Before you go and throw away all the contents of your fridge it’s important to know what the food safety labels on the back of the products actually mean – so you don’t bin them unnecessarily
It’s incredibly frustrating when you’ve forked out on a fortune in your weekly shop, only to never get round to eating certain things before the expiration date comes around.
Admit it, we’ve all had the inner dilemma where you’ve carefully lifted the lid of an already opened packet of something, and given it a sniff, because the expiration date has just passed. Is it safe to eat? Will it make you ill? It can be heartbreaking throwing food that looks fine into the bin, because it’s a huge waste of money.
According to Business Waste, the UK throws away 9.5 million tonnes of food waste every single year. And while some items inevitably land in the bin, there are some things that can still be eaten past their expiration date. Dr Karan Raj, a doctor and NHS surgeon who often shares advice online, took to TikTok to warn his followers: “Before you throw away your food, make sure you’re reading the food safety labels correctly.”
If you’ve taken a look on the back of food packaging, you might have noticed different types of phrasings, including ‘sell by’ and ‘use by’ dates, and these are important distinctions. “First, you’ve got ‘sell by’ dates, this is something just for the people who work in stores to know when to take their products off the shelves,” explained Dr Raj.
But when you’re deciding whether to eat something or not, this isn’t necessarily something you should worry about. “This date is not a standard of food safety,” added Dr Raj. Then you also have ‘best before’ dates, which the expert said “indicate when a product will be on the best flavour or quality”.
But contrary to popular belief, this is “not a purchase or safety date, it’s more of a ‘when is it tasty’ date,” he added. According to Dr Raj, most tinned food can safely be eaten “two to five years after this date as long as they’ve been stored correctly, in a cool, dry place”. For dry rice, you can still eat it “five years past this date, if stored in the box”.
You might also see see ‘eat by’ or ‘use by’ dates. Dr Raj continued: “These indicate the last day an item will be at peak quality. The only exception to this is infant formula. Do not use baby formula after this date.
Lastly, Dr Raj warned: “If you see food labels that says something ‘expires’ on a certain date, especially if it’s meat or dairy, you should probably not look to test that line.”
But most of the time, you can use your “senses to decide if something’s expired or not”. For example, if you “notice an odd smell, a changing texture or the presence of mould or bulging cans, you should probably throw it away.”
