Is That Food Expired or Safe to Eat?

many fats in foods in cans undergo gradual changes in structure. Pork is the worst in this regard with even frozen pork becoming unpalatable in 2 years or so, but it still has all it's gross food value. Other foods can last for decades

So to place a 1 year date on tinned food is reasonable for taste purposes in some cases. Mostly it is just marketing

drugs have the same market mediated expiry dates. Here in Canada, they must all be tossed after one year. In fact many can be stored for decades, however some organics last a year or two, and some must be frozen for long term efficacy.

Again the drug companies who know exactky how long each of their products will last want them to expire and be tossed out.

Not sure what your food banks do but ours are require to dump stuff on the expiration date due to liability issues.

Something similar goes on on my country, I know for sure that certain food companies collect all items with close expiration dates and either sell them on on-site stores at crazy low prices for low-income families, or donate it to asylums; because they know it will be consummed immediately and the expiration date won't be passed.

Yahlasit

The best way to determine if a food is safe to eat, is to smell it. If it smell good, it's 99% sure it's safe to eat. Cooking will also destroy any bacteria. "Best-by-dates" doesn't mean much. It all depends on how the food has been handled before it gets to your shopping basket. I've gotten bad produce that had un-expired dates many times. I just return it to the store for a refund. I make it a habit when handling food that will only partially be used and leftovers, to wash hands with soap and water and dry using paper towels. This is pretty effective in preserving foods and minimizing waste.

There are some foods that have the potential of early spoilage. Seafood is one of them, but again, your nose can detect if it is good or bad.

All good advice, sometimes we seem to lose common sense when presented with a warning label.

The oldish lady was smelling all the chicken in the supermarket to select a fresh one. The irritated shop assistant asked her "lady do you think you will pass the test?"

Hill Street Blues, season 4, I think. Mick Belker (Michael Weitz ?) undercover at a butcher's shop waiting on Florence Hallop's character. Very racy for primetime US TV in the mid-80s.

One thing about smell. I don't think botulism toxins aren't odiferous. Cooking at elevated temperatures (121C) will kill the spores but the toxins survive.

Yep you are correct. Botulinum cannot be detected in a spoiled food by smell or other sense. The toxins are so powerful that a tiny undetectable amount can kill you.

That's one reason to ditch stale-dated food, at least if it's the kind of food prone to harbour these pathogens.

That's one not one of the a reasons, however, to ditch stale-dated food, including if it's not a kind of food which does not harbour these pathogens. Obviously - butulinin toxin being fatal at extremely low doses- if the the product is infected, days or weeks until an expiration will not be significant in whether or not one succumbs; rather, poor handling (regardless of usage or sell dating) is the thing to be avoided: for the most part poor freezing technique and the refreezing of foods. When package labeling stipulates things like "cook only from frozen," "do not refreeze" etc, the thing being guarded against is botulism; and you know by package contents one of the food types susceptible to botulinin...

Nice thread!

Lots of ideas but the reality is the dating on products; the sell by date, has less to do with quality than marketing. Yeper that's the deal, the dating is used by distribution and retailers as grading system.

The replies of most posters are addressing another aspect; essentially the preservative expiration date which is not represented in the sell by date.

I very much doubt your premise regarding marketing, but agree in doubting that sell dates has much, if anything, to do with quality. Noting that such dates go with perishables (including harboring of germs (public health risks), it is only reasonable to conclude it's product liability and government oversight at play. The types of products which sell by or are discarded (at risk of government penalty) already have the cost built into the price, so there's really no economic or business incentive that might form a connection to marketing. Given the product liability risk of tainted product, doesn't seem reasonable that any company would compound that risk with a fake health scheme that would further damage a seller if the scheme was found out. And think about your seeming cynicism about dating as a subterfuge in place of quality assurance. Would you really want it to be a matter of "quality assurance" (procedures and personnel) which determines how safe something is for you to ingest? For me, eating it fresher -- and how else other than labelling are you gonna know which are -- is more reassuring than knowing someone(s) might have done something flawlessly to it before declaring it fit and safe for me to eat.

The other logic for expiration dating is that its intent is to enlist the participation of the public against (not the producers but) the retailer at the point of sale. In a time in which goods were offered by sellers who had a stake in the product (and in the health and well being and continuation of customers) the such things as expirations were not as important. In a market run primarily out of distant offices, expirations has become a necessary part of assuring (not high quality but) safe products.

Okay, try this. Go to a high end retail grocery store and check the sell by dates of their inventory then do the same at a food warehouse type store. Take note that the sell by dates are waay down the road on the high end stores shelves but the dates are with six months on the bargain shelves.

Note also the cost to the warehouse store for the items within six months of sell by date are greatly reduced than those same products at the high end store.

The clientele of many retailers of perishables require products less than three days from live to their hands. Then again other retailers buy what's left-over.

Doubt all you want to...but it is a manufacturers code that reveals the preservatives expiration date.

And think about your seeming cynicism about dating as a subterfuge in place of quality assurance. Would you really want it to be a matter of "quality assurance" (procedures and personnel) which determines how safe something is for you to ingest?

I agree and I believe much is lost to translation. You may recall the statement regarding a preservative expiration in my previous post. This is the pertinent factor to use in determination of quality. Where as the sell by date is misinterpreted by the consumer as an indication of quality.

I worked in a bakery [tortillas] for many years

the use by dates were determined by worst storage conditions encountered in stores

corn tortillas had to be on the shelf within 8hrs of coming out of the oven

The shelf life being 10-12 days...