“Use by,” “best by,” “expires on” or any of the other myriad phrases you might see stamped on your food don’t have official definitions. “Many people interpret food dates to be about the safety of food,” said ReFED President Dana Gunders. “But for the vast majority of foods, those dates are really just about quality.” Matt Brooks/The Washington Post

Date labels. Expiration dates. Best-by dates. Whatever you call them, at some point, you’ve probably squinted at those tiny dot-matrix-printed numbers and wondered: “Does this mean my cheese might kill me?”

If so, you’re not alone. Date labels are often unclear, inconsistent and downright bewildering. ReFED, a nonprofit dedicated to food waste reduction, estimates that confusion over those dates and phrases leads U.S. consumers to throw away

See Full Page