Don't discard those cans of food squirreled away in your RV as study reveals flaws in food expiration dates

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11 years ago

By Bob Difley

In previous posts I wrote about shelf life of food, and whether the shelf life recommended by manufacturers was valid. As I found out in my research, canned food had a virtually endless shelf life regarding safety, as evidenced by meals canned for the military back in WWII and still edible.

By edible, I mean mainly safe to eat, though some–but not all–of the taste may be compromised by the length of time in the can. Bulk foods kept in airtight containers also have a long shelf life.

Now the San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent, Carolyn Lochhead, has written a piece for the Science section of the Chronicle this week titled Masses of food wasted – ‘use by’ dates mislead

http://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Masses-of-food-wasted-use-by-dates-mislead-4825974.php?t=7e37c74b78

in which she reports on a study by Harvard University Law School and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The date labeling system is not a system at all,” said NRDC staff scientist Dana Gunders, co-author of the report, the first to assess date labeling laws nationwide.

Americans send to the compost pile or landfill 40 percent of the food they purchase–often because “of misleading expiration dates that have nothing to do with safety” the report says.

For RVers that are concerned about the food stored in their RVs ready for the quick getawway or as a hedge against natural disasters, the article should provide relief and comfortable enough to not arbitrarily throw out food when it is not necessary.

The article also details how wasting food not only costs you money but also “squanders vast quantities of water, land, fertilizers, petroleum, packaging and other resources that go into producing it,” the report says. “About a quarter of all fresh water used in the United States goes into the making of food that is thrown away.”

You can read the entire article here

http://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Masses-of-food-wasted-use-by-dates-mislead-4825974.php?t=7e37c74b78

In previous posts I wrote about the shelf life of food, and whether the shelf life stamped on food containers and recommended by manufacturers was valid.

As I found out in my research, canned food had a virtually endless shelf life regarding safety, as evidenced by meals canned for the military (meals-ready-to-eat, or MREs) back in WWII and still edible.

By edible, I mean mainly safe to eat, though some–but not all–of the taste may be compromised by the length of time in the can. Bulk foods kept in airtight containers also have a long shelf life.

Now the San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent, Carolyn Lochhead, has written a piece for the Science section of the Chronicle this week titled Masses of food wasted – ‘use by’ dates mislead in which she reports on a study by Harvard University Law School and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The date labeling system is not a system at all,” said NRDC staff scientist Dana Gunders, co-author of the report, the first to assess date labeling laws nationwide.

Americans send to the compost pile or landfill 40 percent of the food they purchase–often because “of misleading expiration dates that have nothing to do with safety” the report says.

For RVers that are concerned about the food stored in their RVs ready for the quick getaway or as a hedge against natural disasters, the article should provide relief and make them comfortable enough to not arbitrarily throw out food when it is not necessary.

You can read the entire article here.

For more RVing articles and tips take a look at my Healthy RV Lifestyle website, where you will also find my ebooks: BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands (PDF or Kindle), 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang for your RV Lifestyle Buck (PDF or Kindle), and Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts (PDF or Kindle), and my newest, The RV Lifestyle: Reflections of Life on the Road (Kindle reader version). NOTE: Use the Kindle version to read on iPad and iPhone or any device that has the free Kindle reader app.