Picture this: your box of granola bars expired yesterday. You sigh as you toss the remaining bars into the trash can and make a mental note to pick up a new box soon. It’s a waste of money, but you know that you made a responsible decision by throwing out those dangerously expired bars.
Right?
Wrong. About 90% of Americans throw food away before it has actually gone bad, and Europeans waste 15 million tons of edible groceries annually. But many ”expired” foods are still tasty and completely safe for consumption, which is some serious food for thought. (Forgive me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist a Nutrition Month pun.)
Phrases such as “best before” and “use by” aren’t regulated, and often confuse consumers about the safety of their food. Sharon Dijksma, the Dutch Minister for Agriculture, explains “Products, like rice, noodles, and coffee have nearly indefinite shelf life and the ‘best before’ date only regards to quality instead of food security.” So while your granola bar may become slightly less crunchy after the “best by” date on the package, it’s still perfectly safe to consume.
There are no international regulations dictating how long a product remains fresh, so food companies have free reign when assigning these “use by” dates. There’s been speculation that corporations purposely set shorter expiration dates so that consumers throw out their food and shop more regularly. This may be profitable for the food industry, but shorter expiration dates cause the average American to throw out around $30 worth of food each month.
So are expiration dates entirely useless? No. Products like infant formula require “use by” dates because their nutritional value deteriorates over time. But in some parts of the world, expiration dates are even more serious.
For example, China has a long history of food safety concerns. Last year, a Chinese plant was accused of repackaging spoiled meat and adding false expiration dates. The year before, passengers on an Air China flight fell ill after being served expired beef pastries. In the early 2000s, six infants were killed (and more than 300,000 were poisoned) by a toxic supply of Chinese milk.
While the Chinese government encourages high food safety standards, the guidelines are suggested rather than enforced. Over 70% of Chinese food packaging plants have fewer than 10 employees, meaning that quality control often falls through the cracks. As a result, it’s cheaper for Chinese food companies to sell spoiled products under deceptive expiration dates than to invest in factory oversight. It’s shocking to me that one small series of numbers stamped on food can cause both extreme waste and tragic illness.
The world already produces over 1.5 times the amount of food needed to feed everyone on the planet, and with conscientious consumption, more meals can end up in hungry stomachs instead of trash bins. At the same time, I believe that better international health regulations could take the guesswork out of expiration dates and ensure that a product is not tainted or spoiled.
Eradicating world poverty means eliminating hunger, but it also means ensuring that the food itself is safe to consume. Chew on that.
And while you're chewing, help others chew healthy food by signing the petition to increase food security in TAKE ACTION NOW.