What does the US food packaging shelf life really mean?

No one wants to feed their family with spoiled food, but they also don’t want to throw away good food.

Photo: Shutterstock

According to the US Department of Agriculture, Americans annually throw away safe food for the sum of 162 billion dollars, writes with the BBC.

Some of these losses are caused by buyers confusing use by и bestbefore on food packaging. Most buyers check the expiration date of an item before purchasing, and many of them do not know the real meaning of the date phrases.

Sell ​​by, best if used by, use by - Each of these markings has different meanings. Contrary to popular belief, the current system of labeling expiration dates on food products is not at all intended to help consumers understand when a particular product passes from an edible state to an inedible state.

At the moment, food companies are not obliged to use a single formulation when specifying the shelf life of a product, which allows them to indicate dates that, in fact, are not the term of product suitability for consumption.

Consumer confusion

According to research, about 20% of products are thrown away while still fit for consumption due to misunderstanding of the dates indicated on the packaging. The average household in the United States spends $ 275- $ 455 a year on disposing of unused food.

Due to mistaken concern for food safety, 91% of consumers throw away food after the date shown as sell by, which has nothing to do with the safety of this product at all and is a recommendation for the store.

And 37% of consumers throw away a product after the date marked with the phrase use by, which actually defines the period of the “highest quality” of the product, as the manufacturers explain. In fact, the only information that can be obtained from the date indicated on the packaging concerns how long a particular item has been on the shelf in the store.

How to find out when the product went bad

Manufacturers can add a wide variety of ingredients or preservatives to their products to prolong shelf life. But no matter what the manufacturer uses, no product can last forever. Each company conducts research on its product to determine when it crosses the line of inedibility and can harm the consumer's body.

In most cases, manufacturers use the designation to identify such a date use by, that is, from this point on, the use of the product may be unsafe. At the same time, in most cases, companies indicate the date a few days earlier before the moment of real inedibility of the product. But there is no standard for the duration of the “safety factor”, so it can be either one day or a week.

Some companies do not use research data for their product to determine this date, but an already existing kind of calculation of the shelf life of each product, taking into account its composition. Therefore, the dates indicated on such products may be very approximate and do not mean at all that after their occurrence the product became unsafe.

Even the best calculated dates are only recommendations.

The safety of food consumed is in the hands of the consumer. They must store it at appropriate temperatures and in hygienic conditions.

If a product has an expiration date on its packaging, consumers should follow that date to determine when to use or freeze it. If it has no date, then common sense is worth using. If the food is moldy or has an unpleasant odor, then you shouldn't eat it at all. The best advice in this situation is to follow the advice: if the food is in doubt, throw it away.

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