Expiration DatesAren't What You Think

To get the most out of the food you buy, you need to learn how much you are able to use while it's still good, or how much you can store properly if you find it on sale. Canned goods and dry goods are easy, because they can go a long time before losing any quality. But how about fresh and refrigerated foods? Frozen food? You can read up on recommended storage techniques to get the most time out of stored food, but most people just go by the dates stamped on the product. The thing is, these aren't really "expiration dates"as we've come to call them, but some other metric determined by the seller... and not by any government agency.  Sometimes they are just tracking numbers so that teh store can rotate in new stock properly. Learn how to use those dates as they were intended, and you may end up wasting a lot less food that you've already paid for! (via Damn Interesting)