Food expiration dates don’t mean what you think - Carolyn Beans — Transcript

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1. 0:07How much of the food in your fridge will you toss before it reaches the table?
2. 0:11Hamburger buns from last summer’s picnic? Milk past its sell-by date?
3. 0:16Carrots that lost their crunch?
4. 0:18Countries around the world waste huge amounts of food every year,
5. 0:23and the United States is one of the worst offenders.
6. 0:2737% of US food waste comes from individual households.
7. 0:33And roughly 20% of those food items are tossed because consumers aren’t sure
8. 0:38how to interpret the dates they’re labeled with.
9. 0:41But most of those groceries are still perfectly safe to eat.
10. 0:45So if the dates on our food don’t tell us that something’s gone bad,
11. 0:50what do they tell us?
12. 0:52Before the 20th century,
13. 0:53the path between where food was produced and where it was eaten
14. 0:57was much more direct,
15. 0:59and most people knew how to assess freshness using sight, smell, and touch.
16. 1:04But when supermarkets began stocking processed foods,
17. 1:08product ages became harder to gauge.
18. 1:11In the US, grocers used packaging codes
19. 1:14to track how long food had been on the shelves,
20. 1:17and in the 1970s, consumers demanded in on that info.
21. 1:22Many supermarkets adopted a system still in place today called open dating,
22. 1:27where food manufacturers or retailers labeled products with dates
23. 1:31indicating optimum freshness.
24. 1:34This vague metric had nothing to do with expiration dates or food safety.
25. 1:39In fact, it’s rarely decided with any scientific backing,
26. 1:43and there are usually no rules around what dates to use.
27. 1:47So most manufacturers and retailers are motivated to set these dates early,
28. 1:52ensuring customers will taste their food at its best and come back for more.
29. 1:58This means many foods are safe to eat far beyond their labeled dates.
30. 2:04Old cookies, pasta, and other shelf-stable groceries might taste stale,
31. 2:10but they aren’t a health risk.
32. 2:12Canned foods can stay safe for years,
33. 2:14so long as they don't show signs of bulging or rusting.
34. 2:18Low freezer temperatures keep bacteria that cause food poisoning in check,
35. 2:22preserving properly stored frozen dinners indefinitely.
36. 2:26Refrigerated eggs are good for up to five weeks,
37. 2:29and if they spoil, your nose will let you know.
38. 2:32And you can always spot spoiled produce by off odors, slimy surfaces, and mold.
39. 2:38Of course, there are some cases where you’re better safe than sorry.
40. 2:42The USDA recommends eating or freezing meat within days of purchase.
41. 2:47Beyond their printed dates,
42. 2:48ready-to-eat salads, deli meats, and unpasteurized cheeses
43. 2:53are more likely to carry pathogenic bacteria
44. 2:56that can slip past a smell or taste test.
45. 2:59And the dates on infant formula are regulated to indicate safety.
46. 3:03But while some of these labels work as intended, the vast majority don’t.
47. 3:08In a 2019 survey of over 1,000 Americans,
48. 3:12more than 70% said they use date labels to decide if food is still edible,
49. 3:17and nearly 60% said they’d toss any food past those dates.
50. 3:23Restaurants and grocers often do the same.
51. 3:26To avoid all this waste, many experts advocate for laws
52. 3:30to require that date labels use one of two standardized phrases:
53. 3:35“Best if used by,” to indicate freshness, or “Use by” to indicate safety.
54. 3:41This solution isn't perfect,
55. 3:42but some US researchers estimate that setting these standards at a federal level
56. 3:47could prevent roughly 398,000 tons of food waste annually.
57. 3:53Grocers could also try removing date labels on produce,
58. 3:57as several UK supermarket chains have done
59. 4:00to encourage consumers to use their own judgement.
60. 4:03Many experts also advocate for policies incentivizing grocers and restaurants
61. 4:07to donate unsold food.
62. 4:10Currently, confusion around dates has led at least 20 US states
63. 4:14to restrict donating food past its labeled date,
64. 4:18even though the federal government actually protects such donations.
65. 4:22Countries like France go even further,
66. 4:24requiring that many supermarkets donate unsold food.
67. 4:29Regardless of what your government decides,
68. 4:31the best way to prevent food waste is to eat what you buy!
69. 4:35And don’t forget that your eyes, nose, and tongue
70. 4:37are usually all you need to decide if food is fit for consumption
71. 4:42or the compost bin.