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Packaged products with a shelf-life greater than 90 days - like canned foods, dry goods (rice, pasta, and dried beans) and frozen food - don’t need a best-before date, but may still include one. Otherwise, those dates identify the “key freshness” of a product, not its safety, and the dates are often very conservative.” Once food is exposed to air, the chance of contamination increases, so regardless of the best-before date, that half-empty jar of salsa at the back of your fridge is not invincible against unfriendly microbes.Īccording to Lori Nikkel, CEO of Second Harvest, only five foods expire and should not be eaten after a best-before date, including: “meal replacements (such as Boost), baby formula, protein bars and a couple of prescriptions. However, it’s important to remember the best-before date applies only to unopened items. Best-before dates are actually more of a suggestion than a strict guideline.Īccording to Health Canada, the best-before date on most packaged goods indicates the time after which the product may lose its freshness, flavour or nutritional value. Many assume that if the best-before date has passed, it means the product has gone bad-but this isn’t always the case. While the study takes into account that the increase may be proportional (given that Canadians have been cooking and eating more often at home during the pandemic), a 2019 UQAM study shows that many consumers have confusion around best-before and expiry dates. (Especially so given the fact that cutting food waste is a key to fighting climate change-a much-shared statistic says that if food waste were a country, it would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases after the U.S. Based on a previous study, Canadians were already throwing away 63% of household food, so the increase is staggering. Photo, iStock.ĭalhousie University recently published a study that shows Canadians may be wasting 13.5% more food at home since the start of pandemic. Apples release ethylene gases that prevent potatoes from sprouting.įor more information on food shelf life guide, visit StillTasty.Stop throwing out perfectly good food. Store potatoes with apples to keep them from sprouting.Apples can be stored fresh in the fridge for three weeks or cooked in the freezer for up to eight months.Floating indicates a buildup of sulfur gases inside the egg. Place an egg in a glass of water – if it sinks, it’s usable. Are your eggs past their date? They still might be good.
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Store bread in the fridge or, better yet, the freezer to extend its shelf life.Within reason, if something is past its best by date, it is still safe (and tasty) to eat. The “best by” date is just a suggestion to help consumers eat a food at its peak freshness. The Institute of Food Technologists, a food science and safety group, suggests that foods still have a third of their shelf life after the sell-by date. Sell by dates exist to make sure items don’t remain on the shelf too long, but you can still consume them at home. The “sell by” date is just that: a date to help retailers know when something should ideally be sold. If an item is getting close to its use-by date, you can usually extend its shelf life by placing it in the freezer. Though consuming food after its use-by date doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get sick, it’s best to avoid it because its freshness (and safety) will have declined. Consider the “use by” date mostly a hard-and-fast rule: it’s the date by which time you will want to have eaten the food.