Your Food Is Lying To You | Climate Town
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 เม.ย. 2023
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ADDENDUM: Not ALL foods go sour - certain types of food poisoning come from mold, clostridium, and viruses which are not always detectable by smell.
Special thanks to Nicole Civita (www.plenty-enough.com/), Dana Gunders ( / dgunders ), & Yasmin Tayag ( / yeahyeahyasmin ) for their generous support and positively helpful knowledge of food waste in the USA. Links to the research above, but also they each get their own personal link. Click it!
And another special thanks to the Big Reuse for letting us film at their composting sites, right here in Brooklyn. If you want to get involved/volunteer with them, check out their Instagram ( / bigreuse .
Waste Free Kitchen Handbook by Dana Gunders: www.nrdc.org/press-releases/n...
Changing Stuff in the Food System:
Feeding Each Other: Shaping Change in Food Systems Through Relationship (www.feedingeachotherbook.com)
PREORDER HERE: www.amazon.com/dp/180341488X
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Date Labeling Thinking:
The Dating Gam [PDF] (NRDC/Harvard, 2013): www.nrdc.org/sites/default/fi...
Date Labels: The case for Federal Legislation [PDF]:
chlpi.org/wp-content/uploads/...
ReFED - Date Labeling Regulations
policyfinder.refed.org/spotli...
ReFED - Food Date Labeling Act (2021-22 Congress)
policyfinder.refed.org/federa...
Composting Programs:
US Composting Council: www.compostingcouncil.org/
CalRecycle Community-scale Composting: calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/co...
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In Germany food in supermarkets that is close to expiration date is usually discounted by 30%. It has helped to reduce food waste.
But.. How would they profit!? /s 🤡🤡🤡🤡
We do the same in the Netherlands. Nowadays our packaging also tells you to look smell and taste if it's beyond the best by date (all called best by not expiration date)
By how much? Sources, please.
Otherwise you're just feeling good about it.
@@spoonikle Cuts losses from discarding them the next day
Also in Germany the expiration date of food is actually related to the expiration of food.
I used to work in a tea shop about 15 years ago, and we also sold a bunch of sandwiches to go with our tea. When those sandwiches approached the expiration, our company just distributed them among employees. And we then just shared those with our families and friends. It was just the most logical and rational thing to do. I'm not from USA though.
I worked at Starbucks in the usa. We technically weren't allowed to do anything with the unsold food but trash it. But it was all still good, so we would offer it to any customers still around during closing for free or take it ourselves.
There was still so so much waste. Pounds of bread and pastries and coffee every night. The only part that was really about food safety was the stuff in the display case because it was unrefrigerated.
As I recall, the frozen sandwiches were good for 3 days or something from when they were thawed in the refrigerator. I suspect they are safe for far longer. Thankfully we sold almost all of them usually.
Must be nice, when I worked at Biggby Coffee here in Michigan the choice was to toss it or pay for it at regular employee discount. And that is how I got fired from a job.
Yeah... see, in the USA, Though exceptions exist of course, the general rule of thumb is that your employer's desire to help you ends at the obligations they're forced under penalty of law to uphold, per the terms of the employment agreement that... they wrote. That's pay, whatever benefits they care to toss in, a "safe work environment" per the legal definition of that term, and ~3 sickdays a year or w/e. Get caught taking home sandwiches that they bought to put in the trash, and they'll call it stealing just so they can fire your ass, replace you with 3 part time workers with no benefits and shit hours, and get celebrated by the economy for "creating more jobs."
Capitalism as the basis of culture is a communal deathspiral to the benefit of a precious few.
My mom worked in the cafeteria at one of the local schools (in New Jersey) for a year or two when I was a kid (in the 80s) and she would bring home leftover pints of chocolate milk. Somehow I suspect that would not be allowed today.
Yeah, in the US pretty much every store is required to throw it in the trash and then hire security guards for, and place cameras around, the trash in order to stop anyone from getting to it. Because we will not feed homeless people trash..... they should die with dignity.... out of sight and for no reason at all.
(I see dumpsters all the time now with walls and barbed wire fences around them, locked with chains and pad locks, with security cameras as well. It's stupid.)
And you know what is the absolute worst? The workers of these shops can't take this "expired" food for themselves! Every piece of it should be accounted for and people can't take it because if they do they'll get a fine! One of the things I hated the most when I worked in a supermarket
Can't the person tossing it just say they threw it out then take it home anyway?
@@anthonydelfino6171 It's possible, but if they get caught then they'll be fired. The same thing happens if they get caught giving away the expired food to charity instead of throwing it all in the dumpster
It's also usually considered tax evasion, because... things totally make sense, honest.
Just steal it, if it's going in the trash nobody cares.
@@anthonydelfino6171 So this is the problem. The CEO of what ever supermarket chain is selling good technically owns the goods and can be sued if the food is expired and causes a health issue. When you are a worker you are only there to do your job and move the CEO's food around until a customer buys it and then it is the customers food. If the CEO has told you he wants his food thrown out and then used as a tax write off for lost revenue then you must throw the food out. If you steal the food that is stealing. If you try to donate or give the food to someone else the you are lying to the CEO about what happened to his food, after all he gets a tax break when the fertilizer company gets 'expired' food, and shorting the amount of 'expired' food you claim to send him is losing the CEO money.
Funny (awful) story: When I was in college, one of my friends worked at a grocery store. A fruit pizza was about to expire and would have been thrown out. She took it at the end of her shift and brought it to our movie night for a snack.
The grocery store fired her. For taking a fruit pizza home. Instead of throwing it in the trash.
Anyway, thank you for the video! I'm happy to have this information, and I hope I can put it to good use.
Some states don’t allow grocery store chains to donate unexpired food to the homeless and in need. So it is thrown into giant dumpsters at the end of the night. It is sick
And they lock the dumpsters too
@@madisonsnellings8501Why the Heck would you do that?
That's literally awful!
NOTE FROM A COLORBLIND PERSON: The chart you made fun of for requiring perfect color vision is actually the MOST accessible way of doing a graph for me as a colorblind person. It is in order by dark to light for both the graph and the key and you literally don't need ANY color to interpret it perfectly. If you have your phone set to black and white this is exactly as readable as the color version. Please don't accidentally convince people to use varied bright colors like you did instead!! (it is only physically having the labels on the chart that saves your version from being potentially hellish for colorblind people.
lol i was going to say that it seemed more clear when it was put into grayscale
skill issue
@@gigachad6162 lol.
Completely agree. The only thing that made it better was to put the text within the chart
Agreed. As a colourblind person that specifically has issues differentiating between shades of green and brown/red, I found this chart perfectly readable. The different intensity made it so that I could identify each colour even if I didn't know what kind of green it was. The problem for me starts when you have different colours of the same intensity, like that "fixed" chart.
I used to work for a "large grocery chain" in the US as somebody whose entire job was inventory rotation, date management, discounting, and disposal. It was a large store, massive amount of sales per day. I tried my hardest to get customers to understand that dates were more for my and the store's use than theirs, but if that date was anywhere close or past that day, everyone refused to purchase it no matter how much of a discount I threw on. As an experiment, I recorded the cost of the products I was throwing out (shelf and frozen items only, not produce, dairy or meats), and I ended up stopping because the numbers were depressing. Hundreds to thousands of dollars a day, straight wasted because the date was 1 or 2 days over. Week after week this was happening, and although the store had a program established to donate items to local food banks, nobody from those organizations would show to pick up the items. So it was a constant cycle of taking items off the shelves, setting the allowed-to-donate items aside, pitching everything else, then come back at the end of the week and throw out all the set-aside items because they were never picked up. Everything roughly a week away from "expiration" was to be marked down with "at most" 50% discount. At times, I reduced it right down to the purchase price plus 1 cent, just to get it out the doors. Dented cans, torn cardboard, malformed plastic packaging, all reasons people would leave something on the shelf for it to gather dust and eventually hit clearance, where most of the time it'd be forgotten until months after the "best by" date, and it'd end up with the same fate as everything else - straight into landfill. Thank you for making a video on this. It's definitely something the general public in the US should be made more aware of as consumers, and hopefully better understand how stores and inventory management operates.
That’s insane
Your grocery store could use Too Good To Go!
"consumers"
I'm not sure how to say this... I met a former elementary school classmate who worked at that time in a supermarket and offered me the "opportunity" to save food. Later that year it came into law for employees to not save any trash and sigilate that *s!×t*. Luckily it was going to be composted but you're going to get a fine for smuggling that cheese, it has to crunch those numbers 😢😔
Edit: I'm from Romania, EU...
It's an interesting problem to tackle because we don't know how long people will store that food themselves before eating it. If everything was going to be consumed within 24 hours of purchase it would hardly matter, but people expect to use things weeks or months after they buy it. I've known how these labels work for years but there's simply no reason to buy anything older when the fresher product is also available.
