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What do you think the percentage is of Americans who throws out good food (even junk food) based on the expiration date? I mean - they do so not because the food might be stale but because they believe it suddenly became possibly toxic to eat.
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What's the percentage for non-food stuff like soap? The other day I noticed my liquid hand soap has an expiration date for whatever reason. I better hurry up - I only have two years left of it being safe.
I started thinking about it after I read this...
"Good thing I read the labels and dates before I opened or ate anything. I avoided potential food poisoning and/or a trip to urgent care by paying attention."
It's from an Amazon review. After they checked the label - they learned the package was delivered with an expiration date two weeks past. They are talking about a Ruffles potato chip variety pack.
A lot of this stuff isn't becoming "unsafe" per-say but "inert". Chemically processed components have a shelf life that deteriorate over time. So a liquid soap can congeal or lose its potency or develop a weird smell over time. Gasoline evaporates, leaving behind a gum that can clog engine parts. OTC pharmaceuticals like aspirin lose potency of their active ingredients and become what amounts to a salt pill.
A lot of these dates are simply there for the sake of liability. If you use a ten-year-old hand cream and it gives you eczema as a result, the manufacturer isn't liable. But this stuff doesn't magically become lethal the day after the "use by" date.
i ignore all that junk, mostly.
one time I moved into an old office that hadn't been used in years, and the former occupant had left all manner of stuff in there. took me weeks to go through it and toss/keep material.
one late morning I find a still wrapped milk chocolate candy bar that had expired literally 15+ years earlier.
I opened it, sniffed it and looked it over. seemed ok, so I ate it. it was sweet but chalky. 2/5, would not eat again. nothing bad happened though.
What do you think the percentage is of Americans who throws out good food (even junk food) based on the expiration date? I mean - they do so not because the food might be stale but because they believe it suddenly became possibly toxic to eat.
As someone who works in a grocery store, the answer is too damn many. "Best by", "use by" "sell by" dates are all meaningless, and entirely vibes based.
Sell by, specifically, is only relevant to the employee stocking the shelves. But people think that the deli meat with a sell by date of tomorrow will kill them if they eat it in two days.
No honey, that was sliced today. It'll be fine in your fridge for like, a week, as long as you take proper storage precautions.
I use it as a guideline - useful when cleaning the pantry, but two weeks? Hell no I'm eating them chips
But I'm also filing for a refund, because I paid for in-date chips
But I'm also filing for a refund, because I paid for in-date chips
I wonder how often large packages (or containers) at Amazon are a bit of a scam. I learned that the Amazon store brand huge size of peanut oil is most likely second rate even though it has a 4.5 star rating. I decided to spend 7 bucks more and buy the size of a local store brand. It has "pure" on the label and I assume that's... honest and real. I was going to type "kosher" as is my habit but then I realized - right now I don't want to use a word that Israelis use. I don't want to slime myself.
don't want to use a word that Israelis use.
I thought kosher was a Jewish thing, not a zionist thing
It is Jewish thing but it doesn't feel right for me to use it right now. It makes me think of Israel. I don't want to use any word that makes me think of Israel.
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Edit
For the record - I'm a Jewish and America. Calling myself a "Jewish-American" sounds so silly. And I don't want to use any word that makes me think of Israel.
this is the line of thinking that ultimately leads random Jewish people in the diaspora to get randomly attacked tbh.
That probably sounds insane given that what youre saying is very far from that but I guess just try to keep in mind that Judaism =/= Zionism
seems like some internalized antisemitism or something from OP
i mean you decide what words you use but announcing you're not selecting yiddish even though you know it =/= israel seems like it'd just make jewish people uncomfortable
With how much of Amazon's business model is based on laundering counterfeit products, I bet the answer is "very often"
The blame will always be diverted toward China, but it's Amazon that has a dynamic, scalable system for sellers to launder fake/defective/used/expired products through official product listings
official product listings
I never looked at one star reviews until yesterday because I assumed most of them were incoherent ranting. And there is a lot of that. "These jeans not good jeans quality low do not like" But I learned some reviews are by people who are not only very annoyed and angry - they are knowledgeable too. What they have to say is definitely worth reading.
Yeah those can be pretty useful. Frustratingly, it looks like an Amazon listing can be 100% replaced with a different product but keep the old reviews. Or maybe something else is going on, but I'll often check the reviews and find that all the older ones are for something totally unrelated to the listing
At this point the only way I've found to get good results is to treat it like eBay and choose a seller carefully
treat it like eBay
That's a good tip. I should have learned that years ago.
I was going to type "kosher" as is my habit but then I realized - right now I don't want to use a word that Israelis use. I don't want to slime myself.
Kosher is not a word that only Israelis use so no it is not "sliming yourself" to use a word that Jews across the world use daily.
and - in your case you're referencing the colloquial usage of the term outside of actual kashrut/dietary laws I'm assuming. Using "kosher" the way you would have is... an Americanism
I wonder how often large packages (or containers) at Amazon
they all are, almost every "variety pack" of things like chips/soda I've seen have nearly vendor machine marked-up unit prices.
