No one wants to serve spoiled food to their families.
Conversely, consumers dont want to throw food away unnecessarilybut we certainly do.
Plenty of that food is discarded while still safe to eat.
Sell by, best if used by, use bytheyall mean different things.
Aside from the labeling issues, how are these dates even generated?
Sell by dates are actually meant to let stores know how to rotate their stock.
They dont tell consumerswhen the product shifts from being safe to not safe.
Heres how producers come up with those dates in the first place.
What generally helps foods last longer?
Lower moisture content, higher acidity, higher sugar or salt content.
But no matter the ingredients, additives or treatments, no food lasts forever.
Companies need to determine the safe shelf life of a product.
Larger food companies may conductmicrobial challenge studieson food products.
For example, they could addListeria moncytogenesto refrigerated packaged deli meats.
This bacterium causeslisteriosis, a serious infection of particular concern for pregnant women, older adults and young children.
Theyre thinking about temperature, rough handling and so on.
Every harmful microorganism has a different infective dose, or amount of that organism that would make people sick.
But theres no standard for the length of this safety margin; its set at the manufacturers discretion.
Out comes an estimate of the length of time the product should still be safe under those conditions.
Companies may also perform whats called a static test.
This time they dont add any additional microorganisms.
For instance, dont allow food that should be refrigerated to be above 40F for more than two hours.
And use your common sense.
In such cases, use the If in doubt, throw it out rule.
Top image byDooderandToni Art(Shutterstock).