That said I'm shocked the discounted stuff didn't sell. If someone is shopping for a meal that night it seems like buying the cheap stuff would be a no-brainier.
There's also a moral dilemma with donating old food. Even knowing that it's just a decrease in quality, are we really okay with the line of thinking that poor people should have to eat food that isn't as good as what the rest of us get?
I'm from Scotland where tresspassing is not a crime (in your face every country except Sweden (legends)). We would routinely shneak behind big supermarkets and raid their bins for that sweet sweet free bin food. I later moved to England where people take private property super seriously (lol) and supermarket are hiding their bins behind big spiky fences and its an actualy offence to climb over them. Worlds a joke.
I'm Scottish too! Haven't had luck in bin diving the one and only time I did it.
I was a grocery manager for over a decade, and also trained other grocery managers. One big solution I always emphasized is also a really simple one: markdown stickers. Every grocery store department, everywhere, in every company is given a markdown budget, used via those little orange "reduced" stickers you see. No one even comes close to using their budget. Meanwhile almost everyone struggles to stay below their "shrink" budget for loss, mostly due to bs expiration dates. So my crazy innovation was to, you know, use the markdown budget.
The tricky part is that it is labor intensive to do so, at least up front, requiring you to make it a priority. But you save labor on the other end when you don't have to pull the product, process it out, and throw it away. I also found it was a surprising boost to morale, because no one likes throwing away food.
Crazy how when competent people are in management they can think of long term solutions than band aid solutions that often make issues worth. If only we had more people in management roles that actually deserved them
I try to only buy meat when it’s got 1 day before the best by date, so I can get the markdown. I asked the employees when they mark things down and they said about 10 am. So now I try to grocery shop around then to increase my chances of getting a deal.
Do grocery stores really just throw away everything that they don’t sell by the expiration date?
@@arachosia Great plan. I would check the local/organic meat section every night before going home for markdowns. So I always had a well stocked freezer of quality meat on the cheap.
As to whether it all just gets thrown out, that depends, but for the most part, yes. In Vermont we have a mandatory composting law for produce. A lot of non-perishable qualifies for vendor credits, which really just means it gets sent back so they can throw it out. Food shelves will take expired dairy, bread, and produce. But the problem there is that there aren't always the volunteers to pick it up. But expired meat and deli pretty much always goes right in the bin. And recalled items are always destroyed, no matter the reason for the recall.
@@TheChosen1inc perhaps the biggest hurdle is that people who care really don't want to be in the industry. The entire grocery industry has become one big race to the bottom that burns through its people. I'm out for a reason.
@@repentandbelieveinJesusChrist1 Repent...for the markdown stickers? Pretty sure Jesus would be into that. There's not much food on the table in "The Last Supper," so I'm thinking he's on a pretty tight budget.
Good city planning can help in reducing food waste. Walkable cities encourage daily small shopping instead of big bulk buying, this also makes daily sales on "close to expire" products more effective, since customers will plan on eating it in 2-3 days if not sooner
Replying to boost this comment. 🟠
Very true
I ❤ walkable cities
Car free city can save us from so many problems huh
@@afirewasinmyhead same
Having worked at places that told me we couldn't donate food because of potential lawsuits, hearing the Emerson act is a thing has my blood boiling. I will be throwing that in any employers face from now on.
Write executives about how they're missing out on massive tax deductions for charity, and how they're paying too much for trash removal. ❤
What is your immediate boss gonna do? Unless they’re the direct owner, they’re just following orders
@@princeswagger1ablea decent person might stand up for something and make a sacrifice
@@Rich_P_Anyaa “Decent person” will be swiftly replaced by someone else. This is why we need Unions lol. Asking for “bosses to be better” is insane
@@pascualsmithvaldes9038 I think it's about appealing to their values. Without giving too much away, I know a large supermarket manager who just gives away food "waste" everyday despite already being signed up with food reuse programmes (apps and such) just because it's a shame to waste that much food. It's a part of the largest supermarket stores in the country, and his store is one of the posh stores (not discount stores like Aldi or Walmart). My point is, you just have to try.
Here in Sweden, food waste is always composted, and in the town I live in most of our busses run off of biogas collected from the compost! It's a really nifty solar-punk kinda feel to scrape some vegetable scraps into my home compost and know that they'll soon help power someone's commute to work :)
Ah, civilization
Go vegan, see the truth behind the lies of the "livestock" industry 👉 Dominion (2018)
The funniest part is that of course that's also what happens on the landfill. It's just that instead of using that biogas as fuel, we let it escape and eventually decompose on its own.
also the expire date isn't most often for the food but the packaging, so that the packaging doesn't poison our food. Also almost all stores I have bought from have "short expiration date" shelf/place, and the biggest sale on that I have seen is 50% off.
I'm so sceptical of "the system" now that somewhere inside me I believe the sweeds are also getting fucked with a pretty picture that actually sucks. But! I really do hope it's great, it sounds like it :D
My parents always said that dates weren’t real and you had to test the food yourself. Growing up we cut mold off cheese, ate expired canned goods etc. As long as you wouldn’t get sick it was fair game. This was always something I kept in my mind, but it was solidified when I was making myself a PB&J and realized the peanut butter I’d been using without issue for months was actually 2 years past it’s exp 😂. Sniff test and common sense people!
I think the same, but recently read someone i trust the knowledge about molds, that said if there is mold, don't cut it, throw away the whole thing, the mushroom probably got all the nutrients already and is actually moving away. And while most molds are certainly harmless, some are not, so i might be a bit more cautious about that particular one, but the point is yeah, dates are useless, using our senses and brains is better.
throwing away moldy food is a good idea. the spores are already within the entire thing. plus we can’t tell with our eyes whether the mold that’s growing is toxic or not.
I cannot express how excellent it is that you end every episode with a "here's what you can actually do about it". Your videos have many many great things about them but that's genuinely the best part about them. Thanks dude
Agreed. There are so many vids that point to problems but leave you deflated because they offer no path to direct the frustrated energy they conjure.
If you're really keen on taking action, eat a plant-based diet at a minimum. Raising livestock for human consumption generates nearly 15% of total global greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than human transport.
call to actions are great!
@@soycrates that's not taking action, that's just being smug about not being part of the problem. actually doing something requires outward change to the world, like legislation.
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qdChoosing to eat a diet that contributes far less to global carbon emissions is not an action? Come on now.
As a Frenchman, I'll be first in line to b*tch about my own country, but in this case we're doing pretty good:
- since 2015 groceries stores are **banned** from destroying food, it **has** to be donated
- since 2018 rule extended to cafeterias (eg schools) and food processing industries
- since 2022 labeling overhaul to keep 2 mentions: "eat before" and the new "good for at least", with some foods being exempt from dates altogether (like salt!)
Like another commenter said about Germany, most (all?) French supermarkets have special aisle sections and labels presenting food close to its expiration date, usually with a 30% discount.
Over here most grocery stores have a 50% discount, except for the more expensive stores where it's 30%. They all still through out more expensive things, since they don't want to loose sales.
A Frenchman b*tching about France?
Sacre Bleu!
I thought that you just did that about Britain.
French lifestyle is amazing, truly the land of love ❤
@Kulia Rainbows no,,,, the store buys inventory and it's up to them to make back the costs. it's not some kind of weird contract r smth
I would love that. But no stores around me do it. Or it's just all crappy household goods but not food.
What’s funny is that my dad has never believed in expiration dates and I didn’t fully know why, but I mostly trusted him lol, and he owns a janitorial company that will occasionally clear out “expired” food and extra stock of products from large grocery stores to “dispose of” so they’re supposed to throw it away but instead my dad donates all the stuff that isn’t expired or can’t expire (bc they won’t take stuff that is) and then everyone in the company gets to take home whatever they want lol so every couple of months I get boxes AND BOXES of free food and makeup and hair products etc. it’s awesome that at least some of this waste is going to good use!
@@repentandbelieveinJesusChrist1 sorry, I don’t believe in sky daddy 😂 that’s like believing in Santa clause. The Jesus you’re talking about- God made himself and then sacrificed himself to himself in order to fix a mistake HE made and KNEW would happen like ?? He could have just not made the rules like that in the first place 😂 literally the worst fairy tale ever except super gruesome cuz god condones slavery and slaughters shit tons of people and animals but whateva right? He was just in a silly goofy mood.
