial and we would try to
| bring the same beers with us. Then we all gather around and
| have a tasting comparing the year long aged beer to the fresh
| beer. You also brought along new beers to bury. He names it
| Man Beer Meat because it was just guys drinking and grilling.
| strictnein wrote:
| That sounds like a wonderful time. And amusingly, if he
| moves, the new owner may do some digging in their backyard
| and find a bunch of perfectly fine bottles of beer.
| fmbb wrote:
| American eggs are incredibly sensitive due to the chlorine
| washing they go through before making it to the store. Not
| oddly specific.
|
| Here in Sweden (and I assume the rest of the EU) when I buy
| eggs they are not refrigerated and I keep them in the pantry at
| room temp for weeks or months without issues. The price I pay
| is that they sometimes come with a little bird poop on them
| from the store.
| moate wrote:
| (Most of) Europe doesn't wash their eggs, allowing them to be
| stored at room temperature, but as you said, the standard for
| physical contamination is lower.
|
| The US washes our eggs, requiring refrigeration but greatly
| extending shelf life and greatly reducing physical
| contamination.
|
| Advantages to both (Europe wins hands down if you need to
| whip egg whites to stiff peaks) but very interesting how the
| two regions addressed the safety issues around this.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| How does washing eggs extend shelf life?
|
| Let's say I have unwashed eggs and washed eggs, and I put
| both in the refrigerator. Won't the unwashed ones last
| longer, because they haven't had the natural protective
| coating removed?
| Tyr42 wrote:
| There is also condensation to consider and I think that
| putting the unwashed eggs in the fridge can be unsafe if
| the condensation can allow stuff from the poop to move
| around. But I'm no eggspert.
| moate wrote:
| Your eggplaination was eggactly correct.
| relaxing wrote:
| The washed ones last because you washed off all the hen
| house bacteria, and then kept it refrigerated so new
| bacteria wouldn't grow.
|
| Chickens, especially commercial poultry farms, are
| _disgusting_.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I get that washing off bacteria does something good. But
| it also makes the egg more vulnerable to any remaining
| bacteria.
|
| If both types are refrigerated, I wonder which effect
| dominates?
| moate wrote:
| If you put European eggs in the fridge, it actually
| DIMINISHES shelf life because it can cause condensation
| that begins to erode the cuticle (the thing that allows
| the egg to be stored at room temp w/o bacterial
| penetration).
|
| Like I said, there's advantages and trade offs to BOTH,
| otherwise the move would just be to do one and not the
| other (similar to how there are advantages to the
| Imperial measuring system that keeps it in place, but
| we're not going down that trail).
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Wow I had no idea about that first thing. Good to know!
|
| I think my parents (in the UK) keep eggs in the fridge.
| They only buy a dozen at a time so it's probably not a
| big problem :)
| torgoguys wrote:
| >Not oddly specific.
|
| When I said "oddly specific," I didn't mean that there might
| not be reason to label eggs with an expiration, I meant that
| it was oddly specific to require eggs to be labelled while
| not requiring some food categories that spoil quickly
| (mentioning milk and meat as examples). Perhaps it has to do
| with spoilage in eggs perhaps being harder to detect by
| examining them?
| jjice wrote:
| > But why beer??? Legit question--I don't drink so maybe it's
| obvious and I'm just a knucklehead.
|
| Very fair question. Anecdotally, when I was just graduating
| university I drank a few 4+ year past expiration macro-brewed
| beers that were sitting in the fridge that entire time. The
| results were not good compared to similar consumption of non-
| expired beer.
| tivert wrote:
| > But why beer??? Legit question--I don't drink so maybe it's
| obvious and I'm just a knucklehead.
|
| Maybe a different regulatory regime applies? That's the case at
| the federal level. For instance: alcohol often doesn't have the
| typical food labels because it's regulated by the ATF [1] not
| the FDA, and food labels are an FDA thing:
|
| https://www.ttb.gov/regulated-commodities/beverage-
| alcohol/w...:
|
| > TTB regulations do not require nutrient content labeling for
| alcohol beverages.
|
| https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-food-labeling-and-
| critica...:
|
| > Food labeling is required for most prepared foods, such as
| breads, cereals, canned and frozen foods, snacks, desserts,
| drinks, etc. Nutrition labeling for raw produce (fruits and
| vegetables) and fish is voluntary.
