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There is one truth you can more or less rely on. If there are two items on the shelf X and Y, such that (< (best-before X) (best-before Y)), then you know X is
by kazinator 3y ago
There is one truth you can more or less rely on.
If there are two items on the shelf X and Y, such that (< (best-before X) (best-before Y)), then you know X is the older item.
A jar of peanut butter that is best before January 2025 is one month older than one that is February 2025. Therefore, of course, you want to grab the latter one.
Whether it's actually good until February 2025 is just someone's opinion.
Furthermore, if you know that X is a month older than Y, then you know something else: X is at least a month old, today. If you buy the January 2025 jar of peanut butter, you're getting something that was already around for a month when the February 2025 jar was just made, assuming they keep the best before offset the same between runs. And then add the time it took for the jars to arrive to that store shelf.
I would much rather see "date packaged" on every product.
For instance, roasted coffee beans are not very good past only two or three weeks, but not in a way that you would get sick from consuming them. (You can keep them in the freezer to keep the flavor a bit longer.) The exact roast date is important, which they often don't want you to know, substituting a fictitious best before date which includes a generous margin regarding how long it's going to sit in warehouses and on store shelves.
- throwaway20222 3y agoSmall nit - coffee beans are often times better after 10-14 days of roasting and have had some time for degassing when making espresso. Earlier than that and you will get a lot more creme than you really want if you are going for a balanced shot. But in the end it’s all taste so I can also be wrong for your personal situation.
- bozhark 3y agoAfgato? <14 days from roast Expresso > 14 days from roast Cheers
- aryonoco 3y agoWhat is Expresso?
- rockinghigh 3y agoThey probably mean affogato and espresso.
- ricc 3y agoIsn't affogato just vanilla ice cream with espresso?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fabian2k 3y agoIn the supermarket you'll never find coffee that fresh, so you won't really have to worry about that. If you buy directly from a roaster you do have to pay attention to this, though some roasters write that date as well on the package so you know the coffee should still rest a bit.
- crtasm 3y ago>A jar of peanut butter that is best before January 2025 is one month older than one that is February 2025. Therefore, of course, you want to grab the latter one I don't follow you. In a few weeks I'll have eaten it all, I don't even look at the BBE on things like peanut butter.
- nightfly 3y agoHow much it matters really depends where you shop. Places like Grocery Outlet, or places that don't have super frequent business like small rural grocery stores, can be selling food that _right up to_ the best-by date.
- resolutebat 3y agoThe mom & pop Asian grocery in my hood has a discount section where basically everything is past the best by date. It's all packaged cookies and spice mixes and the kind of thing that won't kill you if it "expired" a week ago though.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y agoI believe peanut butter was intended to be a generic example. Substitute something else at your pleasure.
- kazinator 3y agoThe point is that just because the best-before date is a year from now doesn't erase the fact that one item on the store shelf is a month older than another identical one.
- GrantMoyer 3y agoA best before date is literally a manufacturer recommendation about the time for which the quality of their product is practically as good as new. Absent specific information to the contrary, I typically trust the manufacturer's recommendation; they are certainly able to make a better informed guess than I am. Thus, I consider each of a product which I expect to use by the best by date equivalent to one another, and I don't prefer a newer one just because it's newer.
- throwaway290 3y agoManufacturer's recommendation is based on what they can be sued for not things like bad taste and such which personally matter. Also storage conditions are not always followed when moving or storing the product. Between two products with different best before dates I would just go and get a product that listed actual manufacturing date :)
- bobthepanda 3y agoI mean the later manufactured product can also be stored improperly so don’t you wind up in the same situation?
- ScoobleDoodle 3y agoNo. Absent additional information, the fresher is more likely to better with less opportunity and duration to be improperly stored.
- throwaway290 3y agoImproper storage affects longevity. To estimate longevity at a suspect store you need to know actual manufacturing date not manufacturer's arbitrary best before. But it doesn't even have to be stored improperly. If you see that this loaf is made two days ago, you will go and find a better place with fresher bread with fewer preservatives or whatever. Manufacturers and sellers obviously don't like it though. So they present you a choice between best before 1 or 2 days from now. Good eh? If you see two loaves with 1 day best-before difference, you'll go for the one with lower date and calmly go home eat your stale bread. Or you learn to simply ignore the best before and buy bread where you know manufacturing date. Of course if you are in a third world country likely no one audits factories for compliance and the manufacturing date is also pulled out of someone's ass.