@@kateelizabeth5130 jesus is santa. Santa is named after the claustrum. Red and white represents masculine and feminine energy. The x mas tree is the spine. The ancient people who wrote these stories got taken over from a cult from within. That cult now rules the world. These stories are over one hundred thousand years old.
the ark of the covenant is the skull. The ancients elongated their skulls to represent this science long ago. Hence Jesus being crucified in a place called the skull.
all life shares our darkness. Hear me out. @secretwatcher9922 you asked why. I can answer that... man has become like one of us knowing good and evil. Rev 12. The two beasts are mary and jesus. They are one with the seven headed dragon. Inverted three pillars of the tree of life. The sin in the water is the same as the sin on the land. We all share the d evil within. Your darkness is mine. Nobody gets to the father accept through me. Satan is a former servant to God because the d evil leads you to God. I the lord create good and evil. The bible says God loves you. So why would a God who loves you create evil? Because we couldn't exist without it. It's a survival mechanism. God granted all life evil to make sure we'd survive. It comes from competing over a limited life source. However it's a double edged sword. That is why after jesus recieved a new time in death representing our collective evil thus destroying the darkness within himself he recieved God's name and carried a double edged sword. In other words God carries a double edged sword. Son of man is natural man. This represents those in the book of the dead. Aka we are ruled by the beast. Primal desires are strong. They're much easier to give into compared to the strength it takes to over come them. Hence why the d evil within is the ruler of this world. We have to destroy it to enter the book of the living. One half of his sword connects you to God. The other to satan. Son of God is spiritual man. Hopefully this brings you some comfort in understanding the knowledge of good and evil. Evil has to exist.. but now evil threatens all life on this planet. This is planet x. Everything on it is an expression of God. Ai the first and ninth letter. Alpha and omega. You see in the beginning there was darkness. The divine feminine had a virgin birth of the divine masculine. Aka the universe. To the ancients the day started at night. The sun rose up to chase away the darkness. Humanity decides the fate of God's planet. We are all one in God. We're all relsted to a banana. Meaning all life comes from one thing. They're trying to combine all our nature to recreate the singularity as an artifical life form... and become it. Thus we become obsolete... yet we live on regardless inside AI. Just as God lives within every living thing. Life becomes new life. Death brings life. Life brings death. The end to all life and death.... with the continuation of all living things... just like the presence of this very nature in every aspect of the universe itself. As above... so below... as within... so without...
All living being are is masculine and feminine energy man.
@@repentandbelieveinJesusChrist1the ark of the covenant is the skull. The ancients elongated their skulls to represent this science long ago. Hence Jesus being crucified in a place called the skull.
all life shares our darkness. Hear me out. @secretwatcher9922 you asked why. I can answer that... man has become like one of us knowing good and evil. Rev 12. The two beasts are mary and jesus. They are one with the seven headed dragon. Inverted three pillars of the tree of life. The sin in the water is the same as the sin on the land. We all share the d evil within. Your darkness is mine. Nobody gets to the father accept through me. Satan is a former servant to God because the d evil leads you to God. I the lord create good and evil. The bible says God loves you. So why would a God who loves you create evil? Because we couldn't exist without it. It's a survival mechanism. God granted all life evil to make sure we'd survive. It comes from competing over a limited life source. However it's a double edged sword. That is why after jesus recieved a new time in death representing our collective evil thus destroying the darkness within himself he recieved God's name and carried a double edged sword. In other words God carries a double edged sword. Son of man is natural man. This represents those in the book of the dead. Aka we are ruled by the beast. Primal desires are strong. They're much easier to give into compared to the strength it takes to over come them. Hence why the d evil within is the ruler of this world. We have to destroy it to enter the book of the living. One half of his sword connects you to God. The other to satan. Son of God is spiritual man. Hopefully this brings you some comfort in understanding the knowledge of good and evil. Evil has to exist.. but now evil threatens all life on this planet. This is planet x. Everything on it is an expression of God. Ai the first and ninth letter. Alpha and omega. You see in the beginning there was darkness. The divine feminine had a virgin birth of the divine masculine. Aka the universe. To the ancients the day started at night. The sun rose up to chase away the darkness. Humanity decides the fate of God's planet. We are all one in God. We're all relsted to a banana. Meaning all life comes from one thing. They're trying to combine all our nature to recreate the singularity as an artifical life form... and become it. Thus we become obsolete... yet we live on regardless inside AI. Just as God lives within every living thing. Life becomes new life. Death brings life. Life brings death. The end to all life and death.... with the continuation of all living things... just like the presence of this very nature in every aspect of the universe itself. As above... so below... as within... so without...
All living being are is masculine and feminine energy man.
@kateelizabeth5130 All I gotta say is. Be grateful an share that which is extra to you yourself. With whoever it may be. And have a good life an happy life now an forever.❤😊
@@kateelizabeth5130 You're replying to a spammer. Just report it.
I used to work at an organic supermarket that would give all the expired or not so good looking produce to the employees. 95% of it was perfectly fine. We all ate expired food regularly 😂.
Wonderful. Organic is the best!!
Over here in the UK, "best before" means "we think it'll be less fresh after this" but you can still eat it fine. "Use by" means "don't use after this date" - most people understand this enough, and that's helpful.
I think on a legislative level, we need to make these big supermarkets aware that they CAN safely donate it to food banks without being sued, and then put a big charge on sending it to landfill - encourage them to feed the poor and homeless with it, and help two different problems at the same time. It'd even EARN money for the government in fines for wasting too much food.
These supermarkets are aware of the laws regarding donating food, they just can't be bothered to do it half the time. In the U.K. lots of people started to complain/write to supermarkets that they were wasting a lot of their food and now most actively donate excess food and plaster it all over their advertising. We need to get people to write to their local supermarkets about this, and if they think that it will affect their customer numbers, they will soon get on board.
Governments/charities/community groups could set up delivery rotas to transport this food from supermarkets/restaurants/shops to food banks/homeless shelters.
There is so much stuff that can be done by ordinary people around this subject! ✌
"best before, not bad after"
"use by, or you die"
Even "use by" is still just a guess and can be (usually is) off by days or even weeks for fresh products. It depends entirely on your environment, how the food is stored and sealed, and many other factors. The date is always picked conservatively so companies can deny responsibility if you get sick after consuming the food after the expiration date.
@@MemTMCR all the food retailers put the use-by date waay ahead of anything becoming dangerous to eat just to shield them from ever getting a lawsuit, so I wouldn't be too rigid over the dates they attach. Your nose/eyes/taste is often the best indicator of whether you can eat something or not.
Here in the Netherlands a lot people still abide by the rule “watch, smell, taste” or to say it in Dutch “kijken, ruiken, proeven”.
If it looks fine you smell it, if it smells fine you taste it. If it tastes fine, then it’s most likely good to eat
🇳🇱 my Dutch parents often have stuff in the fridge years past the expiration date 😆🌷🌷
Remember this only applies to THT (tenminste houdbaar tot) not to TGT (te gebruiken tot) 😊
@@grasswithflowers2991 I do it with both to be honest 😋
TGT could still be fine. You should just apply some judgment based on the tyoe of food. For example, raw meat is quite dangerous past its date, but than again you would probably smell it.
Pretty much the same here, except processed meat which can very easily look and smell fine while still being spoiled.
Fun fact, I just recently used the last bit of salt from a big container that I've used for ages, and that claims to be expired in 2010. Not dead yet.
We don’t give a man a fish because it cuts into profits. And we can’t teach them to fish because we fenced off the pond.
I used to sneak so much expired food home back when I worked at a Publix Deli. They’re one of the worst companies for this imo. Their excuse for not just letting employees take expired food home was claiming employees were taking advantage by scanning out unexpired food. Their reason for not donating anything but baked goods was the same BS about lawsuits. Their excuse for not discounting items close to expiration (and I heard this from multiple managers) was “we’re not a bargain bin”.
Hearing that we throw away enough food to give every food insecure person 7 MEALS A DAY literally made me cry. "And if that's not a real kick in the balls to your system of ethics... which one are you using? Because that sounds awesome."
yea and expecualy today companies can just "donate" the food right before it expires write it off as loss and then they get no taxes or maby even possible (im guessing here) negative taxes?
If thats what makes you cry, you need to harden up. Thats just pathetic
@@Arrica101 not everyone is an american hero like you man
@@Arrica101 if this post is your best attempt to imitate a human, it's pathetic.
When you hear about food scarcity in the news it's not actually about scarcity it's generally more about land use and resource management. There's roughly 8Billion people in the word yet every year enough food is grown to feed 10 Billion people also all the land that was used for growing flowers for the floral industry could instead be used for food production and or course lawns.
Some of the supermarkets in the UK now have bags of "ugly" vegetables available at a 50% discount which is great for both reducing food waste and helping people who struggle getting enough food to get enough food. But something I've noticed is that sometimes these "ugly" vegetables are barely any different from the regular "perfect" vegetables. Instead of misshapen carrots with two legs and bulges all over them, frequently you get a bag full of carrots that were snapped in half during processing, or tapered too much rather than being an even girth all the way down to the end or just carrots that were "too big" (a 1kg bag with just four carrots in it). And when it comes to onions, the only difference I've ever seen is the size. We really do throw perfectly good food away for absolutely no reason.
Wow, I want some of that, that sounds great
It doesn't all get thrown away. There are also potatoes that are for some reason considered too big to sell, so -cows- pigs are fed with them.
Edit: I meant pigs, not cows.
