If there are two items on the shelf X and Y, such that (< (best-before X) (best-before Y)), then you know X is the older item.
A jar of peanut butter that is best before January 2025 is one month older than one that is February 2025. Therefore, of course, you want to grab the latter one.
Whether it's actually good until February 2025 is just someone's opinion.
Furthermore, if you know that X is a month older than Y, then you know something else: X is at least a month old, today. If you buy the January 2025 jar of peanut butter, you're getting something that was already around for a month when the February 2025 jar was just made, assuming they keep the best before offset the same between runs. And then add the time it took for the jars to arrive to that store shelf.
I would much rather see "date packaged" on every product.
For instance, roasted coffee beans are not very good past only two or three weeks, but not in a way that you would get sick from consuming them. (You can keep them in the freezer to keep the flavor a bit longer.) The exact roast date is important, which they often don't want you to know, substituting a fictitious best before date which includes a generous margin regarding how long it's going to sit in warehouses and on store shelves.
>A jar of peanut butter that is best before January 2025 is one month older than one that is February 2025. Therefore, of course, you want to grab the latter one
I don't follow you. In a few weeks I'll have eaten it all, I don't even look at the BBE on things like peanut butter.
Small nit - coffee beans are often times better after 10-14 days of roasting and have had some time for degassing when making espresso. Earlier than that and you will get a lot more creme than you really want if you are going for a balanced shot. But in the end it’s all taste so I can also be wrong for your personal situation.
A best before date is literally a manufacturer recommendation about the time for which the quality of their product is practically as good as new. Absent specific information to the contrary, I typically trust the manufacturer's recommendation; they are certainly able to make a better informed guess than I am. Thus, I consider each of a product which I expect to use by the best by date equivalent to one another, and I don't prefer a newer one just because it's newer.
Usually, with a lot of products, the expiry date is just an indicator. I ate 12+ year old pastas, 2+ year old sauces I found in our pantry and they were indistinguishable from half year old items. Well, the sauces actually had a much better taste than the ones used before expiry.
I'd rather see an expiry date plus some indicator that after the expiry date how fast would it spoil, or what changes it will go through, if ever.
The problem is that different foods have widely differently ways of spoilage. Date packaged is meaningless unless you exactly know the ingredients of the product, its ratios, and somehow can determine when it will go bad.
For something like coffee with one ingredient, it’s obvious. That’s why a lot of single-ingredient products like coffee or lettuce already have a packaged-on date.
>A jar of peanut butter that is best before January 2025 is one month older than one that is February 2025. Therefore, of course, you want to grab the latter one.
Only if they're the same brand. Some brands have different shorter best before dates, within what's permissible, than others.
> I would much rather see "date packaged" on every product.
...it's not there already in the US? Over here, there is always a "production date" on the packaging, and then additionally it's either a "best before" date, or a "shelf life" time. But to put just a best-before date without the production date?.. That's insane. Why even omit that?
> Every so often, I go through my refrigerator, check labels on the items, and throw out anything that’s a month, or a week, or maybe a few days past the date on the label
Does anyone actually do this for real? In the overwhelming majority of cases it's extremely straightforward to determine if the food is safe to eat empirically. Only in a couple highly specific cases do you need to be conservative about eating old food (meat products and cooked rice are the two I worry most about, and I don't eat much meat so it's really just the latter). If it smells bad or tastes bad: don't eat it. If you can cut off or pull off the parts that are bad, but the rest is good: you're fine. Humans can (and have) survive and thrive on a shocking variety of food items and qualities, this level of omnivory is one of our biggest evolutionary advantages. I don't even look at the expiration date unless I'm already concerned that the food might be spoiled. Am I just weird? I thought everyone did this.
My parents own a small independent grocery store. My family ate a ton of "expired" food when I was growing-up because it made good economic sense. What you say is absolutely what we did-- throw out the items that really are bad (meat being the primary offender), cut off the bad parts of partially-rotten food, and eat the rest.
Food waste is really, really offensive to me. I probably take it a little too personally and too seriously. (Wasting meat is particularly galling to me, what w/ the likely terrible life the animal had making its way to your table.)
I will eat anything that isn't in obvious danger of killing me but my wife comes from a family that treats dates as gospel, that (in accordance with FDA guidance) at events will get stressed about food being left out for more than an hour, etc. Those people exist, and in fact they are everywhere.
