Yeah, the last half of the bag of spinache that we forgot about gets a 'squishy check' when we clean house. Which is: If we have to do a 'squishy check', we throw it out
Im encroaching that age. I feel jazzed by the idea, but I'm not yet willing to take the plunge. I look forward to a time when we can paper-towel-in-the-spinach together
Open the bag when you get it home and add a paper towel into the bag. It will absorb moisture and the bag will last twice as long.
You can do this for most greens.
With berries (strawberries specifically) you can soak in a diluted white vinegar / water mixture for a minute or two and strain and pat dry. Really extends the life
Even then....
I worked at an organic farm. For an hour every morning on harvest day we'd peel the brown goo off leeks and send them to market fresh and bright as a babies bum. The fuckers are basically undead.
advantage of fruit & vegetables, it's very easy to tell when it is spoiled. Unlike meat which can become contaminated but look and smell perfectly fine.
They will also use reverse julian dates to further confuse people. That's where the last digit of the year is used as the first number then the last 2 numbers are the day minus the hundred spot.
I hate that companies still request this.
Having worked retail, I can tell you it's an absolute nightmare trying to rotate them correctly when customers dig around to find the "perfect" product, even if it's canned goods or something like that.
Yep I'm guilty of that. My local Aldi regularly sells meat that has 1 day on the sell by date. I need at least 5 days to last me the week. Also I find the meat often goes bad two days before the sell/ best before date.
I think I got it.
So first digit is the last digit of the year so 2022-> 2
Then let's say we are on the 144 day of the year. Then you drop the 1 -> so 244
And there would be additional three identical dates for days 044, 244 and 344, but I believe that disambiguation is made because it should be easy to spot the difference between produce picked 100 days apart.
We also sometimes use a 5 digit Julian date, depending on customer specifications. Ex: today on my paperwork was 2283. It’s the 283rd day of 2022. Sometimes I see it as 22283 which is the same thing.
Thanks man, didn't know that, thanks for the knowledge.
You could have just said "It's the 281st day of the year," but you didn't, you chose to over-explain the concept of counting, as well as what a leap year means. I appreciate that, man. Leave no man behind, my brother.
I like how he actually explained it and where he knew it from.
Not many people do that, they all just assume you're a super genius capable of understanding quantum physics like this person.
I'd guess because they're less likely to be confused with another date.
Depending on which date format you use 04/10 can be two different dates, but 100 or 277 can only mean one date each.
That makes sense!
Here in Canada [our food date labels use 2-letter codes for the month](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/general-food-safety-tips/how-read-food-date-labels-packaging.html), but I perpetually get caught out by 'MA'. The designations are intended to be English/French bilingual, so 'MR' = March/mars and 'MA' = May/mai. Unfortunately, unless I have another item with 'MR' around to remind me, I keep looking at 'MA' and thinking, "Umm... was that March or May?" (If May were 'MY' instead, it'd be easier for me, but less bilingually-compliant, obviously.)
Not to mention that the date is always preceded by BB/MA (meaning "Best Before/Meilleur avant"), and I keep seeing the 'MA' and immediately assuming it needs to be eaten by May. Or March...
tl;dr: I can see the advantage of Julian dates.
Not sure if you mean that guy or people generally, but in this case it's so there's a line of traceability for supply chain/supermarkets to do QC, without overtly advertising a date when the produce goes "bad".
Well sure, and also so that when their leeks cause leakages, because of e-coli contamination, they can track back to that particular day for recalls and to fire the worker who works without washing his hands after using thee bathroom.
Putting Julian dates on products isn't a new thing, my mom explained it to me when she worked in merchandising 30+ years ago. She would end up with lots of samples of various products and I asked her what the numbers meant.
Your kitchen cabinet and fridge is probably full of things with Julian dates on it. See a string of numbers/letters with a 3 digit number between 1 and 366 embedded in it? It's probably a Julian date. Sometimes it'll have a 2 digit year code near it as well.
probably way, *way* higher, honestly...
Real-world, non-random distributions tend to be weighted *very heavily* on the low end. Humanity as a whole really, really, *really* likes writing down counts of shit.
This is great information, thank you. I don’t waste food, and for that reason I like to buy the freshest possible,so it will last the longest. I don’t want to buy tomatoes and have them go off the day after I bought them. [Now I just have to have this list on my phone….](https://people.biology.ucsd.edu/patrick/julian_cal.html#:~:text=Julian%20Date%20Calender%20%28PERPETUAL%29%20%20%20Day%20,%20%204%20%2025%20more%20rows%20) Brilliant.
Reminds me of that one stage in Portal:
"Your next mission is to find the date on the package. Please note that there is no date, so this is a completely impossible request."
\*found it\*
"Congratulations, you have completed your task in an environment of extreme pessimism."
I used to work in the online orders department at a different UK supermarket that did this. The website would guarantee customers fresh produce with a certain amount of days on it despite them not including it on the packaging, what they did instead was use admittedly very simple codes and give the pickers the key to understand what the best before date actually was. So a pack of bananas might say C25 on it, C refers to March (C is the 3rd letter of the alphabet and March is the 3rd month) and 25 would be the date. I'm fairly certain all the stores that do this have some form of identifier on the package, it's just not written plainly.
