Interpreting Expiration Dates on Packaged Foods
Most packaged foods come with an expiration date or "Sell-by" date. It can be hard to know how to interpret these dates. As I explain in this video, these dates are not standardized in any meaningful way, and they can vary both by the brand or manufacturer, and by the type of product, sometimes with the same brand having wildly different dates (in terms of when the product actually spoils) for different types of the same products, such as different types of nuts.
I explain that the main thing that goes wrong with packaged foods is that the fat in food goes rancid. However, the rate at which this happens is different from one food to the next. I go through numerous examples of products I eat regularly, and explain which ones tend to stay fresh longer than others and how this affects how I interpret the expiration dates when shopping at a store.