27-05-2025
5 myths about food expiration dates and best-by labels
Date labels. Expiration dates. Best-by dates. Whatever you call them, at some point, you've probably squinted at those tiny dot-matrix-printed numbers and wondered: 'Does this mean my cheese might kill me?'
If so, you're not alone. Date labels are often unclear, inconsistent and, I think it's fair to say, downright bewildering. ReFED, a nonprofit dedicated to food waste reduction, estimates that confusion over those dates and phrases leads U.S. consumers to throw away about 3 billion pounds of food annually, which equates to $7 billion in losses. ReFED maintains that nationally regulating date labels and educating consumers could take a significant bite out of the estimated one-third of food that goes to waste — with serious financial and environmental consequences — in the United States every year.