I don't. For most foods, it's really obvious when they've become unsafe to eat. For those where it's not so obvious, my policy is "if I can't remember how long it's been in there, I'm tossing it."
I can't remember the last time I actually looked at a date printed on the packaging. I've found those dates to be meaningless.
Even though I think my sense of smell and taste is fine, I have been accused on multiple occasions of eating food that was not good. In fact, my children have stopped asking me whether an item in the fridge is okay because they don't trust me :D
People underestimate the cost of shipping produce. If you look at banana boxes, most of them come from Ecuador (in my area).
There's a river of bananas coming from Ecuador to the US, and that river gets broken up into various tributaries which get smaller and smaller until the dribble of bananas ends up at your local store.
And then they sell for .68/lb.
Anything that makes those things last longer is something everyone wants.
In fact, in the case of bananas that variety (Cavendish) is chosen because it lasts longer. There are plenty of produce that aren't shippable because they spoil - like Hood Strawberries, which only last for a few days and are only available locally.
That's two examples, but really - the idea that producers change the expiration date is patently ridiculous, at least in the US.
Frozen food and canned goods probably never expire.
But things do break down. As a sort of ridiculous example, soda doesn't last forever for sure. And if it's in the sun or not refrigerated it gets weird.
A few food-poisonings can make one cautious about food safety...
Even though I'm pretty frugal, one measure I currently practice is to usually not touch food past the best-by/sell-by/expiration date. (Though I'll take this article into consideration, going forward.)
Since I don't like waste, unopened shelf-stable food packages go to the "free stuff" shelves in my large apartment building, where they disappear very quickly.
(Other measures included getting thermometers for fridge and freezer, stopping using sponges and brushes to wash dishes because the occasional microwaving of them might not be enough, tracking dates that some kinds of food were opened/started, and paying attention to packaging dents/puffiness/unsealing.)
> A few food-poisonings can make one cautious about food safety...
Fun fact: most people's claims of food poisoning, particularly from restaurants, are actually Norovirus outbreaks that they get from touching common elements like door handles, and faucets in bathrooms, and so have nothing to do with the food. Actual food poisoning is much rarer than most people think.
I've been actively ignoring these for the last 15 years. For things like fresh meat the smell test is more important - I would even not use something that the label says is good if it smells bad, which happened. Very rarely, but it happened. They have to put those things in most places by law, e.g. honey, even though something with a high level of sugar can last a very long time. Honey can probably last forever. I've eaten candy 10 years past expiry date, some kind of a sugary spread 4 years after expiration etc. I've even had yoghurt a month past expiry. Did not expect, but it was fine after taking a small sip.
It's not completely useless for all things and it is some indication to at least pay more attention, but for the most part it's not really decisive.
In France (and probably many other places), supermarkets have a shelf with "close to expiry date" produces. They slap a label on each with a new price at a certain discount, from -30 to -50%, and a new barcode over the original barcode.
I _love it_. As it's a rotating subset of what's in the shop, it gives me ideas on what to cook. I basically don't go in the other aisles anymore: I enter the shop, go straight straight to what I jokingly call "the rotten aisle" and make a menu for the next 3 to 5 days from what's available. Which means that yes, I'm often eating stuff a couple days past their official date, whatever.
It's made inflation bearable for me, the flip side being that I'm now unable to buy food anywhere else, the price shock is just too much, I'm like "no way I'm paying that for food" ^^".
Believing expiration dates on raw, unsealed food is silly.
But for packaged food, I have to wonder if the companies are as evil as some would wish.
I’ve definitely noticed chips/crackers start to taste rancid not long after the expiration date.
Preservatives and such do break down. Do we really want to be eating that? The manufacturers know the breakdown behavior and probably want to limit liability and negative experiences. Do safety studies take decomposing preservatives into account? (Questions, but suspect the answers are “No”)
Best before and use by dates are more useful if you use them as a tool when buying food, not when choosing to throw it out.
If I know that I'm going to be eating something today or tomorrow then it doesn't matter, but otherwise choosing the longest dated food makes sense in order to know that it'll still be edible when I need it.
For a lot of foods it's an exponential process so something that has two days left and something that has ten can look and smell exactly the same.
