Are your grocery store habits sabotaging your savings plan? You can be doing everything right — from focusing on generic alternatives for expensive name brands to hacking your shopping habits to save cash — and still be making a crucial mistake when it comes to your relationship with your refrigerator.
How focused are you on those “sell by” and “use by” dates printed on your food cartons?
If you’re the type of person that obsessively checks the dates on your milk carton and dutifully pours out any extra milk at 12:01 a.m. the day after the moo juice “expires,” you’re doing it wrong. These dates are actually just suggestions, and as such you can live a long and happy life ignoring them.
Here are the answers to all your burning questions about use-by dates:
Aren’t Expiration Dates a Legal Thing?
Not when it comes to food. There are no laws or FDA regulations about dating food, with the notable exception of baby formula. All those dates you see on food packaging are put there by the manufacturers — and that’s only if they feel like it. According to the FDA, food manufacturers are required to sell wholesome, healthful foods, and a date on the package won’t change that responsibility.
It’s the grocery stores, however, that often follow those dates scrupulously. Their reputations for having fresh, tasty food are on the line, so they will often clear their shelves of older items so that customers won’t worry about having less-than-brand-new items to choose from. Where do those boxes with past-due dates end up? The dumpster.
Food dating is responsible for a whole lot of wasted food in the United States — up to 40 percent of the entire food supply in this country ends up in the trash even if it’s perfectly fine to eat. The psychological power of those dates is just too strong, and 90 percent of Americans chuck out perfectly edible food.
When you’re working to save money, you definitely don’t want to throw away something you could eat instead — only to spend your hard-earned money to replace it. That’s just dumb.
What Do All Those Different Dates Mean?
There’s actually a wide range of date types listed on everything from cereal boxes to sacks of potatoes — and none of them mean you have to pitch your food once that date pops up on the calendar. Here are some of the subtleties to know about when it comes to package dating:
- Best By: This is the most common date you’ll see, and all it means is that the manufacturer feels that the item is at its peak of freshness and/or flavor before that date. It has nothing to do with spoilage or edibility, and manufacturers will likely err on the side of caution when choosing these dates because they want to make sure customers are pleased with their products. But you can almost certainly keep eating those crackers past this deadline and not even notice.
- Born On: This is a slightly pretentious way to let consumers know when an item was made, or possibly when it was packaged. You’re likely to see it from craft beer brewers and maybe a cuter-than-thou specialty bakery. Either way, it specifically doesn’t mention how long the product will last, only when it was made.
- Sell By: This date is meant for grocery stores, not necessarily for you. It’s supposed to provide a hint about when to remove an item from shelves. Again, this is about quality of flavor rather than a warning about bacteria or any serious damage to the product.
- Use By: This date is aimed at the consumer, and it’s often pretty far in the future, particularly on frozen foods or dry goods. Still, it’s about quality and not safety — like all the other dates, the manufacturer picks it, not the FDA or any other legal entity.
- Packed On: As the name suggests, this shows when the food was packaged. It’s often a code printed on the package, and you can mostly ignore it — unless there’s a recall of a particular item, in which case you’ll probably need to check this number to see if your item is affected.
So How Can I Tell If My Food Is Still Good?
The dates aren’t the best way to determine if your food is still good or not. Instead, you should rely on your senses (including common sense):
- Sight: Is it still the right color? Mold will show up in a rainbow of hues, and sometimes spoilage will turn food brown or gray.
- Smell: This is the biggie. You know what something is supposed to smell like, so take a whiff. Aromas that are sour, musty or otherwise “off” are one of the best clues that your food should be thrown out.
- Texture: Is the food slimy or wet when it shouldn’t be? Is there a fuzzy texture? Has it congealed or separated in a weird way? If your food is disintegrating or changing form, you can pitch it.
- Taste: In most cases, a tiny taste test isn’t going to hurt you. Common mold and sour milk will taste bad, but they won’t make you sick. If everything looks and smell fine but you’re still uncertain, a tiny taste could put you at ease.
How Long Will My Food Last?
Feeling lost without the guiding star of expiration dates to help you navigate your pantry? You can look up the general guidelines for how long various food items last at eatbydate.com. This handy resource has a searchable database of all kinds of ingredients, plus descriptions of how to tell when something has gone bad. At this point, you should not be the least bit surprised to know that just about everything you can buy lasts for longer than the date printed on the package, so feel free to browse this website to get a sense of how long to hang in to everything from coconut oil to chocolate bars.
Keeping your food around longer will definitely help you save money at the grocery store — no more throwing away perfectly fine food!
Got more secrets to saving money on groceries? Share in the comments!
