Comment on I bought frozen BBQ eel and the best before date says LJ349. What does this mean?

• Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I assume the point is the “best before” dates are mostly useless. They’re useful for the store, but for a customer usually you should tell by smelling and looking at it. We evolved with senses to tell us when food has gone bad. Those dates aren’t part of it. So much food is wasted because people think those are magic and should be obayed like a law.

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  • Naich@lemmings.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s great unless you have an impaired sense of smell, like I had for the last 2 weeks following a COVID infection, or other people have permanently.

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  • T00l_shed@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    On the flip side, knowing the rough best before date helps people buy the freshest stuff, since I can’t open the cream with a date that says jr402 I won’t know if it should be good for a week or a month.

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    • Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s the point. People will choose to buy the “freshest” stuff, meaning it created a lot of waste. If you can’t tell what freshest then it will prevent older stuff from needing to be thrown out. If it’s being sold at the store, it’s fine.

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      • theoldgreymare@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        That’s fine unless you are buying well in advance and need to know it will still be good by the event. It will also prevent a customer like myself from noticing an item still on the shelf is a week past the sell-by date and should have been removed. Sealed cartons and other packaging prevents us from actually seeing the food, so someone could get home and open it and find it spoilt, wasting their money. “If it’s being sold at the store, it’s fine” is a mighty optimistic view of commerce. Even at a very well -run store I’ve found several packages of sliced Jarlsberg with mold inside, well before the date. And I received one with worse mold from a different grocery delivery. That’s a Jarlsberg problem. I check them carefully, the delivery shopper didn’t. He assumed if it was being sold in the store it was fine.

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