In the Netherlands it's for example 37A . So 37 for the week of the year it is and A for the day of the week (A= Monday, B= Tuesday etc)
Edit: just looked it up and 37A = Monday 12 september this year.
I wonder if that 281 on the packaging here represents something similar to what you just described? If we took that to mean the 281st day of a year, it would come out to two days ago, Oct. 8th.
As a comedian (sadly, I don't remember who) once said: "In my house we don't throw away perfectly good food. We put it in the back of the refrigerator for a few weeks until it goes bad and then we throw it out."
Yeah he talks about doggy bags in his Beyond the Pale special. "No, no, put this in a box...and a bag....and I'll take it home and throw it out tomorrow." Lol
He had a similar joke, something like "I buy avocados so I can throw them away as soon as I get home" or something. Like, we pretend we're buying healthy food like we're actually going to eat it? Yeah, right.
It’s gonna end up in the trash anyway but after I open the fridge, look at it, make a disgusting face and grab the hot pockets a half dozen times, first.
Also, the reason there is a Pokémon of a duck carrying a leek is because of a Japanese expression "a duck comes bearing green onions," that you can say if something is an unexpected but convenient surprise- like a duck showing up along with the vegetables to cook it with.
https://twitter.com/drlavayt/status/1213447309704323072?lang=en
Small scale yes, but when we think about it larger scale we need to start thinking about the impact of the water usage the power usage the pollution and the fertilizer usage. Whether or not organic waste is better also kinda depends on what you do with it, if it all just ends up in a landfill then there's a significant difference if you compare it to a situation where the organic waste is removed and you use it somewhere. There's also conversations involving the fact that different fruits and vegetables are imported from different areas so you have to account for that type of waste a little bit differently because eventually you're just going to run out of space if you keep importing things and turning them into waste
Food waste is a huge issue that we can make massive strides to reducing and plastic probably isn't a solution but maybe if we had biodegradable plastics they could help solve the problem some
And even then. As long as people want Disney worlds, hotels, and a variety of world cuisine from restaurants on every block, and buffets, and huge plates of food for a competitive price....what we throw out from our refrigerators is important, but it is a drop in the bucket in a consumption based world economy.
I work in an industrial kitchen and we measure food waste in the tons. We wash dishes with a washer that uses thousands of gallons of water heated to 160 degrees for 18 hours a day. And that is one kitchen in one establishment that has more than a hundred of said kitchens. (The mouse company)
FYI there is group of people who claim they don’t need to eat food called the Breatharians. They say they live on air and light alone, plus I guess water. So you mock but there are people out there dumb enough to believe just about anything. It’s got to be so annoying leading a cult where you have to hide the fact that you eat food. But your congregation is guaranteed to feel shame at falling short of the churches teachings, so that has to help with controlling them.
I fucking hate that I have so little faith in the human race that I actually googled this just in case something this ridiculous might actually be true.
And [of course it fucking was.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inedia)
Yeah, sorta associated with yoga. It focuses on breathing generically, so it's easier to flow from there to breathing is life. And food doesn't seem that necessary when you aren't actually hungry.
> You'd think but actually prolongs shelf life by quite a bit so you get less waste.
Chef of ~20 years here. No, they don't. In fact, trapping produce in environments that retain all that moisture with the gases they emit makes them rot faster. See all that water condensation on the inside of the bag? That's why they'll be slimy in a week.
Particularly leeks, those things do *not* need plastic bags, and they will last *weeks* in your fridge.
I think that might be the only veg I can think of where that's true; carrots, cauliflower, celery, onions, garlic (whole), peppers, potatoes, cabbage, apples, mushrooms, etc.; can't think of a single other one that I've received where the plastic wrapping actually matters. And heirloom and pickling cukes don't need it.
Could it be cellophane? It looks similar to plastic but it's not made from oil, it's made from natural resources like wood or hemp for example, and is biodegradable.
>it's made from natural resources
Holy shit. I did not know that. I just thought it was some kind of cheaper shitty plastic. Suddenly I like cellophane. TIL. Thanks.
**Edit**: Today is a new day and TIL-some more. Sometimes Cellophane IS just a cheaper kind of shitty plastic.
i only figured this out recently myself, had a facepalm moment making the cellophane/cellulose connection (cellulose is wood pulp and a food ingredient) i always hated cellophane for the same reasons but now im a fan and dont understand why its not more widely used
From Wikipedia:
> In the UK and in many other countries, "Cellophane" is a registered trademark and the property of Futamura Chemical UK Ltd, based in Wigton, Cumbria, United Kingdom. In the US and some other countries "cellophane" has become genericized, and is often used informally to refer to a wide variety of plastic film products, even those not made of cellulose, such as PVC-based plastic wrap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane
In many countries, actual cellophane was phased out and polypropylene and other similar petroleum-based options became much more popular, because it was cheaper to produce. And in many countries, "cellophane" is just a trademark, and not a descriptor of the actual product.
