"Eggs, for example, can be consumed three to five weeks after purchase, even though the "use by" date is much earlier."
This grosses me out. Especially given the number of food-borne illnesses in this country every year I'd much rather be safe than sorry. And spend 3 bucks on some new eggs.
[CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of food-borne diseases.]
I suspect though can not prove that the majority of food born illnesses come from foods which are not cooked prior to eating or are mishandled after cooking.
Perishables should list when they were packaged, created, whatever. Then I can decide how to use the eggs (for example). Less than a week? Fried eggs with breakfast. 2-3 weeks? Hard boiled eggs. Longer? Cookies and cakes.
That might be fine for a carton of eggs or milk but most things now days have heaps of ingredients in them.
The problem with this is you have to know enough to be able to make that determination.
How long does a ingredient last, when in a specific type of container at a specific temperature (ie shelf vs refrigerated vs frozen), when prepared in a specific way (ie eaten raw, microwaved for a few minutes, cooked at a high temperature for an hour)? Now figure it out for every ingredient in the container. For all your food.
Some of them can be Food Additive E1424.
How does a specific preservative effect the life time of ingredients.
Even if I had a massive lookup table it would be a pain.
EDIT: Here in Australia "used by" indicates the health and safety:
"use-by date, in relation to a package of food, means the date which signifies the end of the estimated period if stored in accordance with any stated storage conditions, after which the intact package of food should not be consumed because of health or safety reasons."
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2012C00762
We also have best befoure for quality. And baked on/for dates for bread.
> "This is about quality, not safety. You can make your own decision about whether a food still has an edible quality that's acceptable to you."
> "It's a confusing subject, the difference between food quality and food safety. Even in the food industry I have colleagues who are not microbiologists who get confused," she says.
Great. I should make my own decision... when even people who work in the industry get confused.
What the heck do I know if food has an "edible quality" or not? I'm not the food scientist here. Just put the goes-bad date on it.
Of course, food companies have some incentives encouraging them to keep the dates early and confusing:
* If some food is beyond a date printed on the box, and someone gets sick, the person eating it thinks it's their fault for eating it past the date.
* If some food is eaten, and it just isn't good, the company has an out in saying that the food is past its date -- the initial reason for "best by" dates.
* People throwing out more food means that people buy more food.
I hadn't realized how little regulation there was around packaging dates. I never cared much for following the dates anyway but I'm still surprised to hear how meaningless they actually are.
Just another case of the FDA being an incredibly disappointing regulatory body...
As a practical matter, I don't think a set of similar sounding but technically different definitions will change consumer behavior. It could even say "totally safe but slightly less delicious" and I bet most people would throw it out.
I'd prefer the FDA just make sure that information printed on food be based on facts. I think its reasonable to expect a regulatory body to enforce a certain level of honesty and accountability within its domain.
This grosses me out. Especially given the number of food-borne illnesses in this country every year I'd much rather be safe than sorry. And spend 3 bucks on some new eggs.
[CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of food-borne diseases.]