BEST BY DATES DON'T MATTER - Stop Food Waste - Pantry Organization and Expiration Dates

We've been led to believe that the dates on the food we have in our pantry are expiration dates - they aren't - and they don't even really matter. Please help stop food waste in America !! And as another caveat - the is does not apply to baby food/infant formula.

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TIMESTAMPS

[ThePurposefulPantry]

What's a food you find yourself wasting most often?

[brendastephens]

Finally!! Someone not afraid to speak the truth about our food products! We have lots of canned foods past the date and are not dead yet. People have been told to open their wallets instead and buy new! Ugh!

[LVP]

The media makes people paranoid about food safety. One other misconception involves the date on egg cartons. Eggs will keep in the refrigerator for four to five weeks after the date on the carton. Of course, the older the egg, you should always do the smell test, but don't throw your "expired" eggs away either because they aren't.

[shotpusher]

I’ve thought for YEARS that dates were a marketing ploy to increase sales. Love your common sense Darcy!👍🏻

[sandraburke]

I bought salt that said it had been on the ground for thousands and thousands of years, but used by date is July!

[ricski]

Been trying to teach this to others for years. Best before does not mean expired

[ljtminihomestead]

Darcy, if I could give you a hundred thumbs up I would. I'm in my 60s, dates are "new" thing. Growing up, they never had dates. One exception, keep eye on high acid foods check cans, pineapple and tomatoes, can eat through cans, anything else, you're fine. And those are ok for few yrs. My daughter is a date snob. We've eaten 4 yr old canned veggies that are fine..makes me sick ppl just toss food out. Especially now!

[smenna]

Thank you for this video. My brother was quality control manager at a can company and he has said for years if your cans aren’t bulging the contents are still good.

[mehtarelingolien]

Exactly everything you said! Not only are folks wasting food, they are also wasting MONEY.

[copperhousefarm]

Can you imagine if food has a best by of ten years. How hard it would be for the food companies to move food out of the stores! This is why they do what they do!

[Sydroo]

I've been doing this for years. Glad you're tell folks about this.
My husband is military and we have MREs. They're good for at least 10 years.
Listen up people. She is right. Food shortages are coming.

[ritahorton]

Thanks so much for sharing!
I’m still kicking myself for wasting so much food years ago.
I always discarded canned food, by what I assumed was an expiration
date. Knowledge is power. 💪😊

[jenniferjuranko]

This is a topic that needs to be talked about more often. Thank you Darcy for teaching people how to interpret the dates on their canned goods. I have some friends who have frowned on my decision to still use canned corn or peas or beans that have a date of 2015 and here it is 2022! I keep telling them “I’m still alive and we don’t get sick so quit wasting your food and your money!!!!” Grrrr….definitely one of my pet peeves.

[pauldodd]

Best buy is just a suggestion. I am eating 3 year old home canned food and it is still good. I have eaten 6 year old commercial canned food and it sometimes had lost a little flavor it was still great. Freezer burned meat is still usable if you use it in a soup.

[vondamorphew]

When I was a child in the 1960’s, my cousins and siblings ate some of my uncle’s sea rations from WWll. They tasted good, and none of us got sick. They were at least 20 years old.

[lindymcvay]

Thank you for posting this, Darcy! It breaks my heart knowing that so much perfectly good food gets tossed. Everyone needs to realize that the term used is "best by" not "expiration."
When I bring groceries home I use a Sharpie to write purchase date rather than write the best by date. Sometimes it's a exercise in patience to find that date! 😃 If you familiarize yourself with the time frames each group is best used by you'll be able to calculate how much time you have left. For example most fruits and veggies have about 2 years, canned meats have about 3 to 5 years, most boxed items have about 1 to 2 years.
Like Darcy said, salt and honey don't go bad, neither does sugar. These foods all have preservative properties so they are their own preservative! 😁

[debrawallace]

We put the month and year on goods when we buy it. Thats the date we use for rotating the food and its always worked for us. Too many times the expiration date is missing or unreadable or we can't figure it out.

One day after my parents starting buying in bulk my husband and I were at their house helping them clean out their basement for a garage sale they were having. I noticed my dad's 5 gallon buckets of wheat berries were upside down. I asked him why and he said that someone told him to make sure he was rotating his food storage. So every month he would go downstairs and turn the buckets over! My dad died in 1995 from cancer. I miss him so much!!

[sherylcadick]

TODAY I am cleaning out and organizing my 87 year old father’s pantry. I’m glad for this reminder! I am new to canning and dehydrating and trying to make room in the pantry for these things. It’s a big job! Thanks for your channel an information!

[chantillyvintage]

I moved in with my sister a few months ago. We just combined our pantries & went thru everything this morning. Pineapple & any tomato based canned goods we tossed if it was 1 year out. Only because the acid makes them taste like the can. But everything else we kept, even 2 or 3 years out. Although, I did toss a few dented cans of soup that were only a few months out because they were pull top cans, which I hate! Going thru the dry goods & baking goods has made us realize we don’t have as much as we thought we had. Shopping to replenish tomorrow. 👍🏻

[jaytee]

Thank you for putting this out there!👍🏻

A few years ago, I remember watching a Tuber shopping at a dollar store. She was looking at canned goods and found some that were a little past the "best by" date.
She was in a tizzy, claiming that the store was trying to make people sick!🙄🙄

And another Tuber was cleaning out her pantry and one of the things she tossed was HONEY!
I kindly let her know that honey doesn't go bad, please don't waste it.😕

I appreciate the dates being on the packages, but only so I can use it as a reference point when rotating stock.👍🏻