As global policy, there is a very important, optimal amount of food waste: to first order, the xth percentile of uncontrolled variance in harvest size, where x is the percentage of years when we are willing to let some fraction of the population to go hungry. We can start eating 'expired' cheese in an emergency a hell of a lot easier than we can go back in time a year and a half and raise more calfs.
If the harvest is down 25% this year, the result is not that 75% of people eat the same amount of food as they do now and 25% starve to death, it's that the price of food increases and then the average person buys 25% less food.
A significant percentage of the world population is overweight. That implies not only that they're eating in a caloric surplus and could feasibly eat less than they do now forever, but that they could eat in a caloric deficit for a period of time and the result would benefit their health.
If production of food was temporarily low, people would not have to resort to eating foods that are expired, they could simply eat foods that are stored. The date on the can of soup in your pantry is two years from now, and you were going to eat it two years from now, but you can also eat it now.
Low harvests in one year can generally be addressed by the next year, for example by planting different crops this year that aren't susceptible to this year's problem, or planting crops in a larger amount of land area, possibly in another part of the world not experiencing the same yield issues.
Only one person mentioned this in passing so far, but I highly recommend getting a thermometer for your refrigerator to ensure it's keeping food cold enough for safety. I really think a lot of people have no clue what the inside temperature of their fridges are and think it's totally normal to have milk and other food spoil within a week. It's also not uncommon to have warmer and colder spots in it depending on airflow.
It rubs me the wrong way when most people refer to best by date on food items as the expiration date. Looks, smell and taste go far in deciding if food is good to eat or not.
Interestingly even medicines don’t magically go bad the day after the expiration date.
Some guys I hung out with who lived in one of the most expensive ZIP codes in the US selectively freeganed pretty good grub from behind Whole Foods.
IIRC, there is an inconsistent practice where grocers purposely destroy food they throw out to prevent freeganing.
I do wonder about how many years various condiments last, especially those that don't contain any preservatives. Have had ketchup turn very dark brown before.
At a minimum, barely expired food should be donated to nonprofits.
At worst, food unfit for human consumption should be composted. Disposing of it in landfills is a waste of waste.
I had a neighbor growing up who would get large quantities of vegetables and breads from the local grocery store "for her chickens". I'm sure that she actually did give the bad stuff to them, but she also regularly made rounds about the neighborhood placing perfectly good food that was just past its expiration date.
AFAIK, no nonprofits would touch so-called “expired” food, barely or otherwise. Some poor person falls ill after consuming it, whether or not there was even any real correlation, and they would be sued. And if any store or manufacturer donated the food they’re going to be sued too.
Most people in the US are overweight or obese. Most “food waste” is from people eating more food than they need. This costs society trillions of dollars in environmental costs, and medical costs.
When I was younger I for some reason thought butter doesn't go bad.
I found some butter that was two years old in my fridge. I made cookies from them, and ate them all.
I told my parents I finally ate that butter they gave me to take home with thanksgiving leftovers a few years ago and they looked at me like I was crazy and told me that butter expires.
There has to be a term for this type of article that throws out a bunch of subjects in a purported progression of logical argument, but is really only taking the reader on an emotional journey. Non-interactive Gish gallop?
If you want to focus on fallacious expiration dates, the don't drag in the subject of food distributors wasting food out of commercial expedience. If you want to talk about people going hungry in a country of plenty, then don't talk about individually wasting food. If you want to talk about fresh water being squandered, don't do it in a pan-country context where most of that water is a renewable resource continually falling from the sky. If you want to riff on the ridiculousness of landfills, don't focus on one of their most decomposable ingredients.
All of these things are certainly problems to be discussed in their own right, but I don't see how lumping them together in one big ball does anything besides letting readers feel that they might do something about any of the larger problems.
Eggs are a great example of this - they can be good to eat several weeks after their date when refrigerated. Especially if you do stuff like flip them every now and then. All you have to do is put them in a pot of water, and if it doesn't float, you're fine.
> The only people who could benefit are the producers, and I could imagine an unscrupulous manufacturer shortening the date on their food so that people will sigh, throw out a half-eaten package that has “expired,” and go buy some more.
Baffling argument. I’m sure producers would be much happier with indefinitely fresh products.
> Distributors fear legal threats if someone eats past-dated food and becomes ill (something that has rarely happened, but it’s still a looming threat).
That’s basically it. No scams or conspiracies needed.