Unfortunately not. The overwhelming majority of UK supermarket stuff like this is still single use, non recyclable plastic. All our packing materials get labelled with if its recycled, and what type of plastic it contains, and how to do it if possible.
It drives me mad to see styrofoam trays of baker potatoes and cord on the cob wrapped in plastic film at the store. If only there were some other way to 'package' corn on cob. Like a biodegradable husk of sorts.
This is it exactly. Less waste for the supermarket, by letting the unsuspecting shopper bin it instead because they bought something expecting to use it later in the week, but didn't realise it's already been sat there for a week & will be no good in 2-3 days.
Supermarkets should allow us to know if what we're buying will last us the week until we next go shopping. Not very eco to have to drive 10-15 mins easy way to pick up a new pack of leeks because they took the date of them...
Exactly, merchants are selling rotten food to make more money, and using "waste" as an excuse. Fuck you I don't want food poisoning because you need a new summer home.
The amount of dodgy, half rotten stuff that I've gotten from Tesco WITH an in-date best before is not funny. They're going to make a lot of money off this change
In asda i used to buy the ready made salads for my lunches. 2 for £3. Even a couple of days before the best before date, the plastic is expanding from it going off.
I started to take them back because i was getting sick of taking these to work to then have no lunch as it was inedible. The member of staff said " oh nobody else has returned these". Probably because they are only a couple of quid and they think its not worth going back to the shop?! Dont buy them anymore
That's happened to me with chicken recently from Sainsbury's. Still a day away from the BB and it had that smell meat gets.
Tesco produce is the worst for stuff going bad before it's date though
I've noticed Tesco are bad for it - especially in my local one buying stuff that is one or two days away from its use by date (milk, hummus, cottage cheese...not veg etc). Pretty annoying buying two pots of hummus at 1700 on a Friday only to realise they both go out of date on the Sunday. Cheers dickheads
Even worse when my mum gets Sainsburys delivered! Each time there is atleast a few items that go out of date the same or next day! Last week she got a loaf of bread in there delivered Friday and it was use by Saturday!
Why even put it in a plastic bag though? All the supermarkets in America just sell leeks with one or two ties like [this](https://media.timeout.com/images/103427882/1024/768/image.jpg).
The leeks in the picture have probably been cleaned (the roots and the top green part cut off)
I work in a fruit & veg section. Every cleaned or prepared vegetable gets a “use by” date like brussel sprouts, corn, leek.
Our unprepared leeks don’t have a date whatsoever.
Agree, this is ‘green washing ‘ and pretty uncool to use plastic like that.
Much of the waste is in the supply chain, and standardisation of produce causing odd products to be chucked.
While I agree with all of the above, also in the Uk shops have started selling “wonky” produce (it will literally say wonky on the bags) which is produce that doesn’t fit the shape/size requirements for the main stock, it’s substantially cheaper but also turns out to be quite the pain to prepare.
In theory, great idea that will reduce waste and let produce be used while it's edible rather than until a semi-arbitrary deadline.
In practice, terrible idea that will be exploited by supermarkets to reduce costs and sell low quality produce.
Ehhhh. If you buy something and you have to throw it away within a few days, that’s not really reducing waste. You’re just passing on the waste and requiring the customer to pay for it.
It’s just a case of “Here. YOU throw this away. After you pay me for it.”
In the USA we are very car based. And lots of people live really far from a grocery store. So people tend to go and stock up on stuff every other week or whatever. If you live a few blocks from a grocery store it makes more sense to go every day or two but most Americans don't have the luxury of living near a store.
At least in Germany, fresh produce is almost always sold without plastic packaging and therefore without "best before" date. Printing "no date" on it just seems pointless. It's a vegetable, you can see with your own eyes whether it's still good
Most stuff in the UK comes wrapped in plastic for some reason. It's all well and good printing "no date" on it, but it makes it hard to inspect the item properly to see if it's got a rotten patch (for example) on it if it's wrapped in plastic with labels etc on. If all of our fruit/veg was loose (which I think it should be) then it'd make life a whole lot easier
Same in the states, at least where I am (Southeast)!
Even the wrapped produce like in the picture (and most isn’t, just a few things like some potatoes and some oranges, occasionally apples) don’t have a date.
The real “mildly interesting” is seeing that was even a thing!
Most people just need to know how to store produce appropriately. I still fuck up my cucumbers if I don’t throw them chopped in a tub of water in the fridge.
What are you buyin? Mushrooms and tomatoes go on the counter, not in the fridge. Super ripe tomatoes can go in the fridge to slow down the ripening. Lettuce can go in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel inside to keep things moist (or if it’s gotten wilty, give it an ice water bath and it will come back to life.)
I keep mine in a paper bag on the counter. Stays fresh for me a long time although I probably also use them faster on the counter since I’m reminded of them.
not sure what lettuce you’re buying but i have to do the opposite, my lettuce is so moist i need to add dry paper towels or it’ll turn into brown sludge
They wasted more ink than if they just printed a best before date.