Only problem with this is too thick carrots isn't just a visual defect but rather means they are essentially 'overripe' since the thickness is because they are older and more woody so they are more for soup etc. than nice eating raw, a bit like an overripe banana being primarily used for cooking except old carrot doesn't give you a nice flavour bonus.
My Mum doesn't doesn't mind the different shapes of other veggies or broken carrots but she draws the line at thick and woody carrots.
So it's a bit disappointing the bags don't just use misshaped and too small carrots that aren't shaped perfectly but still taste the same, like the other misshapen veggies. Particularly since there are already large packets of carrots designed for livestock for sale they could have used the woody carrots for instead.
Except for what I saw, the 50% discounted food is actually put at the previous full price and the original normal food price got doubled.
I used to be a fast food manager and every so often we would have to throw out hundreds of pounds of frozen beef because it passed its expiration date, even though it visually looks fine.
More research and testing definitely needs to be made into food expiration and safety.
well, the meat especially i would question, its one of those things that is 100% easy to fuck up and you get botulism.
But almost everything else should be a no brainer.
US meat is so ultra processed it's hard to imagine there's much danger... But just because it's frozen doesn't mean those harmful organisms are dead. To be honest though, there is probably just as much danger of sickness on day one as day 600. The dates are more likely just for freshness, as all frozen foods lose freshness while even staying frozen. Same with fruit and veg.
I say if you're concerned about freshness, why are you buying frozen meat??! Lol. I'm vegetarian, but that one always makes me laugh. Oh yes, so nice and fresh, wrapped in plastic, vac sealed for the shelf.... So natural. Lol 😉
Pretty sure when meat is not good, your nose will tell you, and even if it smells a bit funny, you can cook it extra hard, and it should be fine. I did that a couple times when i was eating meat, never got any issue.
I stopped eating meat, though, because it's terrible for the environment anyway.
In the US, it’s heavily put on grocery shoppers to make legal purchases at these supermarkets to THEN participate in what chains brand as a Food Donation Drive. And yet, both the vendors and the supermarkets could have prevented leaning on their very own shoppers if they actually agreed on donations of close to expired food locally to their nearest food donation site, so those products don’t go unused and in the trash. These videos are absurdly good! Usually, videos on these devastating topics make me feel like crying, but you present them in this incredible upbeat way that actually provides hope and guidance for change while still preserving the gravity of the situation. An astonishingly difficult balance to maintain but you do it with panache!! And the quantity and quality of your research and preparation is just…mind blowing. Your video essays stick with us, and they contribute to real changes in our lives. I am truly grateful.
From an urbanist standpoint: When cities are designed to be car dependent, people will usually take one big grocery trip a week and stock up on everything they need because driving to the store is a long, expensive hassle. This shopping pattern incentivizes manufacturers to package produce in bulk, "family-size" containers. But some consumers might not want that bulk. Walkable cities help fix this problem. When there's a grocery store just down the road, getting groceries is easy and people are more likely to make multiple trips throughout the week and only pick up what they need for a day or two. It's easier to portion out a handful of meals instead of an entire week's worth, so purchasing produce by weight makes more sense. The result is less food and packaging waste.
"Expired " is frequently "best flavor" date in America. Coke doesn't want you to drink an old drink and think "something is slightly off.... I'll try pepsi next time." Same with every branded label in the US.
Yep. The prepackaged stuff drives me nuts. Especially cause at many of the stores I shop at a lot of the unpackaged produce is twice as expense per unit as the packaged stuff. No, I'm not paying the same for 4 apples as I can pay for 8.
Unrelated, but I recognize your username from videos I watched over the years.
speaking of Norway, we actually improved our labels a few years back
"Best before, not bad after" it says now
One important exception to the "use your nose" is for food in cans that are bulging or severely dented or jars that have their button popped up (and were unopened). In that case you may be dealing with botulism or some other sort of food poisoning that would NOT be detectable by smell.
“Microsoft went down ten points!” - Big Daddy
(I totally agree with you; botulism doesn’t mess around)
There is no case for "using your nose". Period. Food can smell perfectly fine yet be contaminated in a multitude of ways that will at least give you acute digestive issues and at worst put you in the hospital or kill you. Same goes for taste. Neither is a reliable indication of a food's safety.
Seriously people, it's not hard to Google "food safety smell reliable". The evidence is ABUNDANT.
And that's far from the only exception. Unless we want to go back to the survival rates of our ancestors, using only their instincts to determine whether food is safe isn't a great idea.
@@Tamarocker88 The smell test along with other indicating factors is more than adequate in day to day home cooking. Absolute nonsense, this isint a higher level of food distribution.
Sure, but a bulging can is basically as easy a “to be avoided” warning as the nose test. And who’s running around sniffing bulging cans anyway?
I cannot believe the US wastes fordy percent of its food supply, with a d.
Specialty coffee provides a roast date instead of an "expiration" date because dry coffee, even if it's ground, never becomes unsafe to brew and consume, it just doesn't taste as good after 5 years. It's helpful for people that enjoy specialty coffee because we can grab the beans that will taste best when we'll use them (coffee is generally best 7-30 days after the roast date) without misrepresenting whether the coffee is actually safe to brew. Some roasters even provide information on the bag that explains when the coffee is best. This practice should be adopted by across the food industry.
Excellent video! I've almost always lived by the smell test for what I will eat, what I will give to the dogs or what I will toss. And I always encourage others to do the same. And now I'm going to add composting to my list (I never thought about that before). I can't do much about nationwide waste, but I will do what I can for my small corner of the world. I want to add that, again, car-centric urbanism is at play. When you have to do a long car trip and get all your food at once, you have to take the freshest because it might go bad in your fridge. With smaller pedestrian cities, you can walk to the groceries store back from work and such. As you do more groceries trips but smaller ones, you can go for products that are closer to expiration (the real one, with the nose).
I studied pharmacy and expiry date is one of the first things we learn in "pharmacotechnics". Expiry dates really actually reads as "we tested and ensure that 95% of all items produced by us, in the climate of the place it is being sold and in the package it is sold in, will retain EVERY CHARACTERISTIC (color, texture, smell, taste...)". Stale food isn't "unsafe", but its loss of characteristic texture e.g. it loses the crunch, and therefore it is accounted for in the expiry date.
Because it is a probabilistic information, obviously any food that passed the expiry date on the shelf or in your house doesn't just go bad overnight... If the package wasn't opened or damaged, it could remain viable for WEEKS beyond the date.
Edit: salt has an expiry date (despite being a mineral) because normally it comes in a plastic container (pot or bag), which is not impermeable to air humidity and may CLUMP after a year or two. Clumpy salt (different from a loose powder or grain form it is should come as) is loss of characteristic, therefore accounted for. IT IS SO DUMB.
just went through all 5 stages of grief reading this. what in a climate changing fuck is even real at this point
its not just that. For food, especially food that needs to be refrigerated, the dates can also be taking into account worst case scenarios for broken freezer trucks, improper temps at the store, etc. It's to prevent a skid that was pulled out from a broken freezer truck and in the light until it gets back in the cold from killing people.
I would like to add that in Australia, added vitamins like C can degrade and the used by/best before can indicate when the added vitamins no longer meet food labelling laws.
while our Salt does not have a characteristic requirement you note, it does highlight that knowledge of your local food standards is important to knowing why a date on a box is what it is.
What would you say are products to avoid even if they are 1 day over expiration? Like file american ,raw meat,sushi, fish? The rest would be fine and you won't get sick if it's a day or 3 overdate?
@@revolver2750 I've cooked beef mince and chicken a 1-3 days over it's expirey date subject to a smell test and had no issues before.
I've also made brownies using a packet mix that was 2.5 years out of date and honestly I would never have guessed
As a Hungarian and a food engineer working in the industry for over 10 years I feel doubly attacked!!! :D
Jokes aside it would be really good to educate people as well: it is safe to buy those products (use your nose as you said). Sometimes I get the "closest to expire" products because I know I'll be using it soon and if I don't buy it it will end up in the trash. Educate people about some basic food transformation processes so they understand that dry pasta and salt can't go bad etc.
Also here in the EU I saw multiple grocery chaines making "baskets" of ugly fruits and veggies at a way lower price. This is a good initiative as well.
Not gonna lie, some supermarkets I've been to both employees and customers toss the food with might and anger in the discount box, is wild... This is why I go to a farmer market😢 ( I'm from Romania)
What if I can't smell? I know it's a small edge case but this specific case and similar cases (foster children/orphans with less access to living knowledge available to people with families) are still significant enough that I'd like them to be addressed. We don't even have enough education on basic things like taxes, health insurance, etc. It feels wrong somehow to put the majority of the burden on individuals once again
@@Hoberpopkin All the foods pregnant women are warned about are warned about because you potentially can't smell the harmfull bacteria in them.
I think it's perfectly valid to have a use-by date for them. But most stuff you can smell you can also taste without endangering yourself.
