Due Date

My husband and I have an ongoing disagreement over expiration dates. (Sorry to disappoint those of you who thought you were on the cusp of reading about baby news!)

I am a firm believer in the idea that if the people who packaged the food/drink I buy cared enough to give me a date when they think it won't be good anymore, then who am I to second guess them?

Anything that is past its due date in my house is thrown out immediately. It doesn't matter how much is left or if it was ever opened in the first place.

My WH, on the other hand, takes a decidedly different view of this. To him, expiration dates are a friendly reminder to hurry up and try to eat whatever it is that's old in the next few days. No immediate action required.

So as you can see, this leads to a parting of the ways when it comes to items in our refrigerator that have outlasted their useful (read "fresh") life.

There was an incident a number of years ago when my WH and I were discussing this very issue. There was a container of orange juice a few days past its due date that I wanted to throw out. In a show of manly strength and determination to not "waste" food, my WH drank said orange juice and then spent the early morning hours revisitng it in our bathroom (or I guess you could say it revisited him).

Fast-forward to this week. We come home from Maine to find an unopened gallon of milk in the fridge with a due date of July 5. Mind you, this is July 8. My WH joyfully pulls out a glass, undoes the top of the milk and pours. This thin filmy substance comes out, followed by a "glop! Glop!"

"We just need to shake it up a little bit. The cream seems to have settled", he tells me.

So about 10 minutes later, when my WH is busy playing with OBB, I take the milk container and pour its contents down the drain. This is discovered later by my WH to his disappointment.

Is there such a need to not waste food that we're willing to eat things that might make us sick? Wasn't there a reason they started putting dates on stuff? I know, someone will say it's all part of a vast conspiracy to make us buy stuff more often. The dairy people and the chicken people and the beef people are all colluding to increase sales. I don't think so. I think they're just trying to avoid lawsuits. And keep us safe. So I'm doing my part too.