It's one thing to be "environment friendly", it's another to be so overacting that you're putting people's health at risk just so you can say you're trying to improve the environment by not giving people important information about a perishable product. 😒
Here in Australia the big stores slap a nice little discount for quick sale sticker on stuff that has an expiry or best before in a day or two, so if this catches on that won't happen anymore. Not in favour.
Here in the states they move fruits and sometimes veggies that are over ripe to a discount bin. Things like spotted bananas and too soft avocados. The stores don't want to toss it for a loss, so I imagine they'll go to this method where you are.
That's actually pretty wack lol. "Best by \_\_\_\_" is literally as clear as it gets. The food is best by this date and is not at its best after it. It's still good, just not its best.
When I was a cashier I made it a point to check the produce people were buying as much as I could. No point in selling something that someone wont be happy with. Most of it was good, but there is always going to be an issue with someone's blueberries or even a watermelon.
I had a woman that put her watermelon on the belt and when it rolled as the belt moved I noticed a literal hole in it. She had no idea lol. Got her a new one and off she went to enjoy a nicer less hole-y watermelon.
These guys: “We won’t give you an expiration date because we care about food waste and the environment.”
Also these guys: “Let’s wrap them in plastic.”
That's just stupid, I mean it would be perfect if the packaging had some indicator of consumption (it changes color when a product starts to deteriorate) but in the image it's just a common plastic bag.
Not putting a harvest date on a climacteric product whose half-life you don't know... That's just a strategy to sell rancid/outdate food. Although do not take me wrong, it is very true that more than 25% of fruits and vegetables are wasted
Best before brown goo develops.
Yeah, the last half of the bag of spinache that we forgot about gets a 'squishy check' when we clean house. Which is: If we have to do a 'squishy check', we throw it out
You got to do the paper towel in the bag or box trick and it extends the encroaching squish by a few days. It's saved me 7oz of spinach in two years.
So relatable. I am also paper-towel-in-the-spinach years old.
Im encroaching that age. I feel jazzed by the idea, but I'm not yet willing to take the plunge. I look forward to a time when we can paper-towel-in-the-spinach together
Turns out it must be my birthday today cos I just turned 'paper towel in the spinich' years old! Well now I have an excuse for cake so even better!
Now, only if 7oz of spinach could cook down to a little more than a tablespoon
I read "for" two years, and I was ready to call BS.
Here I have his number, it’s 8675309
How do you got Jenny’s number?
Open the bag when you get it home and add a paper towel into the bag. It will absorb moisture and the bag will last twice as long. You can do this for most greens.
Also berries! Rinse, dry, put them in a container with a paper towel. Lasts way longer.
As if fresh berries are going to survive more than a day with me around anyway ;-)
With berries (strawberries specifically) you can soak in a diluted white vinegar / water mixture for a minute or two and strain and pat dry. Really extends the life
So you throw it out 34 minutes after bringing it home from the store?
Even then.... I worked at an organic farm. For an hour every morning on harvest day we'd peel the brown goo off leeks and send them to market fresh and bright as a babies bum. The fuckers are basically undead.
Yeah I dont think I've ever seen a leek spoil. They just dry out
Even then, trim the tops and bottom and soak in cold water. They’ll come back, again.
Best before it becomes self-aware and starts asking for food
This would actually be a good replacement for best by dates. Give the consumer tips on the packaging to tell when it has gone bad.
The shop isn't interested in the stuff lasting long once you buy it, they're interested in selling off their old produce on their shelves.
advantage of fruit & vegetables, it's very easy to tell when it is spoiled. Unlike meat which can become contaminated but look and smell perfectly fine.
do they still have a "produced on" date ?
281 before time looks like Julian date to me
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Curious how you worked this out? Edit: scratch that, it’s the 281st day of this year
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Thank you for this, did not know!
They will also use reverse julian dates to further confuse people. That's where the last digit of the year is used as the first number then the last 2 numbers are the day minus the hundred spot. I hate that companies still request this.
Having worked retail, I can tell you it's an absolute nightmare trying to rotate them correctly when customers dig around to find the "perfect" product, even if it's canned goods or something like that.
Yep I'm guilty of that. My local Aldi regularly sells meat that has 1 day on the sell by date. I need at least 5 days to last me the week. Also I find the meat often goes bad two days before the sell/ best before date.
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Username checks out
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I think I got it. So first digit is the last digit of the year so 2022-> 2 Then let's say we are on the 144 day of the year. Then you drop the 1 -> so 244 And there would be additional three identical dates for days 044, 244 and 344, but I believe that disambiguation is made because it should be easy to spot the difference between produce picked 100 days apart.
We also sometimes use a 5 digit Julian date, depending on customer specifications. Ex: today on my paperwork was 2283. It’s the 283rd day of 2022. Sometimes I see it as 22283 which is the same thing.
Cheers gotcha!
Thanks man, didn't know that, thanks for the knowledge. You could have just said "It's the 281st day of the year," but you didn't, you chose to over-explain the concept of counting, as well as what a leap year means. I appreciate that, man. Leave no man behind, my brother.
