{"id":92114,"date":"2016-10-25T02:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-25T09:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/?p=92114"},"modified":"2016-10-24T17:23:23","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T00:23:23","slug":"eating-food-after-the-expiration-dates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/eating-food-after-the-expiration-dates\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything You Need to Know About Expiration Dates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How many times\u00a0have you thrown out uneaten food because it expired way too\u00a0soon? We have&#8230;multiple times.<\/p>\n<p>But next time, think twice before tossing your &#8220;expired&#8221; food. Just because\u00a0the date stamped on the packaging has passed doesn&#8217;t actually mean the food has gone bad. Some food can actually be eaten even after certain expiration dates. We did some research and listed some tips for you to make sure you&#8217;re not throwing out perfectly edible food or eating expired snacks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Do the Dates Mean?<br \/>\n<\/strong>Labeling foods with dates of any kind is <em>voluntary\u00a0<\/em>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fda.gov\/aboutfda\/transparency\/basics\/ucm210073.htm\" target=\"_blank\">not required by the FDA<\/a>. However, most companies do label their foods, and instead\u00a0use different\u00a0phrasing &#8212;\u00a0few of them are actually &#8220;expiration dates.&#8221; According to <em><a href=\"http:\/\/healthland.time.com\/2013\/09\/18\/is-your-food-expired-dont-be-so-quick-to-toss-it\/\" target=\"_blank\">Time<\/a><\/em>, here are what the most common labeling means:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Used by&#8221; or &#8220;Best by&#8221; &#8212; this date doesn&#8217;t usually\u00a0mean the product has gone bad, but it&#8217;s more of an indication of when the freshness is at its best.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Sell by&#8221; &#8212; this is intended for the seller, not the consumer. It&#8217;s generally used to determine when to restock, etc., and many believe it should be concealed from the customer, so they don&#8217;t confuse it with an expiration date.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>General Guidelines to Follow:<br \/>\n<\/strong>Some foods <a href=\"http:\/\/healthland.time.com\/2013\/09\/18\/foods-you-are-probably-throwing-away-too-early\/slide\/think-before-you-toss\/\" target=\"_blank\">can be used well past<\/a>\u00a0the &#8220;sell by,&#8221; or in some cases &#8220;enjoy by&#8221; date on the\u00a0packaging, but it can be tricky to figure out which ones! Here are some guidelines to remember:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Eggs<\/strong>\u00a0can be used 3-5 weeks after you buy them. To test freshness, place an egg in a bowl of water, and if it floats, don&#8217;t eat it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Canned food<\/strong>\u00a0is a case by case basis. Some can last for years, and\u00a0the date will be something like a year, but canned food will\u00a0last about two years after you purchase it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Apples<\/strong>\u00a0can last about three weeks if refrigerated. If you cook and then freeze them, they&#8217;ll last about eight months.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cereals &#8220;<\/strong>don&#8217;t really go bad,&#8221;\u00a0according to Emily Broad Leib, the director of Harvard Food Law &amp; Policy Clinic. She says there isn&#8217;t &#8220;much of a quality issue&#8221; and if you leave the box open, it&#8217;ll get stale but you wont &#8220;get sick from it.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Meat<\/strong>\u00a0is better off being frozen\u00a0from the start.\u00a0If you freeze it, meat can last for months.\u00a0It may lose some flavor, but seasoning and cooking it can make up for that loss.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>xx, The FabFitFun Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":"How many times\u00a0have you thrown out uneaten food because it expired way too\u00a0soon? We have...multiple ...","author":1557554,"featured_media":92161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[268],"tags":[],"thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/static.fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/24172321\/shutterstock_300024362-660x400.jpg","thumbnail_url_middle_card":"https:\/\/static.fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/24172321\/shutterstock_300024362.jpg","formated_date":"October 25, 2016","category_name":"Food &amp; Drink","category_icon":"","author_name":"","trending":false,"sponsored":false,"random_color":"#5432db","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1557554"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabfitfun.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}