Best-Before Dating
My eldest son was recently thwacked with a lick of common sense that came in the form of a glob of peanut butter. It jolted him back into what I often call the analog world. You know; the real world where school starts at 8:30 and not 8:37, and lunch hour runs from noon to 1PM, not 11:54 to 12:39, and saying “see you at half-past’ meant something. The real world where we know that if it pops, burps, fizzes or blows up all over you when you open it, and it’s not a “Bud,” it probably has gone bad: life before “Best Before” dating.
Despite haranguing and pleas, my boys continually refuse to eat, and will even go as far as to throw out, food items with expired dates, when I know that there is absolutely nothing horribly wrong with them. It took Paddy inadvertently eating and surviving a massive dose of “poisonous” peanut butter, before he would finally believe that I wasn’t trying to kill him. It was his girlfriend who pointed out that the peanut butter he had just wolfed down was a year past due, and he immediately phoned me. I was on a boat in Desolation Sound and it wasn’t on the top of my priority list. I said, “Did it smell bad or look funny?” Well, no, but... “So you’ll live.” Not only did he live, but when I next saw him, he was gallantly finishing the outdated jar before starting the newer one. I had finally won half the battle. (There is still our other son.)
I am here to tell you that “Best- Before Date” or “Durable- Life Date,” as our governmental food agency calls it, was never intended to indicate food gone bad. It is only meant to be an indicator from the manufacturers of packaged food, of a date when they feel that their products will still “retain their normal wholesomeness, palatability and nutritional value, when stored under conditions appropriate for the product.” (Excerpt from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency guide to food labelling and advertising.)
Currently, our government only requires this labelling for products deemed by their manufacturer to have a shelf life under 90 days, which includes items such as dairy, baked goods, refrigerated and frozen items. The laws do not require products that are expected to retain their quality beyond 90 days, items such as most canned and dried packaged goods (and peanut butter), to have this labelling. The fact that you will find this dating on most products these days is due to voluntary labelling by manufacturers. They know that their consumers demand to have this information. In a way it also protects the reputation of a manufacturer: if we chose to use a product after the manufacturer deems it not to be at its peak quality, that is our choice, but we have to realize that we are not consuming that product at its best, and therefore can’t complain.
It is an issue of quality not threat to life. It protects the consumer from buying products that are well beyond their prime and wasting our food dollars. If you were to take three tins of tomato soup, from three dating periods, including the one in my cupboard that is well past its due date, you would probably not notice much difference in flavour or consistency. If you were to do the same with some bottled salad dressings, you might notice that the out of date bottle doesn’t stay mixed as well as the in-date bottle. If you were to do the same with three packages of seasoned rice mixes, you would probably find that the seasoning packet of the oldest box is nearly impossible to dissolve. This is what happens when ingredients start to deteriorate. We all know that we should toss out our spices every year. (And does anyone really? No, we just use a little more, right?) As a bit of an aside, spices are really only considered “best” for six months in the cupboard; freezing them in air-tight containers will double their useable life. Stabilizers, emulsifiers, anti-caking agents, leavening agents; these all will deteriorate over time and effect the food product. It is really up to you, once you have a product at home, as to whether you want to throw it away or use it anyways. If I am making something with a lot of other expensive ingredients, for example Christmas cakes, I wouldn’t want to take a chance on my old baking powder; it just isn’t worth it. I always test my yeast before I make bread; if it is a little “slow” I add a little extra. But if it’s dead, I’ll go and buy more instead of wasting hours in the kitchen. Even bread flour itself should be purchased every six months. Gluten is one of the first things to deteriorate in flour.
For the retailer, it means that he will not very likely try to sell anything beyond its “best,” although if he were to offer it at reduced pricing, that would be fair. It means that he is going to rotate his stock with the oldest dates in the front of the shelf. This is not an attempt to fool us into buying old stock, but the logical way to sell his product. Unless you are stocking up for a three-year boating expedition, you really don’t need to worry about getting the longest dating. It does mean that like the retailer, we should also be occasionally rotating our stocks at home, and pulling the oldest to the front. That should make common sense.
There is one other category of foods that must have a best before dating, and these are ones used as nutritional supplements, such as baby formula and adult liquid diets. Because the levels of nutrients are critical, and many nutrients do have short shelf-live, it is important to know when they are no longer at their peak. It may only be one of the many nutrients that has a short shelf-life, but it could be the most critical one.
Well, hopefully, this will save some poor tomato soup or peanut butter ending up in the garbage before its time. Or maybe it’s just my kids who are too smart for their own good! If this article doesn’t help, there’s always White-out!
Best- before dates only apply to foods stored as the manufacturer suggests. For most canned goods this means in a cool, dark place, away from heating and freezing. This means that the cupboards next to the dishwasher, oven, and over the fridge do not qualify as proper food storage places. Keep this in mind the next time you wonder why an unopened can of beans goes “psssst” when you pierce the lid, even if it is well within its best before date.