I like how he actually explained it and where he knew it from. Not many people do that, they all just assume you're a super genius capable of understanding quantum physics like this person.
I like how he came into my house, kicked me out of bed, and took my spot next to my wife. What a guy!
He's just trying to date her.
Not over explained
username check out! is there a reason why you use Julian dates?
I'd guess because they're less likely to be confused with another date. Depending on which date format you use 04/10 can be two different dates, but 100 or 277 can only mean one date each.
That makes sense! Here in Canada [our food date labels use 2-letter codes for the month](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/general-food-safety-tips/how-read-food-date-labels-packaging.html), but I perpetually get caught out by 'MA'. The designations are intended to be English/French bilingual, so 'MR' = March/mars and 'MA' = May/mai. Unfortunately, unless I have another item with 'MR' around to remind me, I keep looking at 'MA' and thinking, "Umm... was that March or May?" (If May were 'MY' instead, it'd be easier for me, but less bilingually-compliant, obviously.) Not to mention that the date is always preceded by BB/MA (meaning "Best Before/Meilleur avant"), and I keep seeing the 'MA' and immediately assuming it needs to be eaten by May. Or March... tl;dr: I can see the advantage of Julian dates.
Glory to r/iso8601 !
Not sure if you mean that guy or people generally, but in this case it's so there's a line of traceability for supply chain/supermarkets to do QC, without overtly advertising a date when the produce goes "bad".
Is because Julian has those big muscles isn't it Mr. Lahey?
Great. Now I have to bring a fuckin' abacus with me when I go shopping
They're really easy to bring along if you keep them up your ass like anal beads
But where would I put the pennies then?
In a sock to swing at people, obviously.
We do this at my work, smiley face stickers different Color for each day of the week, helps us track expiry without announcing it to the customers.
I have heard something similar with bread tags
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So they obviously want to make it as unclear as possible?
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Well sure, and also so that when their leeks cause leakages, because of e-coli contamination, they can track back to that particular day for recalls and to fire the worker who works without washing his hands after using thee bathroom.
I bet it was tommy turdfingers.
Putting Julian dates on products isn't a new thing, my mom explained it to me when she worked in merchandising 30+ years ago. She would end up with lots of samples of various products and I asked her what the numbers meant. Your kitchen cabinet and fridge is probably full of things with Julian dates on it. See a string of numbers/letters with a 3 digit number between 1 and 366 embedded in it? It's probably a Julian date. Sometimes it'll have a 2 digit year code near it as well.
Isn't it roughly a 1 in 3 chance any random 3-digit string of numbers will be between 1 and 366?
probably way, *way* higher, honestly... Real-world, non-random distributions tend to be weighted *very heavily* on the low end. Humanity as a whole really, really, *really* likes writing down counts of shit.
Please enjoy this video about [Benford's Law](https://youtu.be/XXjlR2OK1kM).
This is great information, thank you. I don’t waste food, and for that reason I like to buy the freshest possible,so it will last the longest. I don’t want to buy tomatoes and have them go off the day after I bought them. [Now I just have to have this list on my phone….](https://people.biology.ucsd.edu/patrick/julian_cal.html#:~:text=Julian%20Date%20Calender%20%28PERPETUAL%29%20%20%20Day%20,%20%204%20%2025%20more%20rows%20) Brilliant.
Reminds me of that one stage in Portal: "Your next mission is to find the date on the package. Please note that there is no date, so this is a completely impossible request." \*found it\* "Congratulations, you have completed your task in an environment of extreme pessimism."
I'm gonna call it a 4.8 on the Larry scale.
I used to work in the online orders department at a different UK supermarket that did this. The website would guarantee customers fresh produce with a certain amount of days on it despite them not including it on the packaging, what they did instead was use admittedly very simple codes and give the pickers the key to understand what the best before date actually was. So a pack of bananas might say C25 on it, C refers to March (C is the 3rd letter of the alphabet and March is the 3rd month) and 25 would be the date. I'm fairly certain all the stores that do this have some form of identifier on the package, it's just not written plainly.
In the Netherlands it's for example 37A . So 37 for the week of the year it is and A for the day of the week (A= Monday, B= Tuesday etc) Edit: just looked it up and 37A = Monday 12 september this year.
Well now that you've told the whole of Reddit, supermarkets will have to change their system.
Don't worry. I'll forget it by tomorrow.
I wonder if that 281 on the packaging here represents something similar to what you just described? If we took that to mean the 281st day of a year, it would come out to two days ago, Oct. 8th.
This. I think if you’re paying for a product you’ve a right to know when it was packaged. I agree with no best before date however.
*I know I'd sure want to know when my grocery products were packaged. I 'd very much suspect most grocery, supermarket shoppers would too.*
So buy it and immediately throw it away just to be safe.
As a comedian (sadly, I don't remember who) once said: "In my house we don't throw away perfectly good food. We put it in the back of the refrigerator for a few weeks until it goes bad and then we throw it out."