- makingstuffs 3y agoThat’s pretty much what you get in India, a date of manufacture and a recommended shelf life. Everything else is up to you
- kranner 3y agoIt's still illegal to sell expired products in India under section 273 of the IPC.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Joker_vD 3y ago> I would much rather see "date packaged" on every product. ...it's not there already in the US? Over here, there is always a "production date" on the packaging, and then additionally it's either a "best before" date, or a "shelf life" time. But to put just a best-before date without the production date?.. That's insane. Why even omit that?
- kohbo 3y agoBecause it's not required
- bmacho 3y agoOne can argue that it has negative value for the customer. Advantages: a fancy fact, satisfies your curiosity Disadvantages: you can mistake it for the expiration date, especially if that gets less visible for some reason
- ThunderSizzle 3y agoActually, the disadvantage might be more about how grossed out people might become if they realize how old some of the food on the shelves might be. Especially if they needed to also include the origination dates of each ingredient, recursively. E.g. The corn was been stored for 10 years in a silo, and this specific box of corn meal was in a warehouse for a quarter of a year. An extreme example, but there was a time when our country had too much corn in storage, which is why the public school lunch program and corn ethanol became programs to use all this extra corn. Not to mention corn syrups.
- Joker_vD 3y ago> the disadvantage might be more about how grossed out people might become if they realize how old some of the food on the shelves might be. Only if you've never knew that before? I mean, I guess that's true: I know that e.g. cereals and past can go for years if store properly but if you never knew that, it may shock you. But if for you whole life you've seen labels "Shelf time: 18 months" on various foodstuffs, that's just the piece of general ambient knowledge. > if they needed to also include the origination dates of each ingredient, recursively Well, this is ridiculous, so they are not required to do that although, of course, there are (self-)regulations on how old can the ingredients be for the manufactirers to be able to claim the shelf-life they want to claim.
- mcmoor 3y agoI usually pick the older one instead, because I'll feel sorry if it ended up wasted because everyone pick the newer one.
- ricc 3y agoThis. Especially if it will be finished long before the "expiration" date.
- Kailhus 3y agoHm, I’m guilty of picking up the sliced bread at the back because I know it’ll last longer and involve less waste on my part. I guess they should produce less then?
- kazinator 3y agoThere are times when there is only one left of my favorite bread, so I take that one. There are enough people who don't care. The store staff can notice that people bought all the May 25 loaves they put out, so that only the May 11 breads are left on the shelf, and refrain from putting out any more May 25s (or newer) until the May 11s are gone. If that doesn't move the May 11s, as a last resort, they can sticker them 25% off rather than throwing them away. The store has full control over their algorithm for avoiding waste, and full control over what they put onto the shelf. They have all the tools for solving the problem, even in the face of some shoppers going for the newest date.
- treflop 3y agoThe problem is that different foods have widely differently ways of spoilage. Date packaged is meaningless unless you exactly know the ingredients of the product, its ratios, and somehow can determine when it will go bad. For something like coffee with one ingredient, it’s obvious. That’s why a lot of single-ingredient products like coffee or lettuce already have a packaged-on date.
- hwbunny 3y agoUsually, with a lot of products, the expiry date is just an indicator. I ate 12+ year old pastas, 2+ year old sauces I found in our pantry and they were indistinguishable from half year old items. Well, the sauces actually had a much better taste than the ones used before expiry. I'd rather see an expiry date plus some indicator that after the expiry date how fast would it spoil, or what changes it will go through, if ever.
- wodenokoto 3y ago> but not in a way that you would get sick from consuming them. Is t that that what best before means? The date until when you can expect the food not to change considerably. At least in Europe we sometimes have a “do not consume after” which is when the product is expected to go bad, not just off.
- Rinzler89 3y ago>At least in Europe we sometimes have a “do not consume after” which is when the product is expected to go bad, not just off. Sometimes yes but only on products known to spoil quickly and become dangerous to your health. But still even most dairy has best before and not to be consumed by.
- BenjiWiebe 3y agoWe produce and sell cheese. The best by date we put on it is required by some regulation or other. The date is mostly arbitrary. If the package is still sealed and the best by date is a year ago, congratulations. Your medium cheddar is now sharp cheddar. If you opened the package of some fresh Colby, and the best by date is 3 months in the future (so it's been open for 3 months), you're going to have to trim a lot of mold off of it and it probably won't even taste that great anymore. Really it would be more accurate to say: best before X time after opening or X time after purchasing, whichever is first. But even then: if someone buys the sharp because they like it, they'll very possibly like it more as it ages to extra sharp, even though it passes the best by date.
- coldtea 3y ago>A jar of peanut butter that is best before January 2025 is one month older than one that is February 2025. Therefore, of course, you want to grab the latter one. Only if they're the same brand. Some brands have different shorter best before dates, within what's permissible, than others.
- HumblyTossed 3y agoThis is HN, just grab a handful of peanuts and throw them in a blender.