For the past year, Scott Nash, the founder and CEO of Mom's Organic Market, has been eating food that is past its food expiration date.
For the past year, Scott Nash, the founder and CEO of Mom’s Organic Market, has been eating food that is past its food expiration date.

Food expiration dates are a conspiracy

Scott Nash is my hero this week. I’m so proud of him, I might even spend some money in his out-of-the-way and somewhat expensive grocery store. Nash is the founder and CEO of Mom’s Organic Market, and the Washington Post featured him this week.

That’s another breakthrough. Normally the WoePost only features victims, real or imagined, and their downer stories. The story with Nash, on the other hand, was happy, upbeat, positive and scientific!

For the past year, Nash has been eating food that is past its “expiration date.” The story explains, “He ate a cup of yogurt months after its expiration date. Then tortillas a year past their expiration date. ‘I mean, I ate heavy cream I think 10 weeks past date,’ Nash said, ‘and then meat sometimes a good month past its date. It didn’t smell bad. Rinse it off, good to go.’ It was all part of his year-long experiment to test the limits of food that had passed its expiration date.”

The heavy cream is no big deal. That ultra-pasteurized sugar suspension has the shelf life of Uranium-238. The meat is another story. That’s putting your theory where your mouth is. It’s the grocery-shopping equivalent of Dr. Barry Marshall who drank a glass of Helicobacter pylori to prove bacteria causes ulcers.

I’ve told my anti-science family for years that ‘expiration dates’ are a manufacturer’s scam to convince consumers to throw out perfectly good products and buy unnecessary replacements. The key word in the conspiracy being “buy.”

They moan, “It’s expired,” and I reply the product is only gaining momentum.

This is one of the rare times when the government and I agree, except maybe for the conspiracy part.

Even the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Food Marketing Institute has admitted, “‘Best if used by’ describes product quality, meaning the product might not taste as good past the date but is safe to eat. ‘Use by’ is for products that are highly perishable and should be used or tossed by that date.”

The jig should have been up even for the most gullible shopper when they started putting expiration dates on water! But sheeplike consumers just nodded and thought, “Gee, I didn’t know that. How old the water in our pool?”

Enviros should be on this like methane on cows, but they are noticeable for their absence. Tossing perfectly good food is wasteful and as the WoePost advises, “And you are not just wasting calories and money. You are wasting all the resources that went into growing, packaging and transporting that food.”

Here’s my handy guide to food longevity.

Produce and fruit take care of themselves without government intervention. Canned meat is fine years after the “expiration date” unless the can is bulging. The same goes for soup and canned vegetables. Candy and other bars are best judged individually. Cliff bars and protein bars just become more chewy, helping to cancel out some of the calories. Hard candy is good until Jesus returns. Snickers are fine, but the peanut butter in Reese’s Cups will become hard and develop a clay-like consistency. It’s edible but not pleasurable.

Soft drinks will become flat in a few years but remain drinkable. Snapple, on the other hand, won’t. I had a bottle of Diet Peach Tea this week that was of the 2016 vintage, and it was awful.

With dairy products, let your nose be your guide.

Currently the feds only require expiration notices on infant formula. The other dates are part of the conspiracy. That may be changing. Emily Broad Leib, a nanny affiliated with the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, has plans. “We’re going to need the main government agencies that regulate food to be able to say: These are what these labels mean. When you see these on products, here’s what you should do, here’s how you should interpret them.”

She also wants to bring back criminal penalties for those who wantonly tear the tags off of mattresses.

Scott, for his part, maintains, “Some things just shouldn’t be dated.”

I agree. My list of undated items would include water, “cheese food,” Twinkies, and buttermilk, which is immortal. Buttermilk’s enemy isn’t time, it’s evaporation.

The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.

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Michael Shannon
Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic, entertaining and funny keynote speaker for political, corporate, non–profit and governmental organizations. In addition to his speaking and consulting, Shannon is the author of A Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now With Added Humor!) As consultant to The Israel Project, he has made a number of trips to Israel where he worked closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in their efforts to promote a positive image of Israel. Shannon has also conducted media and message training workshops for MFA and Israeli Defense Forces spokespersons along with representatives of various non–governmental organizations. During the UN Court trial in The Hague, Shannon worked closely with the MFA in its international media outreach. Shannon teaches message development, crisis communication and public relations for The University of Tennessee – Chattanooga Command College, conducts the political advertising and message section of The University of Virginia's Sorenson Institute and he lectures on message development, politics for the Institute of Political Leadership. He is a regular speaker on political commercials, crisis communication and public relations for Campaigns & Elections magazine. He has also addressed the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, National League of Cities, conducted seminars for Information Management and The University of Arkansas – Little Rock and performed as the keynote speaker for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Shannon’s client list includes SAIC; United National Congress (Trinidad & Tobago); Royal Castle, Ltd.; New Generation Imaging; Dry–Clean Depot; Texas Medical Assn.; American Medical Assn.; American Medical Assn. PAC; Indiana State Police Alliance; Minneapolis Federation of Police; St. Paul Police Federation; Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance; The Peterson Companies; Gleaning for the World; various political candidates and elected officials. The work Shannon has done in the radio and television arena has been recognized for both creativity and effectiveness. He is a multiple first place winner in the American Association of Political Consultants Pollie awards. Shannon won back–to–back first place Silver Microphone awards for radio commercials. He is a three–time winner of the prestigious Gold statue at the Houston International Film Festival. Shannon won first place in the Vision Awards for television. He has also won consecutive Silver Microphone awards for best campaign.

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