As for the proposed solution about labeling standardization, I haven’t read the linked Harvard study in full, but I also haven’t managed to find the methodology by which they estimated the $1.8 billion benefit.
Do people really feel at ease throwing away food? Where I am from, generally food is respected. Throwing food actually expired (you could see/smell/taste it's expired) food away has been a guilty act. Was always told while growing up to not waste food from the plate I am eating in. If not right now, then eat later.
When I saw Spain's tomato fight event, it made feel very uneasy thinking how can they easily waste/play with perfectly good food.
If it doesn’t look weird, smell weird, have an off taste or texture change, let it rip. I’ve notoriously used stuff way beyond its sell by date and I’ve never gotten sick from it. I used to work at a grocery store and also did a lot of dumpster diving when I was younger because I find the amount of perfectly good food wasted along with atrocious amounts of packaging fucking offensive.
Very interesting and informative piece, but it includes an assumption without evidence - which is, food that’s unwanted in its first use on a shelf is not put to its best possible use after it proves unwanted.
Where does “wasted” food actually go? The article claims it ends up in landfills and plowed into fields, but doesn’t give examples or evidence to back that up.
If more research is done and it’s uncovered that wasted food does have some sort of afterlife, that’s a sign of the market at work. No doubt some unwanted food isn’t used in an optimal way, but if for example, some gets turned into feedlot and others into pet food, it radically changes the narrative.
A well-researched article about broadly what happens to “wasted food” would really help. But right now it’s not clear if there’s anything here to fix.
[+] [-] kazinator|1 year ago|reply
If there are two items on the shelf X and Y, such that (< (best-before X) (best-before Y)), then you know X is the older item.
A jar of peanut butter that is best before January 2025 is one month older than one that is February 2025. Therefore, of course, you want to grab the latter one.
Whether it's actually good until February 2025 is just someone's opinion.
Furthermore, if you know that X is a month older than Y, then you know something else: X is at least a month old, today. If you buy the January 2025 jar of peanut butter, you're getting something that was already around for a month when the February 2025 jar was just made, assuming they keep the best before offset the same between runs. And then add the time it took for the jars to arrive to that store shelf.
I would much rather see "date packaged" on every product.
For instance, roasted coffee beans are not very good past only two or three weeks, but not in a way that you would get sick from consuming them. (You can keep them in the freezer to keep the flavor a bit longer.) The exact roast date is important, which they often don't want you to know, substituting a fictitious best before date which includes a generous margin regarding how long it's going to sit in warehouses and on store shelves.
[+] [-] mcmoor|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] crtasm|1 year ago|reply
I don't follow you. In a few weeks I'll have eaten it all, I don't even look at the BBE on things like peanut butter.
[+] [-] throwaway20222|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] GrantMoyer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] hwbunny|1 year ago|reply
I'd rather see an expiry date plus some indicator that after the expiry date how fast would it spoil, or what changes it will go through, if ever.
[+] [-] treflop|1 year ago|reply
For something like coffee with one ingredient, it’s obvious. That’s why a lot of single-ingredient products like coffee or lettuce already have a packaged-on date.
[+] [-] coldtea|1 year ago|reply
Only if they're the same brand. Some brands have different shorter best before dates, within what's permissible, than others.
[+] [-] makingstuffs|1 year ago|reply
Everything else is up to you
[+] [-] wodenokoto|1 year ago|reply
Is t that that what best before means? The date until when you can expect the food not to change considerably.
At least in Europe we sometimes have a “do not consume after” which is when the product is expected to go bad, not just off.
[+] [-] HumblyTossed|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Joker_vD|1 year ago|reply
...it's not there already in the US? Over here, there is always a "production date" on the packaging, and then additionally it's either a "best before" date, or a "shelf life" time. But to put just a best-before date without the production date?.. That's insane. Why even omit that?
[+] [-] tech_ken|1 year ago|reply
Does anyone actually do this for real? In the overwhelming majority of cases it's extremely straightforward to determine if the food is safe to eat empirically. Only in a couple highly specific cases do you need to be conservative about eating old food (meat products and cooked rice are the two I worry most about, and I don't eat much meat so it's really just the latter). If it smells bad or tastes bad: don't eat it. If you can cut off or pull off the parts that are bad, but the rest is good: you're fine. Humans can (and have) survive and thrive on a shocking variety of food items and qualities, this level of omnivory is one of our biggest evolutionary advantages. I don't even look at the expiration date unless I'm already concerned that the food might be spoiled. Am I just weird? I thought everyone did this.