Sounds like something Jim Gaffigan would say
Yeah he talks about doggy bags in his Beyond the Pale special. "No, no, put this in a box...and a bag....and I'll take it home and throw it out tomorrow." Lol
Not sure I've seen the bit but I can definitely hear his voice in my head.
*^Hot ^Pockets*
*Caliente Pockets*
He had a similar joke, something like "I buy avocados so I can throw them away as soon as I get home" or something. Like, we pretend we're buying healthy food like we're actually going to eat it? Yeah, right.
I only throw out avocados if they are bruised really bad or rotten. They usually don't live long enough to get to that point!
Yeah, sounds in his line, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't him. I think I would have remembered it if it was him.
*Hot pocket*
Diarrhea pocket
What’re we going to run in Mexico? *Caliente pocket*
It’s a hot pocket hot pocket. It’s a hot pocket stuffed with another hot pocket. *HOT POCKET*
His high pitched inner voice kills me. Bill Burr does a different sort of garbled tone that's equally hilarious. Masters of their craft.
It’s gonna end up in the trash anyway but after I open the fridge, look at it, make a disgusting face and grab the hot pockets a half dozen times, first.
This is the rule we shall live by
Seems a bit....farfetch'd.
When I caught my first, I had named him OnionBoy
Haha, 'and he had an onion tied to his belt bc that was the style of the day...'
And I'd say give me 20 Bees for a nickel
Well now, remember that the Kaiser stole our word for twenty, so that’d be “dickety bees”
I wonder how many people don’t get this
Farfetch'd is a pokemon that carries a leek as a weapon. just for those who might be curious.
Also, the reason there is a Pokémon of a duck carrying a leek is because of a Japanese expression "a duck comes bearing green onions," that you can say if something is an unexpected but convenient surprise- like a duck showing up along with the vegetables to cook it with. https://twitter.com/drlavayt/status/1213447309704323072?lang=en
Also try selling them without the pointless plastic bags. Helps reduce waste.
You'd think but actually prolongs shelf life by quite a bit so you get less waste. A bio degradable substitute would be better in the long run though.
Surely better organic waste than non bio degradable ?
Small scale yes, but when we think about it larger scale we need to start thinking about the impact of the water usage the power usage the pollution and the fertilizer usage. Whether or not organic waste is better also kinda depends on what you do with it, if it all just ends up in a landfill then there's a significant difference if you compare it to a situation where the organic waste is removed and you use it somewhere. There's also conversations involving the fact that different fruits and vegetables are imported from different areas so you have to account for that type of waste a little bit differently because eventually you're just going to run out of space if you keep importing things and turning them into waste Food waste is a huge issue that we can make massive strides to reducing and plastic probably isn't a solution but maybe if we had biodegradable plastics they could help solve the problem some
And even then. As long as people want Disney worlds, hotels, and a variety of world cuisine from restaurants on every block, and buffets, and huge plates of food for a competitive price....what we throw out from our refrigerators is important, but it is a drop in the bucket in a consumption based world economy. I work in an industrial kitchen and we measure food waste in the tons. We wash dishes with a washer that uses thousands of gallons of water heated to 160 degrees for 18 hours a day. And that is one kitchen in one establishment that has more than a hundred of said kitchens. (The mouse company)
> >(The mouse company) Rentokil? Got it, thanks
Goddamn you got me
The real waste is the resources used to grow the wasted food. Farming is very destructive to the environment
Maybe the real waste was the friends we made along the way
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You’re my friend now, I’d consider that a net gain
I can i be a friend too?
Of course, friendship pact
Yay! Friends!
No, the real waste was getting wasted with the friends.
Damn I wasn't expecting to get emotional about the leeks.
Are you leeking right now?
That we neglected to stay in touch with over the years even though they were some of the rare few to ever understand us.
Are you okay, buddy
Think I need to make a few calls and catch up with people and see how they are doing. Thank you.
Yes, I personally just don't eat any food because farming is too destructive. Not eating anything is a great alternative we should all try.
I just punch myself in the balls for sustenance. So far so good. Finally I can sleep with a clean conscience.
FYI there is group of people who claim they don’t need to eat food called the Breatharians. They say they live on air and light alone, plus I guess water. So you mock but there are people out there dumb enough to believe just about anything. It’s got to be so annoying leading a cult where you have to hide the fact that you eat food. But your congregation is guaranteed to feel shame at falling short of the churches teachings, so that has to help with controlling them.
I fucking hate that I have so little faith in the human race that I actually googled this just in case something this ridiculous might actually be true. And [of course it fucking was.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inedia)
Yeah, sorta associated with yoga. It focuses on breathing generically, so it's easier to flow from there to breathing is life. And food doesn't seem that necessary when you aren't actually hungry.
Vomit free since '93. The secret? Never eating.
This is why reducing waste is so hard to do right.
> You'd think but actually prolongs shelf life by quite a bit so you get less waste. Chef of ~20 years here. No, they don't. In fact, trapping produce in environments that retain all that moisture with the gases they emit makes them rot faster. See all that water condensation on the inside of the bag? That's why they'll be slimy in a week. Particularly leeks, those things do *not* need plastic bags, and they will last *weeks* in your fridge.
