Holiday/Winter 2018-19 Issue

Last Updated November 15, 2018
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Macarons from the bakery at SAP Restaurant in Appleton. Contributed photo
Macarons from the bakery at SAP Restaurant in Appleton. Contributed photo

LET'S GET THOSE DATES STRAIGHT
 

I want to straighten something out right here and now that has bugged me for years: “sell-by,” “best-by” and “use-by” dates are not the same.

And for some people, like me and my writing inspiration Dave Barry, these dates don’t mean anything at all. As Barry wrote, “I’ll eat things with Roman numerals on it.”

I bring this topic up right now because this time of year, more than any other, tends to have people looking for those dates on packaging. Those who shop for produce at farmers markets take for granted that the fruits and vegetables are fresh and even our grocery stores do a wonderful job of offering the freshest inseason produce.

We can see it, touch it and smell it, and that is wonderful as long as you don’t think about the people who have already touched and smelled it. Always remember to wash your veggies.

But as we move into winter, access to locallygrown produce becomes a bit more challenging.

Again, the grocery stores do a great job of filling the gap, but it’s a time of the year cooks dig a little deeper into their pantries.

It’s actually fun to do if you think about it as a kind of a nostalgic journey in your shopping history. There have been times when my wife, Leslie, has asked me about a particular product she’s taken from the back of the shelf.

“I think that place went out of business a few years ago” is something I’ve probably mentioned a couple of times. Now, Leslie has a pretty deep pantry, so product has gotten pushed back to beyond arm’s reach. That requires a glance at the “use-by” date once you remove the layer of dust.

Some people are so picky about those dates that they not only won’t eat product with an expired “use-by” date but also if the “sell-by” date has passed.

Ease up, people, canned tomatoes can last a long time.

I’m willing to bet that a number of those people are the same ones who live by the “5-second rule” when something particularly yummy hits a kitchen floor that hasn’t been swept in a week.

Ease up, people, canned tomatoes can last a long time. There are probably some canned foods in bomb shelters that date back to the earliest days of the Cold War. I wouldn’t eat that stuff, but the radiation would probably get you anyway.

According to the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), people are getting these dates confused all the time and in the process waste billions of pounds of food every year.

The “sell-by” date is for the store and is perfectly good if you come across an expired product, especially if it’s the last one on the shelf and you need it tonight.

The “best-by” date is meant to indicate when a product should be at the peak of quality, which doesn’t always mean anything with canned goods. This, of course, is the not the case with any locally canned product.

The “use by” date is kind of like a traffic signal. Some people see it as a red light. There’s no way they are opening that container once that date is reached, while others see it more as a “cautionary” yellow.

Those kidney beans are still good to throw into the chili just as long as you let it simmer a little longer. Then there’s Dave and I, who rarely look at the date even when the can’s been sitting in the black hole of the cabinet. “It’s good,” we’ll say. “I just had a can out of the bomb shelter yesterday.”

The way the IFT explains it, “The (use-by) label is aimed at consumers as a directive of the date by which the product should be eaten; mostly because of quality, not because the item will necessarily make you sick if eaten af ter the ‘use-by’ date. However, after the ‘use-by’ date, product quality is likely to go down much faster, and safety could be lessened.”

Come to think about it, maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that can of beans out of the bomb shelter.

Jon Gast 
Co-Owner/Editor of Edible Door

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