[+] [-] EvanAnderson|1 year ago|reply
Food waste is really, really offensive to me. I probably take it a little too personally and too seriously. (Wasting meat is particularly galling to me, what w/ the likely terrible life the animal had making its way to your table.)
[+] [-] jonahbenton|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnFen|1 year ago|reply
I don't. For most foods, it's really obvious when they've become unsafe to eat. For those where it's not so obvious, my policy is "if I can't remember how long it's been in there, I'm tossing it."
I can't remember the last time I actually looked at a date printed on the packaging. I've found those dates to be meaningless.
[+] [-] glonq|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mannyv|1 year ago|reply
There's a river of bananas coming from Ecuador to the US, and that river gets broken up into various tributaries which get smaller and smaller until the dribble of bananas ends up at your local store.
And then they sell for .68/lb.
Anything that makes those things last longer is something everyone wants.
In fact, in the case of bananas that variety (Cavendish) is chosen because it lasts longer. There are plenty of produce that aren't shippable because they spoil - like Hood Strawberries, which only last for a few days and are only available locally.
That's two examples, but really - the idea that producers change the expiration date is patently ridiculous, at least in the US.
Frozen food and canned goods probably never expire.
But things do break down. As a sort of ridiculous example, soda doesn't last forever for sure. And if it's in the sun or not refrigerated it gets weird.
[+] [-] rs999gti|1 year ago|reply
They do, just much slower.
[+] [-] Scoundreller|1 year ago|reply
For some reason, banana pricing is hyper competitive in Canada. We pay CAD$0.56/lb or US$0.41/lb. (Yes, we sell them by lb not kg).
[+] [-] neilv|1 year ago|reply
Even though I'm pretty frugal, one measure I currently practice is to usually not touch food past the best-by/sell-by/expiration date. (Though I'll take this article into consideration, going forward.)
Since I don't like waste, unopened shelf-stable food packages go to the "free stuff" shelves in my large apartment building, where they disappear very quickly.
(Other measures included getting thermometers for fridge and freezer, stopping using sponges and brushes to wash dishes because the occasional microwaving of them might not be enough, tracking dates that some kinds of food were opened/started, and paying attention to packaging dents/puffiness/unsealing.)
[+] [-] Turing_Machine|1 year ago|reply
Three different things.
Best-by -> may not be particularly unsafe, but starts tasting gnarly as time goes on.
Sell-by -> the store should sell it by this date, but there's still a healthy margin of time left for you to keep it on your shelves and eat it.
Expiration -> They definitely don't want you to eat it after this date.
[+] [-] naasking|1 year ago|reply
Fun fact: most people's claims of food poisoning, particularly from restaurants, are actually Norovirus outbreaks that they get from touching common elements like door handles, and faucets in bathrooms, and so have nothing to do with the food. Actual food poisoning is much rarer than most people think.
[+] [-] locallost|1 year ago|reply
It's not completely useless for all things and it is some indication to at least pay more attention, but for the most part it's not really decisive.
[+] [-] croes|1 year ago|reply
Isn't really related to the expiration date.
[+] [-] schneehertz|1 year ago|reply
When I realized that antisocial individuals might place toxic food there, I fell into panic.
[+] [-] navaati|1 year ago|reply
I _love it_. As it's a rotating subset of what's in the shop, it gives me ideas on what to cook. I basically don't go in the other aisles anymore: I enter the shop, go straight straight to what I jokingly call "the rotten aisle" and make a menu for the next 3 to 5 days from what's available. Which means that yes, I'm often eating stuff a couple days past their official date, whatever.
It's made inflation bearable for me, the flip side being that I'm now unable to buy food anywhere else, the price shock is just too much, I'm like "no way I'm paying that for food" ^^".
[+] [-] BobbyTables2|1 year ago|reply
But for packaged food, I have to wonder if the companies are as evil as some would wish.
I’ve definitely noticed chips/crackers start to taste rancid not long after the expiration date.
