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What do you think the percentage is of Americans who throws out good food (even junk food) based on the expiration date? I mean - they do so not because the food might be stale but because they believe it suddenly became possibly toxic to eat.
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What's the percentage for non-food stuff like soap? The other day I noticed my liquid hand soap has an expiration date for whatever reason. I better hurry up - I only have two years left of it being safe.
I started thinking about it after I read this...
"Good thing I read the labels and dates before I opened or ate anything. I avoided potential food poisoning and/or a trip to urgent care by paying attention."
It's from an Amazon review. After they checked the label - they learned the package was delivered with an expiration date two weeks past. They are talking about a Ruffles potato chip variety pack.
Avoiding the topic at hand to drop some useless trivia: the wide adoption of expiration dates on food in the US can largely be traced to Al Capone. During the Depression he ran food shelves and soup kitchens to improve people's opinions of him. Once, milk his organization was giving out lead many to get sick. And so some enterprising fellow in the Capone organization thought that maybe they should date the milk to avoid it in the future. They weren't the first to use expiration dates, but they definitely helped spread their use
Wow.