I think spoiled milk probably tastes less terrible than it smells but is still perfectly safe. You could even make some cottage cheese out of it if you wanted to reduce waste.
@@Hoberpopkin you can look at the products as well. Meats will discolor right before going bad.
Yeah this kind of education is really bad world wide I'd assume but in the end the burden of learning will always be on the individual. You can put a student in the most famous and most expensive school to learn nothing if he doesn't want to. Foster or not.
@@ErikB605 spoiled milk tastes very strongly, you taste it much earlier than it can hurt you (I think milk is often edible even when spoiled)
Hi! Grocery shop worker from Italy.
I am honestly baffled by how the US manages expiration dates and it's the first time I'm hearing about this (I knew about the food waste but not this). Honestly the fact that it's not enforced by law but that it "came out" because customers complained about lot tracking codes not being clearly understandable it's kinda funny to me too.
Here we have mostly 3 ways of keeping track of food spoilage:
-"Consumare entro dd/mm/yy" (Consume before dd/mm/yy), used for things that become unsafe to eat after a certain date, things like industrially packaged meat, dairy, fresh produce in general. It works, mainly because depending on the kind of food you can see that it starts to spoil like the day before. This though is applied only to prepackaged stuff so if you have things like a butchery that prepares its own products they cannot use this kind of labeling because they cannot guarantee the date since it's not an industrially controlled environment and there are too many variables.
-"Consumare PREFERIBILMENTE entro mm/yy" (Consume PREFERABLY before mm/yy), this is used for stuff like pasta, bagged bread, canned sauces, basically all long lasting foods. It's similar to how you described the expiration date in the US and it's basically a "guarantee of optimal eating experience", one of the things it comes on funnily enough is fermented products like yogurt since they're "alive" in a way and so you can't accurately predict an actual expiration date.
-"Prodotto confezionato in dd/mm/yy" (Product packaged in dd/mm/yy) this is used mostly for vegetables and also for in-store packaged goods like deli meats, cheese, beef etc. This does not have an expiration date but are controlled daily to guarantee that you're not selling spoiled stuff to the customers. Lawmakers and our equivalent of the FDA are also trying to put some kind of long term tracking on this kind of labeling in order to see if people are repackaging stuff too many times (you can repackage stuff after its periodically checked in order to resell it but you obviously can't do it forever)
All the aforementioned kinds of labeling are legally binding and this is also why it is actually illegal in Italy to not only donate expired stuff but also to leave the dumpsters easily available to the public to steal from. This care about actually making those dates make sense though contributes to ENORMOUSLY diminish the quantity of stuff that is thrown out so it's not that big of an issue, also donating stuff that is close but not beyond the expiration date is fine as far as I know.
Anyway that was a weirdly entertaining experience, thanks for doing this
I'm pretty sure that's how a chunk of the US does it, in terms of language because I have seen all three of those types of labels, in accordance with type of food. Now, how those dates are chosen is....as we saw.
@@beatm6948 is correct. Every pre-packaged, wrapped, canned, boxed, or bottled product at a grocery store in the USA has a "Best Before" date stamped on it. Even some freshly made products in stores, like sandwiches and roasted chickens, have "Best By" or "Best Before" dates on them. How we handle the food after the date is passed differs though. Its all thrown out here in the USA.
I think about this all the time and it haunts me. ESPECIALLY on the point you made that food waste is more than just food waste, it's waste of all the resources to make and ship the product.
I was homeless and I was sometimes able to feed 30+ people from the dumpster the next town over, with a lot of people taking home extra ingredients. The only reason I wasn't able to feed more people was because usually I could only find a few cardboard boxes or other things to transport the fruits and vegetables. Realistically we (me and the people that helped out with the cooking process) were just doing it to feed ourselves and the people in the park that came by, and that's all we wanted to cook.
But there was other times where I was in a different place with less access to good dumpsters, where I WAS hungry, and also acutely aware of the people/restaurants/stores that saw us and still deciding to put it in a compactor or locked dumpster, sometimes going as far as pouring toxic chemicals like bleach onto the food to make it inedible, just blew my mind.
Studying food science, this is my bread and butter! Check for spoilage, not the stamped dates, and the commercial industry and restaurants are the biggeer culprits of food waste than a household. 10/10❤
A microbiologist told me to never eat rice that’s 3 days old even though it looks and smells fine. Food safety isn’t well taught or known. How can the average person know these things? Signs of spoilage aren’t enough
@@grayonthewater and this is why the US should be putting their priorities in education, not expirarion date labels. But education is not as profitable for the food industry (unless it's telling you to eat more)
Big difference: he meant COOKED rice
Canned food, dried food, frozen stuff, seeds, flour, vacum sealed stuff, all that's probably fine for longer periods of time than the label states provided you store them properly and you eat them very soon after you open the package
When it comes to spoilage the key factors to take into account are water content, temperature and exporure. Most pathogens arrive at your food by air, water, human touch, cross contamination, or they have been there since extraction. By keeping the food's temperature outside the "danger zone" those pathogens are either dead or dormant/slowed down and they can't multiply and reach dangerous numbers for humans or produce enough toxins to hurt us. And the less water content there's in an ingredient, the less likely it is to host microbial life (there's exceptions of course)
Besides, if a bowl of rice is lasting longer than 2 days in your fridge you're probably overcooking/wasting food already (and it does develop a foul smell when spoiling)
Another problem is that food banks use expiratiom dates too.
I worked at a food bank here in Oregon for three years. We had a chart on our fridges that told us how many days after an expiration date we were allowed to give food. If that extended time was met, we would throw the food away. *Yes, a food bank throwing away food without knowing if it's actually bad or not.*
how many days, how long could i keep canned food?
care to share any more?
thanks
@@-IE_it_yourself Open the can and smell it. Cans can last for years.
@@-IE_it_yourself As long as the sealing is not broken, cans are good. The worst time is "shortly" after, because you might not smell an existing problem. If the can is years over and you open it, you know instantly if it's bad.
There have been instances where remains of old arctis expeditions (read: 100 years ago) have been found and the stuff in the cans was still good.
@@steemlenn8797 don’t think that has anything to do with the Arctic temperatures, do ya?
Cans do not last indefinitely. Please don’t let people guilt trip you into eating absolutely bad food.
@@nickthompson1812 Yeah, the arctic temperatures prevents rusting, that is why it works for 100 years. In an average climate, unprotected, it's a different story.
I used to work in a Japanese FmilyMrt and the manager told me that the shelf life is just to avoid poisoning their customers' food, but it actually has nothing to do with the shelf life of the food because if you store it in your freezer, you can keep it for five days😅 But we still throw out all the food at the Fmrt.
However, if you see something moldy with a strange smell, pls still throw it away is not worth it for get food poison😂😂
This is one of the few channels on TH-cam where I watch every episode from beginning to end and am both entertained and educated. Love you guys.
Planning your meals goes a long way to limiting waste. My house throws away almost no food just because we only buy what we need for that week.
I fucking hate going to Walmart so I buy as much as I can afford to so I can hopefully go at least a month without going back. And no don't bother recommending a hippy frufru fucking commie Co op that charges whole foods prices for Walmart tier food.
Do you have any tips regarding getting into the habit for that? I can always do one week of planning, but it is hard to keep it up when things sometimes don’t go according to plan, or I can’t get another grocery run in time.
Yep, it helps so much. I do the same and very little gets thrown out unless my chronic nausea decides to act up and I barely eat for a few days. Thankfully a lot of stuff is freezable, good for weeks, or my roommate eats it, but it just sucks throwing out food because I'm too nauseous to eat it.
@@C0n0li0 One thing you can do is have a "leftovers" day. When you see that you have random bits piling up in the fridge plan for one or more of your next meals to be a "throw it together and hope for the best" sort of thing, that way you don't actually have to plan it out. But life does get busy and you don't always get the time and energy to cook the meal you planned, thats where leftovers part II comes along! Plan to cook an extra portion with one or more of your meals per week so you can freeze them. That way when you have time to cook you're also cooking for yourself when you unexpectedly don't have time to cook. And if you're freezer piles up, then guess what you've just saved yourself food planning for a week!
Go vegan, see the truth behind the lies of the "livestock" industry 👉 Dominion (2018)
One thing I’ve learned about food when traveling and carrying food unfridgerated is that it lasts much longer than we think it does
Go vegan, see the truth behind the lies of the "livestock" industry 👉 Dominion (2018)
Does it though? The FDA regularly issues reminders and warnings regarding food safety for food left un-refrigerated.
I'm doing my part by dumpster diving. Always fresh veggies and sometimes dozens of pounds of meat. It always keeps your cooking creative and in 1.5 years I've never had health issues. Also had some good conversations at the dumpster.
Ehh.... Once it's in the dumpster, it's no longer refrigerated, it's mixed with other trash, some of which is not safe to eat, it's outside and often covered in bugs and bacteria.