|
| [1] apparently now split into the ATF and TTB
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| Looking at TTB's mandatory items on labeling [1] there is
| nothing about any dates. Some states have different
| requirements, and I don't know California's, but many states
| do not require any kind of date coding.
|
| [1] https://www.ttb.gov/regulated-commodities/beverage-
| alcohol/b...
| shtopointo wrote:
| Won't the producers just leave the same date in, but change the
| wording before it?
| teraflop wrote:
| That's the goal -- to make the wording clearer.
|
| As the article says, many people misunderstand "sell by" to
| mean "only safe if used by".
| ryukoposting wrote:
| When my wife and I moved in together, we had a spat about what
| "sell by" dates actually meant. She had been throwing away loads
| of perfectly good food because she misunderstood the meaning of
| the sell-by date. I don't remember who taught me what they
| actually mean, but I was able to point her to a USDA site that
| showed the actual meaning.
|
| I'm pretty sure that was the only time I have ever been right
| when she and I disagreed about something kitchen-related, by the
| way.
|
| I think the ban makes sense when you consider that CA still has a
| provision for a "best by" date. Some more education is still
| necessary, though. Certain foods can go months or years past
| their "best by" date and still be perfectly safe - even if they
| might taste a little funky.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > Some more education is still necessary, though. Certain foods
| can go months or years past their "best by" date and still be
| perfectly safe - even if they might taste a little funky.
|
| Aren't safety restrictions the "use by" date?
|
| > Switching to language that either says "Best if Used By" or
| "Use By" will also help minimize ambiguity. The former will
| establish consistent wording for advising when an item is less
| fresh (but still okay to eat), while the latter designates food
| that should no longer be consumed due to safety concerns.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| > Aren't safety restrictions the "use by" date?
|
| Exactly - people haven't been taught to actually look at the
| words before the date. They just look at the date, say "oh
| that was yesterday" and throw stuff away.
|
| I guess I didn't make that perfectly clear in the parent
| comment - my wife didn't know that the difference in wording
| mattered, so she just ignored it.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| There is also much confusion about how food actually goes bad.
| There are some foods that absolutely should be avoided after a
| specific amount of time. But most will go bad somewhat
| randomly, mostly after but often _before_ their sell /best by
| dates. Sometimes a jug of milk will be bad before it even
| arrives at a store. Sometimes mold will appear on fresh bread
| very suddenly. Food is more complicated than fixed dates.
|
| I was buying eggs recently when I, as my mother taught me,
| opened the case and checked to see if any had cracked. The
| person beside me said "I hope you are buying those" as if me
| touching them somehow made them unsellable. People need to
| learn more about food.
| moate wrote:
| I think as a general rule, biology loathes blunt instruments.
| That's not to say these things aren't more useful than just
| guessing, but as this legislation (or rather the underlying
| issue that led to its passing) shows is that a lot of this
| stuff is very poorly understood.
| freedomben wrote:
| Geez, that is aggravating. Do they really think that a
| completely unsealed cardboard box with holes in it is keeping
| out all the germs?
|
| Sometimes I think we've really failed ourselves regarding
| basic biology and education requirements.
| riffraff wrote:
| in Europe it's forbidden to sell washed eggs, so you're
| literally buying eggs covered in chicken shit, it's an
| interesting regulatory divergence.
| teddyh wrote:
| If _you're_ buying eggs covered in excrement, that's on
| you. That's what the law is for: for the seller and
| producer not being able to hide the awful conditions in
| which the eggs were produced. If you want clean eggs,
| _buy clean eggs_ , which will then necessarily have been
| produced in a clean environment, more healthy for the
| chickens, and also with less risk of contaminated eggs.
| WD-42 wrote:
| Exactly this. I have chickens and when I collect the eggs
| they are usually completely clean. Only if I start to
| slack on cleaning the coop or one of the chickens gets
| sick do the eggs get dirty.
|
| I can imagine most eggs sold in the United States would
| be horrifying if not washed.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| The size of the nestbox can be a factor as well. If the
| nestbox is too large for the breed of chicken you keep,
| it encourages them to hang out inside it, and they walk
| on the eggs and get them dirty.
|
| If a nestbox is the right size, it will only be used for
| laying eggs (and occasional brooding).
