Layout:
Home > Shelf life - it is important!

Shelf life - it is important!

July 5th, 2010 at 07:13 pm

I had sort of an epiphany today as I was cleaning up some old grapes after being away for a while. Just about everything has a shelf life, and it can be very costly to ignore that fact. In an ideal world, we would review everything at an appropriate interval to ensure that it is still good. Sounds easy, right? But as refrigerators everywhere can attest, it certainly isn't!

The problem for me is that it can get quite tedious. Checking the garden for the need for watering, for instance.

I'm guessing there is no easy answer! But I suspect it is like exercise - you need discipline, and it has to be fun. Any ideas?

Oh, and here is a good example where knowledge is power in this area.

Text is http://www.stilltasty.com/questions/index/7/page:1 and Link is
http://www.stilltasty.com/questions/index/7/page:1

And that site also makes a very good point - on some products, even a use by date is just for taste reasons, seldom safety. But sometimes it is! This area needs work. My suggestion (and I am serious here) is a "use by or get sick or die date". But realistically, if we just standardized on "Best By" dates for non-safety, we could restrict "Use by" strictly to safety issues, like milk. etc.

4 Responses to “Shelf life - it is important!”

  1. NJDebbie Says:
    1278357189

    Hi Ralph!

  2. boomeyers Says:
    1278366748

    I lived on leftover pizza (normally left out!!)in college. It never made me sick, but I probably would'nt do it today!

  3. Ralph Says:
    1278376076

    Hi Debbie!

  4. Jerry Says:
    1279367944

    We have been pretty lucky lately as our friend (who lives upstairs in our apartment building) has been traveling a lot... and whenever he leaves for a few days on a business trip it leads him to bring us all of his perishables! He'd rather have the insurance that someone was using the food than come back and find it spoiled in his absence. I'm definitely making dinner for this guy when he gets home!
    Jerry

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]