Heres one simple way tocut your grocery bill: Stop throwing away so much food.
That may seem obvious, but you could actually be tossing perfectly good food without realizing it.
Food and Drug Administration.
How much areyouwasting at home that you dont have to?
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What Do Sell-By Dates Really Mean?
A sell-by date tells stores how long to display a product for sale.
Its based on when a manufacturer believes food will be freshest.
No federal regulations require companies to include date labels on food (with the exception of baby formula).
For those companies that do, nothing regulateswhenthose dates should be or what they actually mean.
Those are:
None of these dates have anything to do with food safety.
Manufacturers set sell-by and use-by dates based on when they believe food will be freshest.
The manufacturer, not the government, sets the date, though the USDA requires it to be there.
As for coded dates, those are irrelevant to consumers.
It doesnt tell consumers when food will go bad.
Food becomes potentially unsafe to eat once theres evidence of spoilage like odor or visible growth or decay.
The mix of dates can be annoying and confusing for consumers.
For packaged foods, its much longer than you probably think.
How Long Can You Actually Keep Your Food?
So when do you actually need to discard perishable food?
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How to Know When Food Is Bad
Short answer: Use common sense.
Throw away food that smells bad or has visible signs of spoilage.
Weird smells and visible mold?
Thats kind of a no-brainer.
For perishable foods like meat and veggies, you have to be concerned with safety in addition to quality.
Take note when out-of-the-ordinary circumstances threaten the safety or quality of your food.
Save Money preserve your Food!
you might also save a lot of money by not tossing perfectly good food.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Sell-By Dates
In most cases, yes.
A sell-by date has nothing to do with food safety.
Its the manufacturers suggestion to stores about how long to keep foods for sale based on when theyre freshest.
Packaged foods you store at home have a much longer life.
Foods that are stale or taste old arent necessarily unsafe to eat; look for signs of spoilage instead.
The sell-by date doesnt have any bearing on when you could safely eat a food.
Its there to tell stores how long to display a product for sale based on its potential fresh taste.
Those dates are set by manufacturers and not based on food safety guidelines.
Sell-by dates matter for stores that sell food.
Sell-by dates dont matter to consumers.
They dont give you any information about when to eat, freeze or toss your food.