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > That's what the law is for: for the seller and producer
| not being able to hide the awful conditions in which the
| eggs were produced.
|
| AFAIK, those laws are about eggs getting silently
| contaminated because their shells became porous during
| the wash.
|
| But that one is a really nice side-effect.
| remexre wrote:
| As it turns out, the eggs covered in chicken excrement
| are those that haven't been power washed, so the actual
| edible part of the egg is safer...
| ranger_danger wrote:
| My understanding is that unwashed eggs preserve a
| protective layer that inhibits bacterial growth, which is
| why washed eggs in the US must be refrigerated instead. I
| think they are both valid methods.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/11/336330502
| /wh...
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| Yes it's one of those weird American things. Like being
| extremely worried about chicken meat because the
| conditions chicken are raised in are so awful you can't
| trust it's not contaminated.
|
| I find it endlessly amusing that Americans are both
| extremely worried about food safety and apparently
| completely unable to pass reasonable food safety law.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Unwashed eggs can also be refrigerated, and they last an
| absurdly long time that way -- much, much longer than
| either refrigerated washed eggs or unrefrigerated
| unwashed eggs.
|
| Once you refrigerate unwashed eggs, though, they need to
| stay refrigerated thereafter.
| Habgdnv wrote:
| I've lived in Bulgaria, Ireland, and Poland, and I've
| never seen dirty eggs in the stores. Are you sure about
| that?
| lupire wrote:
| Educate yourself on chicken anatomy and physiology
| https://www.getstronganimals.com/post/chicken-anatomy-101
| ghaff wrote:
| To be fair, we've recently been through a period when
| infection by physical contact was at least initially widely
| viewed as a thing even if elbow pumps and obsessive hand
| washing turned out to probably not be much of a deal. But
| there was certainly a year so there when if you touched
| something in a supermarket and put it back you were inviting
| lots of stink eye.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| My wife does the same thing, and I've been unable to convince
| her. Not talking perishable stuff, either - she'll throw out
| something like a bottle of hot sauce because it is a few months
| past the "best by" date. No matter how much I try to tell her
| that these things are shelf stable and will be good for even a
| year or more after the date, she doesn't believe me.
|
| I think that the show _Kim 's Convenience_ said it perfectly,
| myself. "See this date? It say 'best by'. After date - not
| _best_ , but still pretty good."
| pseudosavant wrote:
| My ex was like this two, but was fairly binary about it. The
| day before the "sell by date" = totally good, not in any way
| ruined. The day after = clearly dangerously unsafe food.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Hot Sauce is kind of annoying because it lasts so long after
| the best by dates. Like it could just be kicking around in
| then fridge for a couple years and not grow anything on it,
| but it is _probably_ time to toss it out eventually?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Many hot sauces are so acidic they're pretty much a
| preservative!
| Alupis wrote:
| Vinegar based hot sauces, and/or hot sauces that are very
| high in sodium, usually yes, but not always.
|
| Particularly if the sauce includes unstrained organic
| bits such as garlic or onions, or includes oils -
| botulism (odorless, tasteless) can be a non-zero risk.
|
| At some point, that crusty $5 bottle of hot sauce you
| found in the back of the fridge should just get tossed
| out instead of taking the risk.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't even keep things like soy sauce or something like
| Tabasco in the fridge. Much less vinegars. I suspect a
| lot of people are inclined to.
| Alupis wrote:
| Tabasco is fine in the pantry or on the counter.
|
| Tabasco in particular isn't just vinegar-based, it's
| nearly entirely vinegar. Its ingredients list is vinegar,
| salt and crushed peppers that are then strained before
| bottling. It is a very inhospitable environment for
| botulism - or anything else.
|
| Many other types of hot sauces contain oils and/or are
| not strained of organic matter and/or contain blended
| organic matter. Such as all of your thicker or chunkier
| sauces for the most part[1] (which happen to be my
| favorites). Those should be kept in the fridge and you
| should discard after some time just to be on the safe
| side.
|
| [1] https://thepepperplant.com/shop.html
| ghaff wrote:
| I do refrigerate Siracha. But I admit I make my decisions
| more on gut feel than anything else.
| lupire wrote:
| Gut feel is the ultimate judge of food rottenness
| seanw444 wrote:
| I remember seeing a comment thread on here a few weeks
| ago where people were talking about making their own hot
| sauces, and botulism was a big concern, which was
| surprising to me. I figured hot sauce was so extreme that
| you didn't need to worry too much about the normal food-
| borne illnesses. Not so, I guess.