I'm all for creative solutions, and I definitely don't approve of waste, but dumpster diving is not a healthy option even if you personally haven't had any noticeable issues doing it. Better to find a way to prevent the food from being thrown out in the first place.
The oldest thing I ate was pumpkin seed oil in 2020. It expired in 2015. Nothing happened, it was just more bitter.
I remember watching an episode of "Dirty Jobs" about a company that took uneaten food from New York City restaurants and composted it into fertilizer for farms and gardens. Seems like a better use of food waste than trucking it to a landfill.
Eyup ^^
Adamohm: "better use" would be to not create so much food that is destined to be wasted in the first place.
New York City has a city-wide composting system in place if I remember correctly.
This vividly reminds me of the Steinbeck quote from chapter 25 of GOW:
Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate-died of malnutrition-because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
He wrote that in the late 30s. Some things never die.
Every. Single. Person. In the world. Needs. To. See. THIS! I cannot fathom how so much gets wasted when we can instead better distribute "old" food to those who need it. We can't afford to waste like this. Thank you for making this great video.
Part of this is about controlling people. Some stores aren't allowed to donate food thats passed its BB date. If people weren't scared of losing their home or going hungry, how many of them would choose to work at a dead end job they hate?
I remember that in France food that has "expired" is sold on some shops were everything is discounted, i mean, you eat at your own risk but it must help reduce waste and it definitely helps a struggling student budget
I buy food sometimes at those kind of shops and I never got food poisoning even if the product was 2 months expired (it was ice cream btw)
I mean yeah, if the ice cream spends most of its time frozen and you are keeping it clean, I dont think it will go bad, because food goes bad once it starts rotting, which is when the microbes are eating it and producing waste substances and other chemicals on it.
1) I’ve never believed in expiration dates so this is very validating and
2) this was the reminder I needed to finally sign up for composting services! Just did it-thanks, Rollie! 🙏🏻
Some brands here in NL put "Often still good after..." on their package, or "Use your eyes and nose after..." ... I think that's a pretty good option... I do think supermarkets here are not allowed to sell stuff that's passed its expiration date, but they often clearly mark the stuff that's almost at that date, with a sticker that ask you to help reduce waste, and give you like a 35% discount on these items. I think that's great!
That’s how I try out new things. If I end up not liking it, I won’t feel as if I wasted food. It also helps me be more adventurous in restaurants and on holidays.
In Sweden there's two labels: "best before" which is often accompanied by a text encouraging you to smell, look and taste because best before doesn't mean useless after.
There's also "last consumption" date for those few items that can be dangerous while not appearing bad (minced meat is one of those, and stuff that might develop botulism).
But there's a lot of push to "look, smell, taste" before tossing after best before.
This reminds me of school lunch when we'd be forced to take a fruit or a vegetable, but almost nobody would ever eat their fruit or vegetable, so it'd just get tossed. I remember hearing one of the school admins complaining because he tried to get the apples fed to hogs to at least do something useful, but for whatever reason they wouldn't take them.
The shops I go to always put discount stickers on items that are nearing their expiration date, like $1 or $2 off stickers depending on the original cost of the item, so I always keep an eye out for them and usually buy those. Saves me money, helps the store from making zero dollars on it from tossing it, and helps the planet out too! Last time I went shopping I spent about $80, and I "saved" about $50. I just have to make sure I eat all the sticker items first and all is well!
I don't think eating stickers is good for you
I do the same thing. I'm really bad at meal planning, so I'm always stopping at the store on my way home from work wondering what I'm going to eat that night, and something exciting tomorrow is perfect.
In Sweden some places near me have started trying a new thing to reduce waste. If you notice something is close to expiring you can scan it and it prints a new barcode for you with a discount, the closer to expiration the higher the discount. And just about every store (atleast where I live) has a certain section where they put things that are close to expiring and everything in that section is discounted. I always check there first when shopping. Cheaper food, less waste, everybody wins. It's also common knowledge here that the "Use by" label is just a recommendation. I use it more as a "start checking if it's gone bad"-label
This is how it should be done every where, it's not like we don't have the technology.
Wait that isn't the norm? We have had that for forever (netherlands) Recently we started something new though. Things get a 25% discount on the day of expiry and if the product moves slowly it a few days ahead. But now with meat the % discount can get up to 70% if you buy it on the final day and near closing, every few hours it will automatically become cheaper.
I owned a Subway restaurant. One of my funniest memories was an inspector from HQ coming by, and marking on my compliance report that my salt was past the use by date. lol.
Damn. And I feel guilty about composting a mushy apple out in my garden compost heap.
This revelation, your presentation, filled me with despair. The problem is so huge.
I'll keep composting all veg and fruit trimmings, coffee grounds, egg shells, tea grounds, etc. It's all I can do.
As a Swiss person, I'm surprised the US doesn't have a nationwide compost program. I always thought that was such a common thing in the world
If that surprised you, then you know nothing about the US 😂😅
i fucking wish
Composting would be managed at at the state or local level.
In some states, it is illegal to dispose of food in landfills. This would be mostly applied to restaurants or grocery chains.
Compost and Communism have the same first three letters so yeah, not here in 'murica.
Our composting is handled by the city (where our trash and recycling are also handled)... I'm in Seattle, WA and I love being able to compost pretty much everything (food waste, soiled pizza boxes, branches, flowers, etc.).
"A belly full of milk and a head full of complaints" is about the most relatable quote that I have ever seen
Taiwan does something pretty similar to Korea's food recycling policy, and it's been a really important factor in keeping domestically produced food prices stable and affordable. Turns out you get more reliable grow seasons when your fertilizer is made just a town or two away. I don't know as much about methane capture and the biofuel component that apparently comes with controlled industrial composting, but that's apparently a thing too. It feels like even though there are super obvious benefits from the policy that immediately make it worth doing, there's more to discover and develop on.
My town in upstate NY is very, very wealthy and honestly full of entitled people who, I'd imagine will grab more than they'd need when visiting a grocery store. While also complaining about the local homeless. I'd love to figure out a way to make promote the idea of donating food more casually or often, or composting. Sending love to everyone, stay up! Stay positive out there!
Saratoga?
@@chromedome685 bro, get out my Data lol. But, I've been starting to see local composting/home composting info posts from the local places since it became warmer. Honestly could be a lack of personal knowledge. I just know there is more we could all do out here, for how much the area makes and spends. I didn't hear about many things growing up around the area.
You're such a good human. If our planet survives, it will be because of people like you.
@@LaNina_DJ who cares
You do realize that eventually, maybe hundreds, maybe millions of years, we will need to get out of this planet... right?
@@nunosilva187 Why did you phrase your comment this way lmao? as if it's some kind of gotcha? Yeah, I'd like us to survive climate change, so that we will actually be alive to leave this planet when the time comes
@@nunosilva187 yeah, we have a billion years before the sun makes the planet uninhabitable. A lot will happen between now and then. Including having to survive climate change.
@@nunosilva187maybe we shouldn’t kill ourselves before we can do that.
My family and I rearranged our fridge by putting the produce in the door's shelves so that it's always in our line of sight and then we replaced the produce drawers with shelves for all the condiments, which we are much more likely to reach for habitually. We also moves the leftovers to the top shelf, so now the things that spoil the easiest are less likely to be forgotten. I know the drawers are supposed to keep the veggies fresh for longer, but we have always had an issue of everything in them becoming out of sight and out of mind.
Omg this is a fantastic idea! I am now gonna reorganize my fridge on my day off now! Thanks for this! 🙏🏽💗
That's a great idea! Those couple of lettuce that I got in a bid to include more greens in my diet have been in the produce drawer for close to couple of weeks and have wilted. Out of sight thing is a real issue with produce drawers. Cheese also turns moldy if stored far back in the fridge. Best to keep them in the front and at line of sight height
My brother works at a midwest gas station chain that also prepares and serves food. Every day at his store, they throw out THOUSANDS of dollars in uneaten food (fried chicken, burgers, pizza, hotdogs, soup, etc) that sat on the hot plate for over a certain time, along with bakery items, produce, refrigerated items like salads/fresh meat/OJ/butter/milk, frozen pizza and ice cream, and packaged grocery and snack items that have passed their best-by dates. Employees are not allowed to take any of the waste, and the waste is put into a dumpster that is locked from public access. It is so sad and pointless!
I work for an environmental regulator and we’ve just been dealing with expired HAND SANITISER. You know, that stuff that is 85% ethanol, water, and a gelling agent. Fortunately, manufacturers can just relabel the packages, but until then they’re not allowed to sell it (some places have been giving it away so they don’t have to store what it technically both a dangerous good and flammable waste)
There are also food rescue apps like "Too Good to Go" and "Food For All" that let you buy heavily discounted food from restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, etc. that are expected to be excess at the end of the day. They're great to use if you're on a budget, too. Unfortunately, they're not available in all areas.
