What is the expiration date on food? – 04/12/2024 – Gross Kitchen

Answer honestly: do you always throw away food when you see that it is past its expiration date?

If the answer was “yes, of course, or do you think I’m a pig?”, you should rethink that position.

In the United States, there is a strong debate about the need to create smarter legislation for labeling foods, with regard to safe consumption periods.

According to a report on the website Business Insider, every year Americans waste 5 million tons of food and end up in the trash out of an abundance of caution.

This, according to the text, results in an average annual expenditure of US$1500 per family. Money that goes straight from the bank account to the landfill.

It is clear that each country has its peculiarities, especially when it comes to legislation. In the US, there are about 60 different types of food expiration labels.

One hell of a mess. Most of the time, the expiration date is not assertive regarding discarding the food on that date.

American packaging usually has the expression “best before”, followed by the expiration date. It’s not clear whether or not it’s safe to risk getting food inside after that.

Naturally, most people think it’s best to do what’s best. And there goes an almost perfectly good rango in the trash.

In Brazil, the word on the label is almost always “validity”. In other words: it has passed the deadline, it is invalid.

Certainly these dates are not defined in the guess. There are highly competent professionals behind the health risk calculation.

The expiration date exists to be respected by the trade. I do not under any circumstances advocate the relaxation of compliance with this rule by supermarkets and the like. Expired, lost.

Once the food is in your home, you must act with common sense.

Because the law needs to generalize. Put an expiration date on salt and sugar, things that last forever. Put foods that spoil and others that only become less tasty or nutritious in the same basket.

If this is not the case, it will become the gibberish that is foreign labelling.

Because the deadlines take into account transport and storage conditions that are less than ideal. And they also include an extra safety margin on the expiration date.

Take the case of the egg. The deadline stamped on the tray refers to eggs stored at room temperature, in any season of the year and in any region of the country.

However, Rio’s summer eggs rot faster than winter eggs from Campos do Jordão. And even faster than an egg stored in the refrigerator.

More than anything, train and trust your senses, your sense of smell in particular. Smell milk that has been opened for five days but has not yet gone sour. Smell everything before eating or cooking.

If the expired validity is not a garbage sentence for the food, the opposite can also happen. I’m tired of getting rid of meat that’s out of date, but it fills up the house with a putrefying odor when I take it out of the packaging.

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