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.
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.
July 5th, 2010 at 07:13 pm 1278357189
July 5th, 2010 at 09:52 pm 1278366748
July 6th, 2010 at 12:27 am 1278376076