Sell By Date: An Ingenious Invention To Sell More?

Are we puppets on the manufacturer string?

Fresh foods such as dairy do have a limit to when it still tastes good to consume, but even fresh cream will merely expire into sour cream!

A few weeks ago, I was visiting an elderly gentleman and we were discussing how nice a proper cup of coffee tastes. You know, the one made the filter way. Oh, he agreed that filter coffee was good and even better when made the old fashioned filter paper way. But, he confessed that his family had switched over to the capsule machine ( ie; Monsieur Clooney ) for convenience.

But, and here is the funny thing, he thought he had a packet of filter coffee still in the cupboard for emergencies. Off he rushed to have a look and triumphantly found an unopened pack of Dallmayr ground coffee. Alas, because it was meant for a coffee emergency, it had expired ...and with aplomb too. November 2013!

Even though he is from a generation that lived through WW II, a generation that hardly ever throws anything away, he headed to the rubbish bin at great speed.

" If you are going to throw it out, would you mind if I give it a try first? "

A shrug and a raised eyebrow later, I had the packet of coffee in my hand and was heading home. Two thoughts were swirling in my mind...

1. A lot of material and a handful of coffee beans were used to make this packet and it would be sinful to just discard it.
2. Saving 6 Euros is not too shabby and surely it was worth a try.

Before you wonder if I had subjected Bob unwittingly to any questionable drinks ( ...eh, such as those cups of tea with just a hint of almond about it... ), I did tell him that we were going to give this packet of coffee a green light. Just to be on the safe side though, I phoned my mum to ask her opinion.

" You won't get ill and at worst, it won't have too much flavour left."

Well,that was exactly the outcome. The coffee was drinkable but maybe not in its heyday of flavour.

How much food gets thrown out without being used, because we are so conditioned to follow the manufacturer's idea of expiry date? Scary indeed.

Bob and I headed over to the Spar in Kohfidisch to do a bit of grocery shopping yesterday. Spar are very good, as they do mark down their products by 50% when they are near the expiry date. Mainly dairy products and even ice cream! When a lot of your shopping basket is marked down, their is always a pleasurable surprise at the check out.

F.Y.I.:

• Milk is still good at least 3 days after expiry.
• Yoghurt can be still be good a week after expiry,
• Cheeses too.
• Even eggs can be used at least up to expiry.

Bob even used a curry powder not so long ago that had expired in 2012 - we're still here.

Biggi