{"id":1510,"date":"2015-12-29T07:18:11","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T15:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1510"},"modified":"2015-12-29T07:18:11","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T15:18:11","slug":"the-truth-about-sell-by-dates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-tales.net\/?p=1510","title":{"rendered":"The Truth About ‘Sell-By’ Dates"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In my new position\u00a0I am partly responsible for monitoring outdates at several stores. \u00a0Since my company has been in the news a lot over the years for selling expired products (mainly baby formula and dairy) it is a huge focus in our company and gets audited by several people to make sure the stores are pulling outdates regularly.<\/p>\n

The article below from attn.com<\/a>\u00a0explains that the dates you see on products are not set in stone dates to throw product away. \u00a0A lot of people will toss something even before the date on the package, fearing that they’ll get some exotic bacterial disease from a box of crackers that says “Best by January 2016.” \u00a0While it’s true that they may not be as fresh, they are still safe to eat and there’s only a few products that you should strictly obey the date on (dairy products to be sure.)<\/p>\n

There’s a graph below that shows how much food Americans throw away and it’s A LOT. \u00a0What frustrates me is that my company pulls product as much as 30-60 days before the “sell-by” date in some cases, and there’s a corporate policy that it can’t be donated to a charity so it goes directly into the trash. \u00a0That’s right–it’s not even close to being expired and it goes to waste. \u00a0Many grocery chains give their pulled products (and day-old bread) to local food banks who screen it carefully before using or distributing it, but apparently we are too worried about liability somehow so just take the easy way out.<\/p>\n

So try and be a little more discriminate in what you throw away, and if you want to know how to make your groceries last longer, you can go here.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Often, meaningless food expiration dates<\/a> can actually cause Americans to throw away products that are perfectly edible. This misdirected trend leads to an astonishing $165 billion dollars<\/a> worth of food that’s wasted every year in the U.S. \u2014 roughly 40 million tons of food \u2014 an amount that has only grown since the 1980s<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"TheWASHINGTON POST –\u00a0<\/cite><\/em><\/h3>\n

To save yourself a bit in your pocketbook each week, however, as well as some strain on the environment from all of that discarded food, you can learn to be a food label reading ninja in order to better determine how long your food actually lasts<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

HOW TO DECODE THE LABELS<\/em><\/h2>\n

\"ExpirationFLICKR \/ MARK TURNAUCKAS – FLICKR.COM<\/a><\/cite><\/em><\/p>\n

Looking through your fridge, you might find a variety of labels depending on the product, from “sell-by” dates to “use-by” dates to coded numbers on the bottom of a soup can. Deciding what’s safe to eat can be confusing. Do you need to toss the eggs with the “sell-by” date that’s two weeks old? (Probably not.) What about the milk? (Very likely.)<\/em><\/p>\n