Why checking expiry dates on food items is useless: Best ways to determine freshness

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Jill Roberts, University of South Florida Humans get sick with listeria infections, or listeriosis, from eating soil-contaminated food, undercooked meat or dairy products that are raw, or unpasteurized. Listeria can cause convulsions, coma, miscarriage and birth defects. And it’s the third leading cause of food poisoning deaths.

Avoiding unseen food hazards is the reason people often check the dates on food packaging. And printed with the month and year is often one of a dizzying array of phrases: “best by,” “use by,” “best if used before,” “best if used by,” “guaranteed fresh until,” “freeze by” and even a “born on” label applied to some beer. People think of them as expiration dates, or the date at which a food should go in the trash.

But the dates have little to do with when food expires, or becomes less safe to eat.Costly confusionAn average household spend 12 per cent of its income on food. But a lot of food is simply thrown away, despite being perfectly safe to eat. The nearly 31 per cent of all available food is never consumed.

Historically high food prices make the problem of waste seem all the more alarming. The current food labeling system may be to blame for much of the waste. The FDA reports consumer confusion around product dating labels is likely responsible for around 20 per cent of the food wasted in the home, costing an estimated $161 billion per year.

It’s logical to believe that date labels are there for safety reasons, since the federal government enforces rules for including nutrition and ingredient information on food labels. Regulations require food labels to inform consumers of nutrition and ingredients in packaged foods, including the amount of salt, sugar and fat it contains. The dates on those