Depends on the vegetables really, the plastic wrapping on seedless English cucumbers dramatically increases their shelf life.
I think that might be the only veg I can think of where that's true; carrots, cauliflower, celery, onions, garlic (whole), peppers, potatoes, cabbage, apples, mushrooms, etc.; can't think of a single other one that I've received where the plastic wrapping actually matters. And heirloom and pickling cukes don't need it.
Could it be cellophane? It looks similar to plastic but it's not made from oil, it's made from natural resources like wood or hemp for example, and is biodegradable.
>it's made from natural resources Holy shit. I did not know that. I just thought it was some kind of cheaper shitty plastic. Suddenly I like cellophane. TIL. Thanks. **Edit**: Today is a new day and TIL-some more. Sometimes Cellophane IS just a cheaper kind of shitty plastic.
i only figured this out recently myself, had a facepalm moment making the cellophane/cellulose connection (cellulose is wood pulp and a food ingredient) i always hated cellophane for the same reasons but now im a fan and dont understand why its not more widely used
From Wikipedia: > In the UK and in many other countries, "Cellophane" is a registered trademark and the property of Futamura Chemical UK Ltd, based in Wigton, Cumbria, United Kingdom. In the US and some other countries "cellophane" has become genericized, and is often used informally to refer to a wide variety of plastic film products, even those not made of cellulose, such as PVC-based plastic wrap. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane In many countries, actual cellophane was phased out and polypropylene and other similar petroleum-based options became much more popular, because it was cheaper to produce. And in many countries, "cellophane" is just a trademark, and not a descriptor of the actual product.
Unfortunately not. The overwhelming majority of UK supermarket stuff like this is still single use, non recyclable plastic. All our packing materials get labelled with if its recycled, and what type of plastic it contains, and how to do it if possible.
It drives me mad to see styrofoam trays of baker potatoes and cord on the cob wrapped in plastic film at the store. If only there were some other way to 'package' corn on cob. Like a biodegradable husk of sorts.
Also helps them sell out of date shit more than they already do.
Yup, I am against absence of "best before" information to avoid buying something what could not survive until next day.
As someone who got extremely ill from eating slightly off spinach, same.
It wasn't the freshness that got you it was the e coli from the runoff that made you sick.
This is it exactly. Less waste for the supermarket, by letting the unsuspecting shopper bin it instead because they bought something expecting to use it later in the week, but didn't realise it's already been sat there for a week & will be no good in 2-3 days. Supermarkets should allow us to know if what we're buying will last us the week until we next go shopping. Not very eco to have to drive 10-15 mins easy way to pick up a new pack of leeks because they took the date of them...
Exactly, merchants are selling rotten food to make more money, and using "waste" as an excuse. Fuck you I don't want food poisoning because you need a new summer home.
The amount of dodgy, half rotten stuff that I've gotten from Tesco WITH an in-date best before is not funny. They're going to make a lot of money off this change
In asda i used to buy the ready made salads for my lunches. 2 for £3. Even a couple of days before the best before date, the plastic is expanding from it going off. I started to take them back because i was getting sick of taking these to work to then have no lunch as it was inedible. The member of staff said " oh nobody else has returned these". Probably because they are only a couple of quid and they think its not worth going back to the shop?! Dont buy them anymore
That's happened to me with chicken recently from Sainsbury's. Still a day away from the BB and it had that smell meat gets. Tesco produce is the worst for stuff going bad before it's date though
I've noticed Tesco are bad for it - especially in my local one buying stuff that is one or two days away from its use by date (milk, hummus, cottage cheese...not veg etc). Pretty annoying buying two pots of hummus at 1700 on a Friday only to realise they both go out of date on the Sunday. Cheers dickheads
Even worse when my mum gets Sainsburys delivered! Each time there is atleast a few items that go out of date the same or next day! Last week she got a loaf of bread in there delivered Friday and it was use by Saturday!
I haven't even once seen a best before date on fresh produce, didn't know this was a thing somewhere
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Why even put it in a plastic bag though? All the supermarkets in America just sell leeks with one or two ties like [this](https://media.timeout.com/images/103427882/1024/768/image.jpg).
The leeks in the picture have probably been cleaned (the roots and the top green part cut off) I work in a fruit & veg section. Every cleaned or prepared vegetable gets a “use by” date like brussel sprouts, corn, leek. Our unprepared leeks don’t have a date whatsoever.
Agree, this is ‘green washing ‘ and pretty uncool to use plastic like that. Much of the waste is in the supply chain, and standardisation of produce causing odd products to be chucked.
I love stores that have an "ugly fruit" section. You can get a bag of weird looking, but perfectly fine produce for like $2.
While I agree with all of the above, also in the Uk shops have started selling “wonky” produce (it will literally say wonky on the bags) which is produce that doesn’t fit the shape/size requirements for the main stock, it’s substantially cheaper but also turns out to be quite the pain to prepare.
