this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 80 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Sometimes expiration dates refer to when enough plastic from the packaging has decayed into the food material that it might be a problem. Bottled water works that way.

I don't know:

  • How much science there is behind the dating
  • How much plastic you're consuming in your food anyway and so who cares what's the difference
  • Whether that's what's going on with this salt package specifically

But it's not automatically crazy for there to be an expiration date on an immortal product if it comes packaged up in plastic.

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I'm no expert, but I did watch a minidocumentary that explained that these best by dates are mostly arbitrary aside from perishable foods.

For some products they'll have taste testers rate the same product packaged at different times from 1-10 with 10 being factory fresh, and when it drops below an average of 7, that's the date they put on the packaging

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 11 points 1 year ago

Yeah. I feel like they probably just pick some random bullshit, and if people get botulism they look at reducing it, and if they throw away a quarter-million dollars worth of product that expired they look at increasing it, and if neither of those happens then they don't worry about it. I have no knowledge of it but even hearing that they do taste tests is a little surprising to me. But I am cynical.

I did know some people who were once "employed" on a sort of temp job that was excising already-passed expiration dates from a massive number of cans of fish, and then stamping new later dates on them.

☹️

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