Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The cost of sending a ton of food to a landfill in South Carolina averages $66; the methane which landfills emit is twenty-five percent more potent in enhancing the greenhouse effect carbon dioxide is. Clemson’s Food Safety and Nutrition Team came to Making It Grow recently with some ideas on how to reduce the twenty percent of landfill space that is devoted to receiving discarded food. Education is one way to reduce food waste. Except in the case of infant formula, the terms sell by, purchase by, and best used by are in no way scientifically devised or enforceable. They are simply guestimates of when the item in question will still have its highest quality. Our safety agents told us that proper storage is a better guide to determining and prolonging quality than relying on these somewhat arbitrary suggested dates.
Sell-By Dates on Food