Preservatives and such do break down. Do we really want to be eating that? The manufacturers know the breakdown behavior and probably want to limit liability and negative experiences. Do safety studies take decomposing preservatives into account? (Questions, but suspect the answers are “No”)
[+] [-] throwaway22032|1 year ago|reply
If I know that I'm going to be eating something today or tomorrow then it doesn't matter, but otherwise choosing the longest dated food makes sense in order to know that it'll still be edible when I need it.
For a lot of foods it's an exponential process so something that has two days left and something that has ten can look and smell exactly the same.
[+] [-] QuadmasterXLII|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|1 year ago|reply
A significant percentage of the world population is overweight. That implies not only that they're eating in a caloric surplus and could feasibly eat less than they do now forever, but that they could eat in a caloric deficit for a period of time and the result would benefit their health.
If production of food was temporarily low, people would not have to resort to eating foods that are expired, they could simply eat foods that are stored. The date on the can of soup in your pantry is two years from now, and you were going to eat it two years from now, but you can also eat it now.
Low harvests in one year can generally be addressed by the next year, for example by planting different crops this year that aren't susceptible to this year's problem, or planting crops in a larger amount of land area, possibly in another part of the world not experiencing the same yield issues.
The optimal amount of food waste is none.
[+] [-] kragen|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] joecool1029|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] yumraj|1 year ago|reply
Interestingly even medicines don’t magically go bad the day after the expiration date.
[+] [-] hi-v-rocknroll|1 year ago|reply
IIRC, there is an inconsistent practice where grocers purposely destroy food they throw out to prevent freeganing.
I do wonder about how many years various condiments last, especially those that don't contain any preservatives. Have had ketchup turn very dark brown before.
At a minimum, barely expired food should be donated to nonprofits.
At worst, food unfit for human consumption should be composted. Disposing of it in landfills is a waste of waste.
[+] [-] lolinder|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] xp84|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] talldatethrow|1 year ago|reply
I told my parents I finally ate that butter they gave me to take home with thanksgiving leftovers a few years ago and they looked at me like I was crazy and told me that butter expires.
Now I'm not so sure.
[+] [-] mindslight|1 year ago|reply
If you want to focus on fallacious expiration dates, the don't drag in the subject of food distributors wasting food out of commercial expedience. If you want to talk about people going hungry in a country of plenty, then don't talk about individually wasting food. If you want to talk about fresh water being squandered, don't do it in a pan-country context where most of that water is a renewable resource continually falling from the sky. If you want to riff on the ridiculousness of landfills, don't focus on one of their most decomposable ingredients.
All of these things are certainly problems to be discussed in their own right, but I don't see how lumping them together in one big ball does anything besides letting readers feel that they might do something about any of the larger problems.
[+] [-] kazinator|1 year ago|reply
https://i.imgur.com/hJ2OgWp.jpeg
Expires 2008. I'm subitizing about 12 tablets left in there, which is half. So this should easily last past 2040.
[+] [-] kragen|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnMakin|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rconti|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] hi-v-rocknroll|1 year ago|reply
https://food.unl.edu/article/cracking-date-code-egg-cartons
[+] [-] bad_username|1 year ago|reply
How does that work? Buoyancy is determined by the volume and mass (i.e. density) of the egg, and neither of them changes when the egg goes bad.
[+] [-] mypastself|1 year ago|reply
Baffling argument. I’m sure producers would be much happier with indefinitely fresh products.
> Distributors fear legal threats if someone eats past-dated food and becomes ill (something that has rarely happened, but it’s still a looming threat).
That’s basically it. No scams or conspiracies needed.
As for the proposed solution about labeling standardization, I haven’t read the linked Harvard study in full, but I also haven’t managed to find the methodology by which they estimated the $1.8 billion benefit.
[+] [-] smusamashah|1 year ago|reply
When I saw Spain's tomato fight event, it made feel very uneasy thinking how can they easily waste/play with perfectly good food.
[+] [-] moribvndvs|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cadamsau|1 year ago|reply
Where does “wasted” food actually go? The article claims it ends up in landfills and plowed into fields, but doesn’t give examples or evidence to back that up.
If more research is done and it’s uncovered that wasted food does have some sort of afterlife, that’s a sign of the market at work. No doubt some unwanted food isn’t used in an optimal way, but if for example, some gets turned into feedlot and others into pet food, it radically changes the narrative.
A well-researched article about broadly what happens to “wasted food” would really help. But right now it’s not clear if there’s anything here to fix.