Eating like a vegan means paying way less attention to this kinda stuff, just sayin'. Something like vegan mayo or whatever just inherently stays fresh way longer.
Also just in general you can ignore expiration dates so long as you can smell or see when food goes bad. They don't mean much. Also there are "best by" dates that people think are expiration dates but actually they're just a marketing thing about the company's claim for how long the food will be up to their standards.
My nose and tongue evolved for millions of years to tell me what's safe to eat
You, a biological senor developed over millions of years to detect for the sulfurous compounds left by decomposing meat and vegetable matter: "I've got you covered, baby!"
Me, a wad of cadmium: "Haha, you're so fucked!"
Most medications in solid form like pills, tablets, etc. practically never go bad.
But is it safe for me to eat my soap?
practically never go bad.
In a coincidence yesterday I learned a rare exception. I read a bit to learn about my omega-3 fish oil softgels. If fish oil is in that form or a capsule - it can go rancid and you can't tell.
Yes, that's why I excluded liquids (including oils).
You can eat soap!
It is generally safe to consume foods like chips a few days past their expiration date, as long as the bag remains sealed and undamaged. In the case of chips, the primary concern is staleness, but they're unlikely to pose any health risks if unopened for weeks/months.
Soap, on the other hand, is a different story. The denaturing of soap, in this context, refers to its chemical composition breaking down over time. Expired soap might lose its effectiveness, potentially making it less capable of cleaning or disinfecting. So, for hygiene purposes, it's best to use soap that's within its date. In coffee or tea, the denaturing process becomes more critical. Caffeine content decreases over time, which might impact the expected energy boost.
I grew up poor and we ate stale or almost stale food quite a bit.
If it's food with a bunch of preservatives in it, I almost never check the dates. If it's fresh produce, just check if it's looking wilted or moldy. Even some wilt is fine imo. Sliced bread I go a few weeks past before I worry. Fresh bread is a few days after but I check for mold spots and if none, I still use it.
Back when I consumes dairy, I wold usually go by the date though. Day of or day after, maybe give it a smell? I will say, Great Value brand cheese, never trust the date even if it's before expiration. That shit will become moldy in a heartbeat as long as it's been opened.
I'm making a curry dish right now for lunch and my curry powder has been expired for 2 years. It's fine, it just isn't as strong as it used to be.
If you have wilty produce you can also give it a few more days by putting it in a cup of water in the fridge so it'll stiffen out a bit
It's usually vibes based, had bagged spinach in the fridge that was like a week out of date that was still usable if you just picked some bad leaves out and washed the rest, but then there's the bag I found a few months ago that was in there for weeks after the expiration date and was just basically sludge. I used to be a lot more of a stickler about expiration dates, especially since my first job was stocking produce shelves and they hammered it into us that anything out of date was to be immediately trashed. The soy milk cartons usually say to use within a week, but they're fine and if I'm not sure I'll do a sniff test and a tiny taste test to make sure. Then there are times where you'd expect something to last basically forever like rice stored in a sealed container or sesame seeds in a sealed metal canister, but oh boy several years out finding them deep in the pantry they had a strong chemical taste and were 100% inedible, even if they were safe, they tasted disgusting. But chips a couple weeks out, whatever, sometimes places will sell this stuff slightly out of date for a discounted price on stuff that's pretty clear to be safe.
Will say that the food waste from grocers and stores will outpace the home to an ungodly degree.
I've eaten candy bars years out of date and they tasted the same. Feel like it only matters for things like meat, dairy, eggs and shit like that
Avoiding the topic at hand to drop some useless trivia: the wide adoption of expiration dates on food in the US can largely be traced to Al Capone. During the Depression he ran food shelves and soup kitchens to improve people's opinions of him. Once, milk his organization was giving out lead many to get sick. And so some enterprising fellow in the Capone organization thought that maybe they should date the milk to avoid it in the future. They weren't the first to use expiration dates, but they definitely helped spread their use
Why are people buying mountains of food so large that they can't consume them all before a particular date in the first place?
Potato chips are very expensive one bag at a time. If Amazon had variety packs that weren't sketchy and scammy - I might buy one.
This is one of the ways that America is completely alien to me. I could cycle to the supermarket and get a variety 24-pack for the equivalent of $4.09. Buying through Amazon would cost far more.
How much potato chips are you eating so this makes sense? Buying a pack a month costs you what, 20 bucks more over 2 years
There are a number of reasons. Personally I do the vast majority of my grocery shopping at a store which is vastly cheaper than local ones, but which is over 30 min drive away, in the opposite direction of where I work. Hence it makes sense to buy a couple weeks worth of groceries whenever I do get there. And I know many people who live in much more remote areas than I do. So that requires a lot of discipline and forward planning.
Yo, why the fuck does my distilled vinegar have an expiration date. It's ten years out, you would think i'd be able to use it all by then, but still, it's vinegar.
Interestingly, that's more likely to be the expiration day of the plastic bottle than the vinegar itself. Vinegar can become weaker over time, but certain compounds in the bottle will leach out into the contents over time.
