By Max Johnston
Today’s idea to make the world less hungry is to regulate and standardize the date labels on our food.
If you wander through your local grocery store, you’re likely to see a lot of ‘labels’ with dates preceded by a warning of sorts.
“Best if used by,” this date, “sell by,” that date, “use by”…this date.
These labels can have different meanings, some are for freshness, others are for quality, but all these labels do have one thing in common: they’re confusing.
The nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that 20% of food waste that occurs at home, stems from confusion over what these labels mean.
In other words, people are throwing away good food, because they think that if it’s past the “best if used by” date, it’s spoiled. That isn’t the case.
In this episode, you’ll hear about why these labels are causing food waste, and past and future legislation to simplify food labels.