| jdhzzz wrote:
| I proudly store ketchup in the pantry. No amount of
| recently added "For best results, refrigerate after
| opening." on the label will convince me otherwise. Cold
| ketchup is in no way "best".
| pentamassiv wrote:
| When I was in college, at a house party we were all
| guessing for how long the oldest item in the fridge had
| been expired. It was a shared flat for four people, so we
| bet something like half a year or so. The hot sauce expired
| more than four years before. I am not sure anyone dared to
| eat some though.
| natthub wrote:
| Ha! I like to joke that after the 'best by' date, it's no
| longer the best, just better :)
| noduerme wrote:
| When I first started dating my ex, I was at her place and she
| asked if I was hungry. I said yes, so she made me a tuna melt
| with mayo. As she had it in the oven I looked in the fridge.
| The tub of mayo was enormous and mostly empty. It was Kirkland
| mayonnaise.
|
| I said, "oh, you have a Costco membership?"
|
| "No," she said, "my ex used to."
|
| "The guy you broke up with 2 years ago?"
|
| I looked at the date on the mayonnaise. Expired 5 years
| earlier. She didn't use it very often.
|
| Not wanting to offend her, hesitantly, I ate the tuna melt. And
| nothing happened. It was fine.
| akira2501 wrote:
| To me that just sounds like a good way to end up in a Chubby
| Emu video.
| heelix wrote:
| I had no idea that mayo expired. I had dragged a tub of mayo
| through several university housing locations and two
| apartment moves before my new bride noticed the long expired
| container's date as we combined refrigerators.
|
| I'm not a mayo fan, so was a condiment for guests. Whoops.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Anything with oil in it can get rancid. Including nuts.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| > As she had it in the _oven_ ...
|
| Cooking food typically kills off any bacteria.
| ggreer wrote:
| This article claims that 12 million tons of food are wasted in
| California annually, and that this law will save 70,000 tons of
| food from going to waste. California's population is 39 million.
| Does that mean that every Californian is wasting a pound of food
| every day? That seems suspiciously high to me. I'm curious how
| they came up with those numbers.
|
| I think this law is like plastic straw bans, or mandated bag
| fees, or prop 65 cancer warnings: a feel-good law that causes
| more problems than it solves. Anyone who makes food for sale in
| California will have to redo their labelling (or at least pay
| people to audit their product labelling). These costs will be
| passed on to consumers in the form of increased prices. Some
| manufacturers will choose to not sell in California, reducing
| consumer choice, reducing competition, and increasing prices. And
| for what? To reduce food waste by 0.6% in the best case.
|
| It seems to me that the problem with food wastage isn't the extra
| food, it's the externalities created by food production,
| distribution, and disposal. It would be much more effective to
| tax these externalities than to make ineffective laws about
| product labelling.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Does that mean that every Californian is wasting a pound of
| food every day? That seems suspiciously high to me.
|
| That seems plausible. Figures vary a bit, but generally you're
| looking at 20-30% of food in supermarkets ultimately being
| wasted. An average person eats something like 1.5kg a day, so a
| pound seems about right. (Of course it's not as simple as that,
| because there's also wastage at home, and that's very hard to
| measure.)
|
| That said, there's also a lot of wastage by restaurants and
| other catering operations, and this won't really help there, so
| the impact may not be as great as people hope.
| akira2501 wrote:
| My suspicion is that most of the waste is from the commercial
| sector and not from the residential. Even to the extent that it
| is just make food garbage separate from other garbage and then
| compost it directly. There's no reason to see discarded food as
| "wasted" other than for the fact our processes for managing the
| obvious consequence of home kitchens are either incomplete or
| totally missing.
| paxys wrote:
| No date printed on a food item is ever going to be accurate to
| the day. Unless something is wildly out of date, just use your
| senses. If it looks, smells and feels fine, it is fine. You'd be
| surprised by how much longer everything in your friend (and
| outside) can last.
| gandalfian wrote:
| <must state "Best if Used By" to indicate peak quality, and "Use
| By" to designate food safety.>
|
| This sounds perfectly sensible and uncontroversial?
| devonbleak wrote:
| From a consumer standpoint, yes.
|
| From a company-who-abuses-best-by-dates-to-sell-more-product
| standpoint it's very controversial.
