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California first state to ban 'sell by' 'best before' label to reduce food waste - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41775298 - Oct 2024 (61 comments)
California bans sell-by dates
191–200 of 288 posts
Re: California bans sell-by dates
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many hot sauces are so acidic they’re pretty much a preservative!
Vinegar based hot sauces, and/or hot sauces that are very high in sodium, usually yes, but not always. Particularly if the sauce includes unstrained organic bits such as garlic or onions, or includes oils - botulism (odorless, tasteless) can be a non-zero risk. At some point, that crusty $5 bottle of hot sauce you found in the back of the fridge should just get tossed out instead of taking the risk.
I don’t even keep things like soy sauce or something like Tabasco in the fridge. Much less vinegars. I suspect a lot of people are inclined to.
Re: California bans sell-by dates
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
in Europe it's forbidden to sell washed eggs, so you're literally buying eggs covered in chicken shit, it's an interesting regulatory divergence.
My understanding is that unwashed eggs preserve a protective layer that inhibits bacterial growth, which is why washed eggs in the US must be refrigerated instead. I think they are both valid methods. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/11/336330502/wh...
Yes it’s one of those weird American things. Like being extremely worried about chicken meat because the conditions chicken are raised in are so awful you can’t trust it’s not contaminated.
I find it endlessly amusing that Americans are both extremely worried about food safety and apparently completely unable to pass reasonable food safety law.
Re: California bans sell-by dates
#194I 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.
> We are pretty adept at smelling and tasting spoiled food.
Ah.. so you have not experienced an injury or enough aging to compromise your ability to do this?
Re: California bans sell-by dates
#195Many foods are unregulated. It's strange that milk, for example, doesn't have any requirements for its expiration date. One brand widened their "best buy" date and I noticed their milk was souring 3 days before the "best buy" date. After contacting them several times, I told them that they gave me no option but to escalate this to authorities, they didn't seem concerned a bit, and after doing my research, I found out…
All the grocery stores in my area will full refund the purchase if it goes bad before the best by date. By returning it to the store you purchased it from, it gets marked as a defective return. When that rate hits a certain percentage they will stop carrying the product.
Re: California bans sell-by dates
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish regulators stopped trying to be poetic and just use clear English. What's "best by?" You need to write "do not eat after." Nobody needs to be explained what that means.
But thats the point, none of these actually mean that you cant eat it after te cutoff date.
That 5 year old box of unopened crackers will almost certainly not hurt you but they may not taste very good.
Re: California bans sell-by dates
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can't be anywhere even close to synthetic textiles.
Presumably you're not chewing on or eating from synthetic textiles. Meanwhile an enormous amount of food is shipped in, and even cooked in , plastic directly. Of course you're right in the sense that when it comes to our general environment textiles produce far more environmental microplastics than most other sources. Particularly in our water systems.
I think synthetic fabrics shed very small particles into the air every time they are disturbed, eventually wearing out entirely. We breath a lot of that in. Clothes, furniture, sometimes even bed sheets; these all shed fibers into our living spaces.
Re: California bans sell-by dates
#198When 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…
When I first started dating my ex, I was at her place and she asked if I was hungry. I said yes, so she made me a tuna melt with mayo. As she had it in the oven I looked in the fridge. The tub of mayo was enormous and mostly empty. It was Kirkland mayonnaise. I said, "oh, you have a Costco membership?" "No," she said, "my ex used to." "The guy you broke up with 2 years ago?" I looked at the date on the mayonnaise. Ex…
I had no idea that mayo expired. I had dragged a tub of mayo through several university housing locations and two apartment moves before my new bride noticed the long expired container's date as we combined refrigerators.
I'm not a mayo fan, so was a condiment for guests. Whoops.
Re: California bans sell-by dates
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many hot sauces are so acidic they’re pretty much a preservative!
Vinegar based hot sauces, and/or hot sauces that are very high in sodium, usually yes, but not always. Particularly if the sauce includes unstrained organic bits such as garlic or onions, or includes oils - botulism (odorless, tasteless) can be a non-zero risk. At some point, that crusty $5 bottle of hot sauce you found in the back of the fridge should just get tossed out instead of taking the risk.
I remember seeing a comment thread on here a few weeks ago where people were talking about making their own hot sauces, and botulism was a big concern, which was surprising to me. I figured hot sauce was so extreme that you didn't need to worry too much about the normal food-borne illnesses. Not so, I guess.
Re: California bans sell-by dates
#200When 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…
> Aren’t safety restrictions the “use by” date?
Exactly - people haven't been taught to actually look at the words before the date. They just look at the date, say "oh that was yesterday" and throw stuff away.
I guess I didn't make that perfectly clear in the parent comment - my wife didn't know that the difference in wording mattered, so she just ignored it.