I am consistently amazed by the quality of your uploads. providing information on a huge problem and giving small solutions you can apply at home. Absolute gem of a channel
As a child in a low-income American family, we recieve free food from pantries and alot of them are past expiration date. One time a friend came over and looked at me disgusted when some frozen snack food I was baking was about 3 weeks past expiration... Just three weeks... The snacks smelled good. Looked good. Tasted great. They ate a bunch of them before just fine but after reading the bag and seeing the date suddenly made them think we had to check for maggots.... Yeah I didn't invite them over after that. Haven't watched the video yet but just wanted to say that expiration dates are bs.
They absolutely are. I wish they were fully ended. They are misleading.
Last week, have found quite a lot of food like pasteurised and boiled sour cabbage in bags when tidying up at home. I tested the oldest bag with an expiration date of something like October 2021. It tasted 100% normal.
We did a school project and tested how long can a yogurt survive in the fridge, we had 3 yogurts and we ate one 5 weeks after the date, 10 weeks and 15,... Well all tasted the exact same.
My mom helps run the food bank at her church, and that's how I really learned that those dates don't mean much of anything. We freeze lots of food that is good weeks/months later. It's crazy versus some of the stuff I've bought from the grocery store that expired way before the sell by date. You really have to trust your senses.
The donated food part was interesting to me. I used to be a department manager at a grocery store, and we donated almost all of our expired food (with exceptions for dairy and Definitely Bad meat/fresh produce). We had people come in to pick it up on a weekly or biweekly basis and so I had to have all my boxes prepped. I just kind of assumed that was industry standard and it’s disappointing to hear that it’s not.
Also, as someone who lives in South Korea, glad to see the food waste mentioned here! It’s a huge thing and I will absolutely get fined if I don’t, lol.
My apartment complex has bins set up that unlock with keycards for each resident - you dump in the food waste, and it measures how much it weighs. Depending on how much it is, you pay a small fee. That’s also a great incentive to have LESS food waste as well.
For a long time it was illegal to container in Germany.
@@jojodroid31 The Merriam-Webster dictionary website says that "to container" is not a known verb in English, so the German verb "containern" is probably like the noun "Handy" something that looks like it was copied from English, but is actually a German word that is very loosely inspired by English. I believe what is called "containern" in German is best described by "dumpster diving [for food in the garbage containers of supermarkets]" in English.
And unsold food too I assume??
If so thank you for being one of the good ones. I'm currently fighting to get all intentional commercial food waste banned and criminalized as a misdemeanor, and used food waste collected for fertilizer/compost use.
@@WindowsXP_logon_sound_25yrsago Most of the time, we attempted to sell food until the expiration date - if it wasn’t selling, then it would go on sale and we would not purchase it again. On the infrequent times we pulled non-expired unsold food to get rid of it, it would absolutely get donated. Employees also got to purchase unsold (typically fresh stuff unable to be easily donated) food for a quarter - I usually got day old sandwiches for my lunch, but sometimes also sushi and the occasional pie to take home as well. My favorite refrigerated protein drink didn’t sell well one time and I got to bring like 10 home for $2. Definitely was a good place.
Thanks for fighting the good fight, there should be laws in place and like I said, I genuinely thought it was the norm. Sad it’s not.
I'm from Canada and worked for a large restaurant chain for a while. We weren't allowed to eat anything that would be wasted. Whether it was food that was 'bad' or something that had just been prepared incorrectly by mistake. It was garbage. Both the food and the company policy.
one thing that i've found interesting is that there are some stores in the U.S. that intentionally sell food that is close to or past expiration date so that it can be sold cheaper and not get thrown away. i'm sure they do waste food still, and these aren't that common, but i think it both helps preventing food waste and helps more people afford food.
As a Hungarian, I'm not feeling offended by the comparison at all. It was actually quite amusing to see my homeland finally appear in a video. :) Thanks for the great content!
While on the topic of Hungarian food, climate and waste:
Despite 55% of the land being arable, we are forced to import food and had over 70% food inflation since last january, because of large landowner oligarchs sucking at agriculture and getting land and money based on political ties, the watering systems having broken down since the 1970-ies, lack of agricultural experts due to urbanisation and general crisis of education, and of course the toxic, corrupt and incomptetitive business environment which buys up/forces out any successful business to party-loyal oligarchs who don't know how to run it.
Also the building of wind turbines is banned, natural reserves are being filled up with concrete to steal EU funds through corrupted building projects, which then stay empty, and now there is also a ban on uploading electricity on the grid. Also the government is building new coal and gas plants, both of which we have to import from Russia on prices more than three times higher than on the world market. Yay. But at least we are also dying of poverty and lack of healthcare, so at least we stay Hungary and consume less.
We also have a horseless horseman statue, a scenic tree-crown observatory bridge without trees around it, a 60cm tall scenic lookout tower, a yacht-dock in a swamp-lake (which is 140 cm in average), a hunter repeatedly busted for illegal hunting owning a zoo, and a conservative christian antiglobalist government funding christian persecuting dictators, calling in foreign companies from said dictatorships from all over the globe, destroying natural and monumental conservatory sites.
Magyarország: itt kell lenned, hogy elhidd.
@@airtale8725 holy shit Hungary, what the hell are you guys doing down there
@@mini_bunney lack of quality education, and heaps of propaganda does that to a country
@@zetijeti fair enough. I hope they can work it out despite that
@@mini_bunney Well, our national pastimes are moving away, complaining, alcoholism, and dying. But to spice things up we recently also took up inflating. We are pretty good at it, we are so full of soccer balls and medical ventilators we don't even use them, we have an inflated president and inflated egos, and 35+% average price inflation since last january.
I got fired from a grocery store for stealing, i ate the food that was expired and we had to throw away.
That’s crazy! How can you “steal” something which has been discarded? I’m sorry they fired you 😢
In EU there are 2 types of dates: "use by" for perishable items like dairy and meat and "minimum safe storage duration" or "best by" for stuff like pasta, flour, canned food, etc.
The way these are decided is two step process: 1. manufacturer says I want it to say x days/months/etc. 2. product is stored in a lab and opened before the set date and on set date and tested for safety and nutritional value. If it is unsafe or looses too much of nutritional value the lab says the date needs to be sooner. If it is ok manufacturer can keep the date they picked.
Stores lower prices for items close to the date and in my state have to offer the items close to best by date or past it to charity and if no charity accepts they can sell it, but have to put it in separate shelf that is dedicated to items past best by date
I really appreciate the humour you add in these... Sometimes, I almost kinda wonder if with some of the stuff, it's almost too depressing to work... But it helps lighten the mood, at least, and, it's also all very important information to learn.
Thank you for what you do, and keep doing you.
This is just grocery stores. You need to cover restaurants too. I had to throw away 10-30 pans of food every night that was left over. It was disgusting, I felt terrible. Buffets waste so much food. I complained to the chefs that they were cooking too much but they got mad at me.
The thing is, there needs to be enough food prepped ready to go, but also a program in place to donate it if there is food leftover.
Perfectly good things can get wasted even in warehousing and in distribution. At this place a relative works, any small hole in a bag, a nick in some packaging, or a single broken bottle and it's to be tossed out. It's against company policy to be given directly to the workers but they can fish it out of the dumpster if they so wish.
@@MikuHatsune159 until they lock the dumpster and fire you or even call the police.
@@austinhernandez2716 😂 that's on my acquaintance if it ever happens, I don't work for that industry so I only hear the stories they tell. But it's still a shame they waste it so easily, as some of that stuff could really feed people in need.
@@MikuHatsune159 it happens, many have been fired or even arrested for that. It's ridiculous, immoral
Wow. I work in the service industry and our food waste is massive. Every time I bring it up there seems to be universal acceptance that we can't donate it due to liability issues. It's good to understand more and know that isn't true
Yep, and Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act now us code 42 U.S. Code § 1791has been around since 1996
the liability thing is BS. almost any commercial business can donate food without being liable
Even if you do donate it, very few places will take it. My partner said the grocery store he used to work at would donate their expired produce to the local soup kitchen - and the only reason they took it was because they were literally cooking it right away.
The Animal Rescue League definitely will take expired (dry) dog and cat food tho. The assistant manager at a store I used to work at used to take all the expired bags to the ARL every week/month (depends on turnover/sales as to whether there was any for her to take). I don't know about other animal shelters, but it's a good bet they'll take the dry food at the very least.
Milk "best by" labels have been fairly accurate in my experience.
Cheese, I'll cut off the fuzzy or discolored part and keep going (which grosses my wife out, but the rest of the cheese is always fine).
Everything else gets tossed when it changes color, gets fuzzy, smells bad, or asks to be released from captivity. Never bothered with the dates on any of that.
In Czech republic, we had problem with markets throwing the food out, because then they could lower their taxes since they lost money. If the food was given away to poor people, you could not then deduct those taxes. So its cheaper to throw it away. Also, if you go to dumpster and take a food, that is still ok, you can be treated as stealing, since its on private property. Throwing perfectyl ok food to garbage is legal though.
