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USDA app aims to stop Americans from wasting 36 lbs. food a month
Washington Examiner ^ | April 22, 2015 | 9:23 PM | Paul Bedard

Posted on 04/23/2015 9:19:33 AM PDT by Olog-hai

The Agriculture Department has determined that 36 pounds of food per person is wasted every month, about 21 percent of the available food in the United States. And one big reason: those expiration dates are wrong or overly cautious.

The solution: Hold your nose and just eat it. Even if it is 18 months past the expiration date.

It sounds yucky, but officials think they’ve got the trick to get moms to feed expired but safe food to kids and adults alike—they’ve even got an app. It’s called FoodKeeper and it is supposed to have a more accurate calculation of food expiration dates, even for baby food and eggs. …

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet; Food
KEYWORDS: nannystate; usda
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To: exnavy

You forget about the Obama school lunch program. I bet that equals 30 of the 36 pounds of wasted food per month.


41 posted on 04/23/2015 10:32:59 AM PDT by Paperpusher
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To: Olog-hai

My dad swore, that expiration dates were there just to make you buy more food. He grew up when there were no expiration dates.

When we would visit him in his later years, we would have to dump out his milk and throw stuff out of his fridge, because he swore up and down milk was good till 2 weeks after the date!

This is what growing up in the depression made him think.

We would dump the milk out, and it would be chunky, and he would say that it was “sleeping milk” a term I have herd a few times in my life.

Gross.

You would pour it in coffee, and it would sit on the top, lol.

Bread? Old? No way! Scrape the green off he would (if he could see it).

And mind you, he had money, was in no way hurting to buy milk or bread.

Just his mind set.


42 posted on 04/23/2015 10:40:22 AM PDT by esoxmagnum (we used to give to FR until they accepted advertising from Apple)
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To: Olog-hai

I haven’t thrown out 36 lb of food in the last decade.

I heard a radio news report yesterday say that the reason for this is to increase the time covered by the ‘use by’ dates. The FDA seems to realize many foods are still edible long after the ‘use by’ date has passed.


43 posted on 04/23/2015 10:47:01 AM PDT by TomGuy
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To: esoxmagnum

You described my In-Laws, both born in 1925.


44 posted on 04/23/2015 10:50:40 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Olog-hai

Depends entirely on the container. A good steel can, un-dented and free of rust: 20 years or more. I’ve eaten bacon that was canned in 1943. . . .in 1987 (Bulk ration bacon, came in a #10 can, that’s what they served, as well as scrambled eggs from Egg Powder canned in 1955. . . all in a military field kitchen)

If the can is swelled, cracked, or leaking, throw it out, but otherwise, if it smells fine, it should be fine. . .


45 posted on 04/23/2015 11:21:43 AM PDT by Salgak (Peace Through Superior Firepower. . . .)
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To: HotHunt
Sell-by dates are not the same as expiration dates.
I know that, I eat stuff well after the sell by date.
If it looks, smells or tastes funny (and by that I mean not funny) then out it goes, as it should.
Reducing waste is good but don't try to make it mandatory.
It's my food, my responsibility, my choice.

46 posted on 04/23/2015 11:25:00 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (Corporate Profits are better than Government Waste)
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To: BitWielder1

Agreed.


47 posted on 04/23/2015 11:33:40 AM PDT by HotHunt
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To: cripplecreek

Agreed; if it is not actually crawling off my plate I will eat it.
Pushing 65 and have eaten some pretty dicey things in my life, never have had “food poisoning” and don’t expect to start now.


48 posted on 04/23/2015 11:35:34 AM PDT by 5th MEB (Progressives in the open; --- FIRE FOR EFFECT!!)
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To: Olog-hai

This article is bullshit.


49 posted on 04/23/2015 11:37:50 AM PDT by rockinqsranch ((Dems, Libs, Socialists, call 'em what you will. They ALL have fairies livin' in their trees.))
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To: rockinqsranch
It is the AP. They will learn too late that you can only be a free press by being a truthful press.
50 posted on 04/23/2015 11:39:48 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: BitWielder1
I think there is a lot of waste, but probably not so much caused by the expiration date concern.

My wife will buy a rotisserie chicken for $5 at Costco. One night, I'll have some breast meat and she'll eat the legs. The next day she picks the chicken clean for chicken tacos or enchiladas. Then the carcass goes to make the base for a soup. That girl can work a chicken.

She can make the most of leftovers. I guess she learned it from her mother. She uses one of those vacuum sealer things to freeze food that will go bad before it gets eaten.

Neither of us come from wealthy families, but we weren't dirt poor either. Wasting food was a sin in our house.

"You can have all you want, but if it's on your plate, you eat it." "Don't complain about garden chores. You'll be thankful for those vegetables in the winter." "We hunt and fish to eat. We don't kill anything we won't clean and eat."

A different era, I suppose. Thrift was valued.

51 posted on 04/23/2015 11:42:41 AM PDT by TontoKowalski
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To: TontoKowalski

You’re describing a pro-family and anti-collectivist era. That’s the antithesis of the left and their false scriptures (the Commie Manifesto and Das Kapital).


52 posted on 04/23/2015 11:45:49 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

We’re Americans. Throw the food away.

This ain’t no gulag or 3rd world country...


53 posted on 04/23/2015 11:55:39 AM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: Olog-hai

A power mad government agency that takes millions of pounds of food products and destroys it every year because of some 80 year old socialist ‘New Deal’ policy telling us to conserve food.


54 posted on 04/23/2015 11:59:23 AM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: Vendome

Get caught feeding your baby expired baby food and you wont have your baby for long...CPS would be all over that in a heart beat.


55 posted on 04/23/2015 1:39:52 PM PDT by Crim (Palin / West '16)
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To: Crim

Got a source for that?


56 posted on 04/23/2015 1:51:04 PM PDT by ansel12 (LEGAL immigrants, 30 million 1980-2012, continues to remake the nation's electorate for democrats)
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To: Vendome

Be intelligent and discerning, not superstitious or gullible.

When there is no reason to throw out food, then don’t.


57 posted on 04/23/2015 1:52:36 PM PDT by ansel12 (LEGAL immigrants, 30 million 1980-2012, continues to remake the nation's electorate for democrats)
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To: Crim

Nonsense.

Canned food keeps for 8-10 years easily.

Feeding a baby anything but mother’s milk is what should alarm everyone.
.


58 posted on 04/23/2015 1:54:40 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: ansel12
Yeah...my source is called the top of the page:

"It sounds yucky, but officials think they’ve got the trick to get moms to feed expired but safe food to kids and adults alike—they’ve even got an app. It’s called FoodKeeper and it is supposed to have a more accurate calculation of food expiration dates, even for baby food and eggs.

59 posted on 04/23/2015 2:03:06 PM PDT by Crim (Palin / West '16)
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To: editor-surveyor

I didnt say anything about the baby food being no good.

I said :

Get caught feeding your baby expired baby food and you wont have your baby for long...CPS would be all over that in a heart beat.


60 posted on 04/23/2015 2:10:16 PM PDT by Crim (Palin / West '16)
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