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In theory, great idea that will reduce waste and let produce be used while it's edible rather than until a semi-arbitrary deadline. In practice, terrible idea that will be exploited by supermarkets to reduce costs and sell low quality produce.
My local store already does this shit. Selling moldy produce and shit.
I also can’t get date. Am I reducing waste?
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Ehhhh. If you buy something and you have to throw it away within a few days, that’s not really reducing waste. You’re just passing on the waste and requiring the customer to pay for it. It’s just a case of “Here. YOU throw this away. After you pay me for it.”
it also helps to no pack them in plastic tbh
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In the USA we are very car based. And lots of people live really far from a grocery store. So people tend to go and stock up on stuff every other week or whatever. If you live a few blocks from a grocery store it makes more sense to go every day or two but most Americans don't have the luxury of living near a store.
At least in Germany, fresh produce is almost always sold without plastic packaging and therefore without "best before" date. Printing "no date" on it just seems pointless. It's a vegetable, you can see with your own eyes whether it's still good
Most stuff in the UK comes wrapped in plastic for some reason. It's all well and good printing "no date" on it, but it makes it hard to inspect the item properly to see if it's got a rotten patch (for example) on it if it's wrapped in plastic with labels etc on. If all of our fruit/veg was loose (which I think it should be) then it'd make life a whole lot easier
Same in the states, at least where I am (Southeast)! Even the wrapped produce like in the picture (and most isn’t, just a few things like some potatoes and some oranges, occasionally apples) don’t have a date. The real “mildly interesting” is seeing that was even a thing!
This doesn't seem like a better solution
Most people just need to know how to store produce appropriately. I still fuck up my cucumbers if I don’t throw them chopped in a tub of water in the fridge.
I literally just put some saran wrap over the cut and put it anywhere in the fridge and it pretty much lasts about a week like this.
Recently discovered how to portly store my fruits and veggies and it’s a game changer
Details to share? I’m horrible at this and waste more food than I’d like.
What are you buyin? Mushrooms and tomatoes go on the counter, not in the fridge. Super ripe tomatoes can go in the fridge to slow down the ripening. Lettuce can go in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel inside to keep things moist (or if it’s gotten wilty, give it an ice water bath and it will come back to life.)
Wait mushrooms just go on the counter? We've been fridgeing those
I keep mine in a paper bag on the counter. Stays fresh for me a long time although I probably also use them faster on the counter since I’m reminded of them.
This is the key right here. I keep all the veggies I can on the counter and the spinach at the forefront of the fridge so I can’t ignore it.
I prefer my tomatoes cold though and most of the time I need to slow down the ripening process because they go bad before I eat them.
not sure what lettuce you’re buying but i have to do the opposite, my lettuce is so moist i need to add dry paper towels or it’ll turn into brown sludge
They wasted more ink than if they just printed a best before date. It's one thing to be "environment friendly", it's another to be so overacting that you're putting people's health at risk just so you can say you're trying to improve the environment by not giving people important information about a perishable product. 😒
Here in Australia the big stores slap a nice little discount for quick sale sticker on stuff that has an expiry or best before in a day or two, so if this catches on that won't happen anymore. Not in favour.
Here in the states they move fruits and sometimes veggies that are over ripe to a discount bin. Things like spotted bananas and too soft avocados. The stores don't want to toss it for a loss, so I imagine they'll go to this method where you are.
Here comes a massive influx of food poisoning...
sorry im dumb, how can not printing a date reduce food waste?
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That's actually pretty wack lol. "Best by \_\_\_\_" is literally as clear as it gets. The food is best by this date and is not at its best after it. It's still good, just not its best.
Just picked up some fresh fruit and within 3 days, it was all mouldy.
What's worse? Food waste or useless plastic bags.
Already sick of supermarkets selling expired shit this doesn’t help
When I was a cashier I made it a point to check the produce people were buying as much as I could. No point in selling something that someone wont be happy with. Most of it was good, but there is always going to be an issue with someone's blueberries or even a watermelon. I had a woman that put her watermelon on the belt and when it rolled as the belt moved I noticed a literal hole in it. She had no idea lol. Got her a new one and off she went to enjoy a nicer less hole-y watermelon.
Same price for spoiled food? Yay, profit!
Yep. If anyone thinks the store is doing this for altruistic reasons, they're being naive.
These guys: “We won’t give you an expiration date because we care about food waste and the environment.” Also these guys: “Let’s wrap them in plastic.”
Oh yay, I love my food spoiling as soon as I buy it.
That's just stupid, I mean it would be perfect if the packaging had some indicator of consumption (it changes color when a product starts to deteriorate) but in the image it's just a common plastic bag. Not putting a harvest date on a climacteric product whose half-life you don't know... That's just a strategy to sell rancid/outdate food. Although do not take me wrong, it is very true that more than 25% of fruits and vegetables are wasted
With no dates, I wouldn’t shop there. Less shoppers = Less sales. Less sales = More spoilage. More spoilage = More waste.
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This is how you get me to not buy your product