this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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If people don't trust it either, there's also an alternative, reading the package for the expected spoiling date.
That date means nothing. It's a best by date, not an expiration date. It's just the last date you can get a refund if it goes bad.
But I've had a gallon of milk last a whole month after the best by date.
Yeah, the date on the package means even less if you freeze it. Frozen meat is good for years.
(Freeze your ground beef, freeze your bread. Throwing away food is expensive!)
Yes, and freeze sauces, soups, and stews in ice cube trays and then into freezer bags for easy portioning later. This was life changing advice for me.
Freeze your mom, freeze your dad!
Freeze your recent high school grad!
Freeze the dog, freeze the cat!
Freeze your hurble durble sprat!
Freeze it all or freeze it none,
If it's frozen you have won;
Freezing everything you see
Will grant you immortality!
We use these for soup:
https://www.soupercubes.com/products/silicone-food-freezer-trays?variant=45179217969378
Pricey for glorified ice cube trays, but really convinent to have the soup portioned to size.
This is why I can! I don't have enough freezer space!
I live in an apartment with a very small fridge that has a tiny freezer inside it. I got a small chest freezer that I use for storage. I only use the one in my fridge for freezing stuff, then it moves to the chest freezer.
Do you do meal planning and if so do your plans include your frozen stuff?
When I have energy I sometimes make ravioli or lasagna and freeze it! But it requires energy and freezer space.
The expiry date has been a necessary and useful tool, but these dots seem like they could be a good idea if they can actually sense when spoilage happens.
Meat could have been exposed to bad conditions that makes it spoil before the expected date.
But maybe even bigger is that the date is always going to be very much on the side of caution, so it might avoid waste where people tend to bin stuff as soon as the expiry hits, even though that food may still be perfectly good.
I’ve had Milk that lasts a week longer than the expiration date, and I’ve had meat spoil a week before its use-or-freeze-by date