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California bans sell-by dates

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Re: California bans sell-by dates

#111

Post by alwa »

schwartzworld wrote: post #89
alwa wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever bought an old cardboard tube of salt? The last time I did was in a tropical location. Somehow over the years it had acquired the scent of wet rot, and the relentless cycles of humidity had effectively recrystalized the contents into a rock. Luckily the packaging had started to biodegrade, too, so it was easy enough to scrape off the fiber fuzz and hammer down the inner salt rocks into something useful.…

How do you know this happened as a result of the sellby, as opposed to being improperly stored? The package could get wet at any point.

I suspect it was exactly a function of improper storage (and that it would last forever in a cool dry place).

My broader point, I guess, is that the appropriate date to sell something by depends so heavily on factors unknowable at production time that it’s hard to guess. But also that apparently-shelf-stable goods can in fact degrade.

And I guess that it’s kind of weird and unnatural the way modern industrial packaging/processing have trained us to expect that a given product should be interchangeable with any other until an arbitrary date.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#112

Post by Lev1a »

SoftTalker wrote: post #58

I don't pay dates much mind. If it looks good, smells good, and tastes good I eat it. We are pretty adept at smelling and tasting spoiled food.

Over the last few years here in Germany many, many food products have gained a little note next to the "MHD" (Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum, [1]) which says something like "oft länger gut" ("often viable for longer") or "ansehen, riechen, probieren" ("Look, smell, try").

And IIRC the EU is also debating the removal of MHD from staple foods that are shelf-stable for years, like dried pasta, uncooked rice etc. Normal sugar already doesn't have an MHD, although jam sugar is marked with the year of manufacture since they have other compounds in them as well beside the sugar itself.

Where i work all all the food that's simply past its MHD gets collected every morning by the Red Cross for food banks ("Die Tafel"). Obviously if a foods container is damaged or it's rotted fruits/veg or it would be unsafe to consume for another reason [2], that stuff gets thrown out (into bins collected for biomass processing).

[1]: pretty sure it's the same as "best (if used) by date" since products from abroad are sometimes marked "BBD " instead of "MHD " (at least on the transport packaging).

[2]: like lazy customers not putting frozen or cooled foods back but leaving them elsewhere in the warm store, something which REALLY aggravates me.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#113

Post by ggreer »

This article claims that 12 million tons of food are wasted in California annually, and that this law will save 70,000 tons of food from going to waste. California's population is 39 million. Does that mean that every Californian is wasting a pound of food every day? That seems suspiciously high to me. I'm curious how they came up with those numbers.

I think this law is like plastic straw bans, or mandated bag fees, or prop 65 cancer warnings: a feel-good law that causes more problems than it solves. Anyone who makes food for sale in California will have to redo their labelling (or at least pay people to audit their product labelling). These costs will be passed on to consumers in the form of increased prices. Some manufacturers will choose to not sell in California, reducing consumer choice, reducing competition, and increasing prices. And for what? To reduce food waste by 0.6% in the best case.

It seems to me that the problem with food wastage isn't the extra food, it's the externalities created by food production, distribution, and disposal. It would be much more effective to tax these externalities than to make ineffective laws about product labelling.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#114

Post by ewoodrich »

bko wrote: post #15

You know who hates food waste more than Gavin Newsom? Every greedy supermarket market executive that throws away 30% of their inventory. Especially when their profit margins are often in the low single digits. The article says there is no mandates on any types of dates. So I imagine these dates serve some purpose, otherwise they wouldn't be there. Laws like this often sound like they're helping but since no one is fo…

> The law prohibits the use of consumer-facing sell-by dates, and also requires standardized language for date labels.

It appears that it does not preclude tracking sell-by for internal inventory management purposes (such as with a handheld scanner already used in grocery stores for various purposes, or possibly some kind of opaque but human readable code), just to avoid customer confusion including it explicitly on the package.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#115

Post by maxerickson »

bilekas wrote: post #69
torgoguys wrote: post #67

> To adhere with the requisite language outlined, any food products with a date label — with the exception of infant formula, eggs, beer, and malt beverages — must state “Best if Used By” to indicate peak quality, and “Use By” to designate food safety. Infant formula is required federally, so OK. Eggs are an oddly specific one, but I guess I can see it (although I'd wonder why some other products like milk, or meat m…

I'm actually super curious about that too, as far as I know pathogens cant live in beer, so I don't know how it can go bad. I wonder though if local brewery's or more artigianale brewing processes are different and maybe could be a bit riskier ?

Craft brewers that aren't doing it as a hobby are using industrial process controls and working for a highly repeatable flavor.

The flavor going off is the main concern with beer.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#116

Post by jessriedel »

ryukoposting wrote: post #100

When my wife and I moved in together, we had a spat about what "sell by" dates actually meant. She had been throwing away loads of perfectly good food because she misunderstood the meaning of the sell-by date. I don't remember who taught me what they actually mean, but I was able to point her to a USDA site that showed the actual meaning. I'm pretty sure that was the only time I have ever been right when she and I di…

> Some more education is still necessary, though. Certain foods can go months or years past their "best by" date and still be perfectly safe - even if they might taste a little funky.

Aren’t safety restrictions the “use by” date?

> Switching to language that either says “Best if Used By” or “Use By” will also help minimize ambiguity. The former will establish consistent wording for advising when an item is less fresh (but still okay to eat), while the latter designates food that should no longer be consumed due to safety concerns.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#117

Post by paxys »

No date printed on a food item is ever going to be accurate to the day. Unless something is wildly out of date, just use your senses. If it looks, smells and feels fine, it is fine. You’d be surprised by how much longer everything in your friend (and outside) can last.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#118

Post by sandworm101 »

ryukoposting wrote: post #100

When my wife and I moved in together, we had a spat about what "sell by" dates actually meant. She had been throwing away loads of perfectly good food because she misunderstood the meaning of the sell-by date. I don't remember who taught me what they actually mean, but I was able to point her to a USDA site that showed the actual meaning. I'm pretty sure that was the only time I have ever been right when she and I di…

There is also much confusion about how food actually goes bad. There are some foods that absolutely should be avoided after a specific amount of time. But most will go bad somewhat randomly, mostly after but often before their sell/best by dates. Sometimes a jug of milk will be bad before it even arrives at a store. Sometimes mold will appear on fresh bread very suddenly. Food is more complicated than fixed dates.

I was buying eggs recently when I, as my mother taught me, opened the case and checked to see if any had cracked. The person beside me said "I hope you are buying those" as if me touching them somehow made them unsellable. People need to learn more about food.

Re: California bans sell-by dates

#119

Post by tivert »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #94
tivert wrote: post #41

> To adhere with the requisite language outlined, any food products with a date label — with the exception of infant formula, eggs, beer, and malt beverages — must state “Best if Used By” to indicate peak quality, and “Use By” to designate food safety. "Use by" is dumb, it's too close to "Best if Used By." If there's a safety issue, the term should be "expires", "expires on", or something like that.

It's bad if you're a search engine. It's not as bad if you're a human who is capable of parsing natural language semantics.

> It's bad if you're a search engine. It's not as bad if you're a human who is capable of parsing natural language semantics.

I am a human capable of parsing natural language semantics, and "use by" is terrible. It's one of those completely unexplained commands you often find in instructions. Why should I use it by that date? If you're not a mindless drone who just unquestioningly follows instructions, the total lack of reason creates a lot of space to decide to do something else. For instance: without consulting California food labeling legislation (which, I admit, Californians all carry around the statute book those regulations several times a day), it's reasonable to interpret "use by" as "best if used by," for instance.

They should use clearer language because they can and have no excuse not to.

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