Many food packages are labeled "best before", do you know what it really means?
Best before has nothing to do with food safety, but simply means that the freshness, taste and nutrition of the food can be best guaranteed before this date.
Health Canada requires that foods with a shelf life of less than 90 days must be labeled with a best before date or packaging date.
Fresh fruits and vegetables and certain products can be left unlabeled.
This means that as long as the food is in good condition and has not been opened, it must be fresh and of high quality by this deadline.
After this expiration date, the food may no longer be fresh, taste not as good as it used to be, and nutrients may be lost.
But that doesn't mean the food can't be eaten anymore.
A bucket of milk that has been properly kept in the refrigerator will not spoil even if it is a day or two past the best-before date. Smell it before drinking, and if there is no odor, you can generally continue to consume it.
The best before date is not the same as the so-called expiration date.
In fact, there are only five food products in Canada that need to be labeled with expiration dates, including infant formula, nutritional supplements for the elderly, meal replacement foods, etc., and the other two are prescription drug products.
The expiration date of these foods is related to the nutritional content, not to the freshness.
In addition to this, food products do not need to be labeled with an expiration date. Canned food and dry goods have no expiration date, and producers will only write a best before date.
On a mobile phone app, Too Good To Go, people can buy a lot of food items that have passed their best before date at half price.
The app also recently launched a new logo, "See, Smell, Taste," to remind consumers that they can continue to eat the food they have had before.
This symbol first arose in Denmark and is now introduced to Canada.
首批有15个品牌的包装上开始印制,包括Cracker Barrel,Epic Tofu, Green House, Kopi Thyme和Ristorante等。
Andrea Li, head of Canada at Too Good To Go, said that as long as we look, smell and taste food, we can tell whether it is safe to eat.
The original intention of the project was to encourage everyone to save food.
According to statistics, 92% of Canadian consumers will check the best before date, and most will throw away food products beyond this date, resulting in a lot of waste.
According to the United Nations 2024 Food Waste Index report, households around the world waste at least 1 billion servings of food every day.
Research by NGO Second Harvest found that nearly 60% of all food produced in Canada is lost or wasted, totalling a whopping 35.5 million tons, most of which is wasted at home.
Advocating for conservation and rejecting waste is certainly a good proposition, but in the context of a severe economic downturn in Canada, it seems to have changed its flavor.
Some netizens commented: "Is this a green light for supermarkets to sell more 'expired' food?" ”
Some netizens said that Canada is already poor enough to eat "expired" food?
What do you think?