Lawrence Toppman:
I was reading my box of multi-bran cereal this morning -- isn't THAT a sad beginning to a day -- and it said "best before August 1." Bran cereal can decline in quality? Say what? (And rapidly, I see. I bought it last week.)
For a guy, especially one who was a bachelor for 52 years, food too old to eat is almost a foreign concept. Before I married, I had two rules for tossing food out: More then 50% was moldy (otherwise, you could cut off the bad parts), or I couldn't get it out of the container because it had solidified into a mass. I cracked an egg one Columbus Day, and it refused to drop out of the shell, so I knew it was inedible. I wasn't relying solely on the fact that the sell-by date was the previous Christmas.
I bring this up because a lot of Americans -- especially guys -- think they have to eat anything they've paid for. (My generation also heard the parental speech that starving Asian kids longed for our broccoli casseroles. I asked for their mailing addresses but never got any.) Men know we shouldn't waste food by buying more than we need, but if it's in the house, we feel compelled to finish it off. One more small reason we consume too much, I suspect.
Wait a minute -- I just realized there's an expiration date on my coffee ice cream! I'd better go see what it is.
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9 years ago
8 comments:
I am the same way. One time I brought a tupperware full of broccoli to work that had long expired but I still felt like I needed to eat it. Needless to say, my co-workers who share an office with me weren't too happy!
I've heard recently if it has an experation date more than 30 days out, you really shouldn't buy it as it's not fresh food and has tons of preservatives in it to keep it on the shelf forever.
Good luck with the changes, best wishes!
I locked the doors of my car and happened to notice a yogurt container had rolled out from under the front seat. I suppose it had been in the car several weeks, but when I pulled off the aluminum cap the yogurt inside looked okay. I ate a small glob that, scarily, had to be large enough to taste, and it seemed all right, so I finished the contents. Sixty cents is a terrible thing to waste.
I'm with you Lawrence, let's send all the broccoli, asparagus, brussels sprouts and collards to those starving 3rd world countries. Well, maybe not the collards.................we could send the tuna casseroles instead.
This reminds me of what happened to my husband and me after his sister-in-law once gave him some outdated 4 Way Cold Medicine she had lying around her house. It was four years past the expiration date! She is a registered pharmacist and assured him that it was perfectly safe for us to take. We both sat up all night experiencing severe hallucinations, including talking to and seeing long passed away relatives. When I woke up the next morning with sunshine streaming into my window, I was wide awake and still dreaming. 22 years later, I have never taken anything else she told me to because I still believe to this day that medicine was laced with PCP or LSD...That was a very freaky experience, indeed...Believe it or not, she is still a practing pharmacist with a national chain...
If it passes the sniff test, isn't fuzzy, and doesn't bubble ominously, down the hatch!
All it takes is that one time you eat something at get a bad case of food poisoning. It only takes that one time and you are forever changed. Unless you've been there, you DO NOT know what you are talking about. If you ignore expiration dates you are flirting with your health and life.
You have been warned.
Lawrence, you certainly are a great writer, but it appears your articles are certainly not about weight loss ( where is the Beef?
jim
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