You are in the produce section, looking at a bag of salad or a container of fresh-cut fruit. You see the “Sell By” date is for today or tomorrow, and you hesitate. We have been trained to think that this date is a strict deadline for freshness. However, food safety experts say that this common belief is a major misunderstanding. A “Sell By” date is a tool for the retailer, not a safety guide for the consumer. Learning how to properly interpret it can help you save money and reduce food waste.
What “Sell By” Really Means
The “Sell By” date is a message from the manufacturer to the grocery store. It tells the store’s employees that they should pull the product from the shelf by that date. This is done to ensure that the product has a reasonable amount of high-quality shelf life left for the customer after they take it home. The date has almost nothing to do with the product’s actual safety.
It’s a Guide for the Retailer, Not You
You should think of the “Sell By” date as a tool for inventory management. The store uses it to know when to rotate its stock and bring out the freshest products. It is not a command for you to throw the food away. Most packaged produce, especially items with a longer shelf life like carrots or apples, will still be perfectly good for several days, or even a week, after the “Sell By” date has passed.
Trust Your Senses: Look, Feel, and Smell
Instead of relying on an arbitrary date, you should use your own senses to judge the freshness of your produce. Do the leafy greens look wilted or slimy? Does the fruit have a mushy texture or an off smell? These are the true indicators that a product is past its prime. Your eyes, hands, and nose are much more reliable tools than the printed date on the package.
The Impact of Home Storage
How you store your produce after you buy it has a much bigger impact on its freshness than the “Sell By” date. If you take a bag of salad home and leave it in a warm car, it will spoil much faster than if you had immediately put it in a cold, crisp refrigerator. Proper home storage is the key to extending the life of your fresh produce, regardless of what the date on the bag says.
A Flawed System
The confusion over “Sell By” dates is a major reason why Americans waste so much food. The current, unregulated system of date labeling encourages people to throw away perfectly edible produce. Until a clearer, more standardized system is created, the best approach is to treat the “Sell By” date as a suggestion, not a rule. You should trust your own judgment to determine what is fresh and what is not.
Do you often check the “Sell By” dates on fresh produce? Have you ever eaten produce that was past its date? Share your experience in the comments!
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