MY TAKE

FRUGALITY HAS NO EXPIRY DATE

Conventional wisdom had that everything past its best before date be tossed. That is changing. Image credit: NEWS CANADA.

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR, with files from News Canada

There’s a shelf in my pantry where items go to die. Literally. For here’s where you will find cooking sauces, flavoured coffees and teas, well past their expiry dates.

Or small boxes filled with supari and churan purchased on a trip to Jaipur. Several years ago.

In my defence all I can come with is that I am not squirrelling them away, I just put less frequently used things on the top shelf. And then forget they are there in a case of out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

Until our sons visit and reach way above my head to extract a bottle of .... They joke that in an apocalyptic situation, when coffee disappears from the face of the earth, they’ll know where to find some. And then they get into a cleaning frenzy. “You’re not keeping this, and this has to go.”

They feel very virtuous about saving their parent from herself and I am happy with the extra shelf space. But stuff piles up and that top shelf gets filled sooner than you’d believe.

Where am I going with this? Just pointing out that we all accumulate things – perishables, cosmetics, medicines.

Conventional wisdom had that everything past its best before date be tossed. That is changing.

We’ve all had that moment when you reach into the fridge for the container of yogurt, jar of pizza sauce or bottle of mustard and notice that the “best before” date on the package has passed. Does that mean you need to toss it in the garbage? No, not necessarily.

Best-before dates appear on most food products that have a durable life of 90 days or less. There are some obvious exceptions, including fruit and vegetables

First of all, it’s important to note that there is a key difference between a “best before” date and an “expiration date”.

Simply put, a best before date indicates the time frame when a product will be at its tastiest and freshest. After that date, the product may still be edible, but might not look or taste quite as good.

By contrast, an expiration date is the last day that something can safely be consumed. Expiration dates only appear on a small number of products, including infant formula and meal replacements.

It’s also important to note that best before dates only apply to products that have been stored properly, such as refrigerating dairy products and avoiding extreme temperatures for pantry items.

Other products, such as canned goods or dried pasta, may also have best before dates, but those are not actually required, and they’re usually a year or more out from the packaging date.

An unopened container of yogurt might be safe to eat days or even weeks after the best before date if it has been properly refrigerated. But a month or more after that date, maybe not.

When you do open the package, look for signs such as a funky smell or the presence of mould. By doing this instead of immediately tossing the product out, you can help reduce food waste.

So much food used to be thrown out because it didn’t “look” perfect. But with increased acceptance of the fact that produce with a few blotches is still perfectly good, now one can see it being offered at reduced rates.

A lady at a grocery store I frequent was making a selection from bread nearing its best before date at half price. “I freeze the loaves and then take them out one at a time so technically, they are no older than today,” she shared.

I saw a comic strip recently in which a grocery store employee is being congratulated for offering milk that’s past its best before date as sour dough starter and over-ripe bananas as banana bread starter!

It reminded me of the time we spotted prized Alphonso mangoes at a mainstream store. They were pretty expensive, but such a rare find that we picked up a couple of cartons. A few days later, my husband brought home a few more from an emergency grocery run he’d been dispatched on.

“They were selling them at less than half price, because they are now a little less firm,” he said. As a connoisseur of said fruit, he knew that they were actually at their best now!

Many grocery chains offer 30 to 50 per cent off on last-day sale item, and according to an article by Ritika Dubey in The Canadian Press, grocery chains like Metro also partner with food recovery and rescue services such as Too Good To Go and One More Bite.

Last year, a House of Commons report recommended investigating how the eliminating of best before dates on certain categories of foods would address food waste.

There was a report in the Toronto Star about Free-Go, streetside, free access public refrigerators in Switzerland. While Free-Go says “contributors of food from the private sector must make a commitment to ensure the donated food is safe to eat, Swiss law says food past the recommended use-by date can be consumed for up to a year afterwards.”

Of course, this wouldn’t apply to medications. Right?

Just google expired meds and tons of responses show up, some from physicians and medical professionals.

In one, University Hospitals pharmacist James Reissig, PharmD, MS, BCP, responds, “Very few medications become toxic when they are past their expiration date. Most simply lose effectiveness over time due to changes in chemical composition. However, in some situations, taking expired medications can have serious health consequences. For example, taking sub-potent antibiotics might not fully treat an infection, leading to more serious illness and possible antibiotic resistance.”

I remember reading a story about a US physician who freaked when he heard that his mother (or was it his mother-in-law?) had taken an OTC painkiller that had expired a while back for a headache. He watched over her to make sure there were no adverse effects and when she seemed fine, took the bottle in to conduct a few tests. What he discovered was eye-opening.

The meds had lost a small amount of their efficacy, but were absolutely safe for consumption.

But don’t take my word for it, specially since I can’t find that old story.

And as most of us aren’t able to conduct tests on mediation, it’s perhaps safer to just toss the old bottles. Follow the old  journalists’ rule, when in doubt, cut it out.

Who wouldn’t like a tidy, reorganized medicine cabinet? But here’s something to think about.

With recent reports of COVID or COVID-like cases on the rise, medical professionals were telling everyone to think about ways to protect themselves. A return to the days of wearing masks and obsessive washing of hands, and keeping vaccinations up-to-date. And testing for COVID if one felt unwell. However, those rapid tests that were handed out and that some of us still have lurking in some corner of the medicine cabinet, have long expired.

Well...maybe not. Allison McGeer, an infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital was quoted as saying in the Star that “all of them have had their expiry dates extended”.

More information on food safety can be found at inspection.canada.ca.