| spease wrote:
| They would already just put "best by" on the product, so it's
| not making things any worse that I can see.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| It seems to me like a quibe about verbage. I suppose "sell by"
| could be interpreted as a supplier telling a store what to do
| with their own goods. But on the other hand, the supplier has a
| brand on those goods and has a significant interest in
| protecting the brand.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| That's how it has been here in Norway for years. And recently
| producers have started adding phrases like "ofte gode etter",
| "and often good after" together with See, Smell, Taste.
|
| There will typically only be one date and it will have text
| specifying whether it is "Best Before End" for things that
| simply decline in quality such as milk and vegetables and "Use
| By" for things that go bad in ways that will be harmful such as
| meat.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Montana uses Sell-By dates to artificially ban out-of-state milk.
|
| They want to promote in-state business (dairy farmers).
|
| Montana purposefully has short Sell-by diary dates, because it
| makes it prohibitive for an out-of-state dairy to transport their
| milk into Montana.
|
| https://www.nrdc.org/bio/dana-gunders/how-montanas-sell-date...
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I hate this kind of mendacity. Wanting to protect their dairy
| industry is understandable, but perpetuating a fraud upon
| consumers is not the way to do it.
| seanw444 wrote:
| If you can't beat the competition, change the rules.
| lupire wrote:
| It's not a fraud. It's a higher standard of quality, that is
| protectionist and arguably unnecessary and wasteful.
| hbarka wrote:
| The headline would be better served if it said something to the
| effect that sell-by dates will be replaced with another date
| suggestion. Instead they chose this misleading headline. The
| whole thing is also a great example of politics pretending to
| advocate for the consumer. It's really a ploy to keep the product
| sellable for as long as possible. Who gets to decide what best-by
| date means? If you really want to serve the customer put a made-
| on date and let me decide if this one-year old can of tomatoes is
| really something I want to use by day 366. Now, we're still at a
| race to the bottom by a combination of gaming the best-by date
| and putting preservatives to the maximum allowable extent
| possible. Packaged food industry.
| Thuggery wrote:
| Sensible change. But I wonder if it will encourage retailers to
| treat the secondary now more food safety related "use by" date as
| the real "best if used by" date.
|
| If you're like me and slightly paranoid about food expiration
| dates and sometimes checks things in corner stores, you might
| notice they like to sell items that can be razor thin on the
| "sell by" date.
| kjhughes wrote:
| A requirement that the "best by" or "use by" date be _clearly
| visible_ would also help.
|
| I've spent way too much time spinning packages scanning for any
| date, sometimes having to give up, sometimes having to whip out
| my phone's camera to try to discern tiny black print on dark blue
| background, in small font, partly malformed, ...
| lgleason wrote:
| I'm glad I don't live in California. How are you supposed to know
| if you have milk that will quickly go bad etc.? While some of
| this can cause waste, many food items do start to go bad after
| they sit on the shelves too long. That said I'm sure the people
| behind this would prefer that you don't buy dairy and that you
| pick the mold off your bread and eat the rest. Thanks, but no
| thanks.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| From the first paragraph:
|
| "must state "Best if Used By" to indicate peak quality, and
| "Use By" to designate food safety"
| snozolli wrote:
| _How are you supposed to know if you have milk that will
| quickly go bad etc.?_
|
| From the article:
|
| _any food products with a date label -- with the exception of
| infant formula, eggs, beer, and malt beverages -- must state
| "Best if Used By" to indicate peak quality, and "Use By" to
| designate food safety._
| ottumm wrote:
| The beginning of the article should put your mind at ease:
|
| > To adhere with the requisite language outlined, any food
| products with a date label -- with the exception of infant
| formula, eggs, beer, and malt beverages -- must state "Best if
| Used By" to indicate peak quality, and "Use By" to designate
| food safety.
| rolph wrote:
| date of manufacture, or date of processing is far more
| practical to the consumer
| a13o wrote:
| > How are you supposed to know if you have milk that will
| quickly go bad etc.?
|
| The milk will say "Best if Used By <date>".
|
| This information can be found in the fifth sentence in the
| article.
| nikolay wrote:
| Many foods are unregulated. It's strange that milk, for example,
| doesn't have any requirements for its expiration date. One brand
| widened their "best buy" date and I noticed their milk was
| souring 3 days before the "best buy" date. After contacting them
| several times, I told them that they gave me no option but to
| escalate this to authorities, they didn't seem concerned a bit,
| and after doing my research, I found out that they can put
| anything on the label without repercussions. The manufacturer
| even recommended the record stupid stuff like using the milk in
| smoothies and other odor and taste masking means to make it
| "best." So, even "best buy" for foods that can make you sick is
| meaningless!