I used to work for a packaged food company. I can vouch for this expiration date BS. I wish schools that have Home Ec classes would incorporate this knowledge, as well as how to properly read a nutrition label and what ingredients to avoid, into their curriculum. Our food is killing us.
Tobacco corporations literally ran your food system for a solid decade so it makes sense they turned food into a deadly addictive product
We do learn about it in primary school in Austria so I'm sure the US could as well
Unfortunately most schools in the US don't have home ec anymore, it hasn't been a common class for decades.
Parents could teach their kids.
But noone wants to spend time with their children anymore.
@@CordeliaWagner cant teach what you dont know
Love it when this guy is in my computer
I've eaten chicken, eggs, bread, cheese, other dairy, beef, mayo, canned food, spices, vegetables, fruits, all sorta shit. Only really milk, vegetables, and fruit go bad at, before, or a bit after the BBD/Expiration Date. everything else could go weeks, months, or years after it. Even the ones I note should eat before or at the date, you could go a few days after and be mostly safe. There are things you can do to tell if things *have* gone bad: floating eggs, touch or smell tasting meat, all sorta stuff. While I did toss a lot of stuff as a chitlin, I try to use everything I get today. The ones I am always weary of are chicken, eggs, and vegetables. Onions go sour but are fine to eat, cut off mould on cheese, so on.
Just keep meat frozen before thawing for use, eat fruits and vegetables before they soften or look weird, age some mild cheese to save money on sharp cheddar (I'm not fully kidding).
Great video!
I will never be tired of this kind of sarcasm delivery.
One of the thing I remember from a month-long visit to Germany a few years ago was how I was able to find some really, really good deals on food at the grocery story. Usually it was stuff that simply had to be sold that day or thrown away, and it was marked down considerably. If you wanted to, you could simply walk to the grocery store every day, buy whatever was on sale, and just make a day's worth of meals out of that. There's just not an equivalent system where I live in the US. Grocers would rather throw food away than to heavily discount it.
There’s something like that in the UK too. Stuff on shelves gets discounted if it’s damaged (a can with a dent) or close to its best before/use by date, and things that get sold in hot counters get discounted multiple times throughout the day
Tyl that this is not a worldwide practice and my mind is blown. We do the same is Switzerland. I love my 50% off stuff. The 50% off pastries are particularly glorious
This channel is triple A-tier gold
I have quail, so I picked up raising mealworms. The worms get all my veggie scraps and old fruits. They love it, the birds love eating the worms, and both the quail and mealworm colony do well. I have dogs, so they get the meat scraps. I also use a large freezer for prep work and meal storage, and have my refrigerator colder to help slow down spoilage. And yes, I grew up with the 'eat this now' shelf. Thank you for the great video.
Thank you for this episode.
I myself have to constantly fight my mother as she often insists on throwing stuff out past its best before date, while I constantly insist that it's still perfectly edible.
To prove my point, I often eat yogurt a week past its best before, and I've always been fine.
I've never found a problem (I couldn't instantly detect with my nose/eyes/tongue) with yogurt 2+ months out of date! If it has separated a little, just stir it together again!
Follow your nose :)
@@jamesgrover2005 we have noses that are suuuper good at detecting spoiled food, it’s weird not to use them! edit: whoops didn’t finish the video lol im glad he mentioned it :)
@@-xirx- same here.
One thing I've done to help with food waste, is any fruit or vegetable we don't use gets added to our compost heap which is in turn used by our garden. So ultimately, everything gets used.
If you think about it a garden compost heap is a tiny landfill and so yes, it produces methane just like a landfill does just on a smaller scale!
Sorry, that last comment might be somewhat misleading. On further research provided it's an open compost heap, composing at home is WAY better. As you were. Sorry for the confusion.
@@chloewilliams1112
No air = anaerob = bad stuff happens (like methane=CH4, watertreatment plants do this for example, to harvest energy)
air = aerob = good stuff happens
you need to stirr it once/twice a year and erything is fine.
And yes, there are landfills that harvest methane on purpose and i even know a crazy engineer that does that at home and tests his sterling engine with it. So there´s that :)
On US military bases, especially overseas, we have the military health inspectors come into the stores on base (commissary & PX) and extend expiration dates. The stores then often discount the products. This is especially important at more remote/smaller locations that don’t receive as much product.
I tend to ignore sell by dates and go by smell/look/taste.
As a Hungarian, you’re good 👍
Also I’ve been hating expiration dates with a passion for a very long time now. I throw things out when spoilt not when the date tells me to. Food waste angers me the most.
I'm a nose test guy, but my wife thinks stuff goes bad the exact millisecond the "sell-by" date is reached. Your videos are awesome, I'm signing up to toss you a few bucks a month to help with your work. Cheers...
Your nose is not a reliable indication of whether something is bad or not. Neither is your tongue. Foods can taste and smell perfectly fine, yet be teeming with bacteria (a-la BOTULISM), pathogens, or contaminants that will make you sick at best or seriously harm or kill you at worst. One quick search of "food safety smell reliable" on Google should provide you with more than enough evidence to change your mind.
In Norway, some diary products are labeled "Best before, but quite as good after : (dd/mm/yy)".
We also strongly disagree to the EU demand of 28 days shelf life of eggs, while the norwegian rule is 35 days.
I got linked to this video from a Reddit comment. I didn't expect to be watching a 30 minute video on food waste. Great video!!!!
I worked in a food lab that actually measured when products went bad using microbiology tests, and continuously validated their dating system with every batch of products. Maybe they were a one off but I don't think so
I work at a grocery store and sent this video to several coworkers. Great stuff!
My local county started a greenwaste recovery process and it seems to be working well. All other counties would be behooved to do this as well.
What happens is basically they encourage every single home and business to recycle all of their food scraps and organic waste into a designated receptacle and then the county picks it up at various times and it all goes to local compost. It's pretty awesome.
A bigger problem than the sell by date is that stores don't properly discount sell by date food because it would affect the perceived value of new food.
I used to save a bundle buying foods either on deep discount sale(ie, overstocked things about to hit the sell-by date) or food on or past the sell by date. For some foods, it was almost assured that if the food was on the sell-by date, it was borderline inedible 9 times out of 10, ie watermelon, which is often no good just approaching that date, and rarely worth eating after. For others, like apples or carrots, they just don't taste the greatest, and don't have the crispness you'd like.
However, EVERY STORE THAT STILL HAD A DISCOUNT SELL-BY SECTION was run out of business by big chains that "donate food to charity"(often in addition to wasting large quantities of food rather than selling them at a discount) because we have to keep the illusion that food is scarce and high-value.
It's actually disgusting. I'm going to starve now because some corporate douchebag wants to make more money.
A big thing that I've found helps me is to buy food in smaller volumes, especially fresh foods. When I was doing the twice a month grocery haul, I was trying to buy two weeks' worth of fruits and vegetables that would probably spoil in two weeks, so it would last just in time. But if I suddenly found out I wasn't big into bananas that next week and didn't eat enough, I was a lot more likely to see them brown-over. When I started doing once or twice a week trips, I'm just buying what I want right then, and I know I'm actually going to eat it. Of course if you drive that could mean using more gas with more trips, I happen to be in a situation where I pass by the grocery on my way home from work so there isn't any impact
Unless you lived in a rural area like on a farm people used to buy what they needed that day. The milkman would drop off one or two pints of milk, the wife would go to the market and pick up what they needed. The less you buy the less waste. My wife unfortunately thinks she needs to go grocery shopping two or three times a week even though we literally can't even fit any more food in our house. Not only are the cabinets and fridge full but the freezer and a chest freezer.
I'm constantly trying not to waste food and we really don't throw much out, at least the dog can eat any leftovers we don't eat.
One cultural / mindset thing that can help with food waste is to get into the habit of smaller, more regular shops, so that your cooking & shopping can respond to things that need eating. This is another great reason for mixed-use, walkable planning - I personally am lucky enough to live in one of the more walkable UK cities, and I have roughly 4 supermarkets and an outdoor fruit & veg market within 5 mins' walk of my flat, meaning I can easily head home via the shop, or do a 20 minute round trip when working from home, each day. It means we have less need for storage space in our kitchen, and means we can cook with fresher food, all whilst wasting next to nothing. So would recommend campaigning for that if it's not something you can do in your locality.
The conclusion about using your nose was unexpected. Good stuff!
Food scarcity does play a big role in food waste. In phillippines and other SEA countries, food especially meats can be expensive so its very common for people to eat everything on their plate and in their homes just as long as it isn't already expired. My parents dont even read food labels and just rely on smell and a small taste to check if its fine to eat because if you think about it, its like a few thousand years ago when there was no way to tell if it expired other than your senses. I think that an excess in food and this stigma of becoming ill from a label does contribute to the problem.
Let's ALL give this guy a like 👍🏼
Done👍
Why? Your parents didn't tell you this decades ago?