What you learn about expiration dates on food from this trending video on YouTube may surprise you.
A YouTube channel called CollegeHumor published a video a few days before Thanksgiving called, “Expiration Dates Don’t Mean What You Think.” This oddly entertaining and informational video quickly trended on YouTube, accumulating nearly 3 million views in a little over a week.
Most who watch the video can relate to the first few seconds where a young woman cracks open her fridge to find it full of food with expired “sell by” and “use by” dates. Chances are pretty good you reached into your fridge and tossed out anything that exceeded its expiration date.
However, the video notes that consumers often throw away food long before they really need to.
A man in a suit, Adam Conover of “Adam Ruins Everything” on truTV, runs in shortly after the girl in the video plans on throwing away everything in the fridge that she believes expired. Conover starts by explaining the fact that eggs last anywhere from three to five weeks past the “sell by” date. The egg carton pops open and the eggs crack a joke about “sell by” dates being “a yoke.” Conover then holds up a can of green beans while explaining that canned and dry food never really expires. The green female giant comes to life on the can shortly after, laughing about how she “won’t go bad for years.”
The video then takes a turn when Conover explains that it is possible for food to expire before the “sell by” or “use by” date if a person does not handle and store the food properly. This can include such mistakes as leaving the food out on the counter for too long or not setting the fridge to the right temperature.
Conover explains the best way to determine whether food is bad is to check for signs of spoilage.
Does the food have a rotten smell? Do you see mold? Unfortunately, the “sell by” and “use by” dates do not really tell you what you need to know to decide whether to throw food away.
Conover even explains that there is a “neat exception” to checking if food expired. While the idea of chugging a gallon or carton of curdled and rotten-smelling milk is enough to turn just about anyone’s stomach, the milk itself will not actually hurt you. Pasteurization before it consumers buy it removes any harmful bacteria from milk. So, there is no harm in drinking milk long after it technically spoils.
The woman asks why the government requires the food manufacturers to put “sell by” and “use by” dates on the food if you do not need to throw the food away by these dates.
Conover in the video notes the government and the FDA have nothing to do with the labels. In fact, in many states, there are no regulations regarding “expiration” and “sell by” date labels. The “sell by” date is only meant for stores to know when to pull products from the shelves and stop selling them and has little correlation with when the food expires.
In some situations, manufacturers determine the expiration date based on when the food loses its freshness and does not taste as good as it did a few days ago.
For obvious reasons, food manufacturers would prefer customers throw away food that does not taste as good, so they do not have a reason to look for alternative brands.
Ultimately, the goal of the video was to teach individuals the “expiration” and “sell by” dates should not be what you use to decide whether to throw something away in your fridge. Open the item up, look it over, and give it a sniff. Let your senses tell you if the item is trash.
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