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| All the grocery stores in my area will full refund the purchase
| if it goes bad before the best by date. By returning it to the
| store you purchased it from, it gets marked as a defective
| return. When that rate hits a certain percentage they will stop
| carrying the product.
| nikolay wrote:
| I think that's why they made this gimmick, because they had a
| lot of unsold milk. People buy their milk by half gallon as
| smaller packaging is extremely expensive. They have a pretty
| stupid policy - instead of having honest and reciprocal
| pricing, they make only 1/2-gallon best-price per volume,
| which leads to lots of unsold milk as who would be such big
| quantity a couple of days before expiration when it's
| probably already soured and unsuitable as fluid milk. And I
| suggested all these ina very friendly manner, but they didn't
| change. So, I switched to a more honest product, plus, I'd
| rather not us have raw milk when the bird flu is gaining
| grounds pretty quickly.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| > It's strange that milk, for example, doesn't have any
| requirements for its expiration date.
|
| Why should it? It won't do you any harm. Just don't buy from
| suppliers who lie to you. But surely if it went sour before the
| Best before Date then the supplier has supplied goods that were
| not of merchantable quality and not in accordance with the
| implied contract and has failed to uphold their side of the
| contract.
|
| But surely your complaint should be directed against the shop
| that sold it to you? I would expect the shop to either refund
| or replace the goods.
| nikolay wrote:
| I agree. It's a dishonest practice, which was a misguided
| reaction to their having a lot of unsold milk. I didn't
| mention it, but this is raw milk. Honestly, I never had their
| milk go bad, unlike pasteurized milk, but it just gets
| extremely smelly and sour, so it's far from "best"!
| zargon wrote:
| I prefer "packed on" dates. With "best by" dates you have no idea
| what the actual age of the product is. Either for comparing
| freshness when buying it or for deciding whether to consume it
| later.
| slenk wrote:
| Food can sit around before being packed. I don't think packed
| on is any more useful in 99% of situations
| zargon wrote:
| The "best by" period is arbitrary, so a packed on date
| removes ambiguity that varies from producer to producer.
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to
| reduce food waste_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41775298 - Oct 2024 (61
| comments)
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think it's wild how much misinformation and confusion there is
| about this minor change. I blame this on the legislature trying
| to hype up their nothing law into some major achievement, and
| news agencies shamelessly trying to make a story out of it.
|
| The law is simply that you cant use various labels like "enjoy
| by" or "Best by" and instead, all non-safety dates must use the
| exact words "best if used by". It wont reduce food waste by 20%
| as claimed.
|
| 82001. (a) On and after January 1, 2025, a food manufacturer,
| processor, or retailer responsible for the labeling of food items
| for human consumption that chooses, or is otherwise required by
| law, to display a date label to communicate a quality or safety
| date on a food item manufactured on or after January 1, 2025,
| shall use one of the following uniform terms on the date label:
|
| (1) "BEST if Used by" or "BEST if Used or Frozen by" to indicate
| the quality date of the food item.
|
| (2) "USE by" or "USE by or Freeze by" to indicate the safety date
| of the food item.
|
| (3) "BB" to indicate the quality date of the food item if the
| food item is too small to include the uniform term described in
| paragraph (1).
|
| (4) "UB" to indicate the safety date of the food item if the food
| item is too small to include the uniform term described in
| paragraph (2).
|
| https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB660/id/2837671
| sharpshadow wrote:
| Europe has the MHD (Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum)[0] but I think I
| never saw it exceeding 2 years which for some products is
| misleading since they would be good for very much longer like
| seeds or marmalade for example.
|
| It will probably help to prolong certain products shelf life but
| it isn't a perfect system.
|
| 0. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum
| rendx wrote:
| > which for some products is misleading since they would be
| good for very much longer
|
| The Mindeshaltbarkeitsdatum is exactly what it says: a "best
| before" (MINDEST, minimum). It does not say anything about it
| _not_ potentially remaining the same quality or taste _after_
| this date, and definitely not that it is dangerous to consume
| after. It may for example simply lose some of its taste over
| time, but up until that date it is "guaranteed" to taste the
| same ("the best").
|
| Products that should not be consumed after a certain date (like
| meat) use "Zu verbrauchen bis" (use before); that is not a MHD.
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