This Farmer Explains Food Expiration So That People Wouldn’t Throw Away Items That Are Still Edible
InterviewIt goes without saying that wasting food is bad. Bad for the environment, bad for you on a moral as well as financial level, and just pure disrespectful towards food and the farmers who spent months or even years growing it.
And this very charismatic farmer brings it home with his now-viral TikTok video explaining how the food industry is shortening the expiration date, which is actually a “peak freshness” date and not the last day that you can drink that milk, Tim.
More Info: TikTok
Virtually all food has an expiration date, but, turns out, it’s not really an ‘expiration date’ per se
Image credits: haydenjfox
Meet Hayden Fox, a farmer from Canada with whom Bored Panda got in touch for an interview. He’s been making headlines with his explanation on why you shouldn’t throw away your food just because it’s the last or even several days beyond the expiration date.
The video is actually in response to another TikToker, one rizzzy.rizzz who said that if there’s an expiration date on a food item, he ain’t gonna eat it past the date.
So, enter Hayden, who with his charming charisma scoffs at the claim and demands the dude not waste food for one very simple reason: it’s not actually bad.
Farmer and TikToker Hayden Fox explains what the expiration date really is—a “peak freshness date”
Image credits: haydenjfox
“When I saw a TikTok with thousands of comments that read something along the line of ‘I would never eat something past its expiration date’ my heart sunk,” explained Hayden. “People have lost touch with where their food comes from and processors and retailers prey on this lack of information.”
He continues: “I’ve worked my entire life growing food, pouring my heart and soul into every grain that comes off the field. I didn’t put all that effort in just for the food to be thrown out.”
According to Hayden, people are being lied to by the food companies about the expiration date. It’s not really an expiration date, but rather a “peak freshness” date, meaning that the food is best until that date, but it’s not bad after it. And for quite a while, depending on the food.
Image credits: haydenjfox
This is all done, as claims Hayden, so that the big fat cats in these food industry corporations can line their pockets with more money. How? Cause you get rid of what you didn’t eat and go get more almost immediately!
And it seems that this is a universal thing, regardless of country: “Most of the food here in Canada comes from around the world, including the USA, and this misconception around expiration dates is present worldwide.”
Image credits: haydenjfox
Image credits: haydenjfox
Oh, wait, there’s more—expiration dates are just one of many things that are misleading on food packaging, as explains Hayden:
“Adding misleading labels is a big one! For example, it’s impossible for strawberries to be genetically modified, but many times you can see GMO printed on the packaging. This allows grocery stores to charge more for the exact same product. Packing companies will add stickers like ‘gluten free’ or ‘sugar free’ when the food never contained these components to begin with.”
He continues: “Also, there is a very fine line between whether something can be classified as organic or not. Many times the foods that are labeled organic or are sold as organic have no real value added to consumers, other than the perception.”
Image credits: haydenjfox
Image credits: haydenjfox
And while the percentage of how much food is actually wasted varies between 40% and 60% depending on who you ask, it’s still a significant amount of food that, at the end of the day, should not be wasted at all.
Hayden also elaborates on the issue:
“There are two sections of the food industry. The producers and suppliers and the retailers and sellers of food. Producers of the food are always looking to increase production, and this comes at a very steep cost, meaning food waste is very costly to the producer. On the other hand, sellers need the food to have quick turnover as storage, transportation, and shelf space is very costly.”
Image credits: haydenjfox
Image credits: haydenjfox
“‘Most consumers mistakenly believe that expiration dates on food indicate how safe the food is to consume’ (CNN) and retailers don’t do anything to help change consumers’ perceptions. This correlation between expiration date and safety is false! The expiration date does not indicate whether there is a risk of food poisoning or increased chance of illness from consumption.”
The video was viewed by over 1.6 million people and liked by over 356,000 of them. The sudden viralness of the video came as a surprise to Hayden. He was shocked to see a lot of people as passionate about food waste as he is.
Image credits: haydenjfox
Image credits: haydenjfox
“Helping educate so many consumers on exactly how their food gets from the farm to the table makes me feel like a kid taking a ride in a tractor for the first time. This felt like the first tractor ride, but in the most shiny, biggest, baddest tractor around,” elaborated Hayden.
“I wish people could see the work that goes into every bite of food they take. It’s easy to throw something out when we don’t appreciate the true value of it. We generate enough food to feed the entire world, but yet millions of people go hungry every day because we constantly waste the food we have.”
Image credits: haydenjfox
Check out the full video below
@haydenjfox##stitch with @rizzzy.rizzz just another farmer on a rant pt.🥛 ##yourfood ##farming ##country♬ original sound – Hayden Fox
You can check out more of his videos by visiting his TikTok channel, or you can just follow him on Instagram. But before you go, let us know what you thought about this in the comments section below!
Here’s how people reacted to this video
275Kviews
Share on FacebookIn my country, we can have two different dates on our products: the "best before" expiration date, and the "this is not a suggestion if you eat it later you might die" expiration date
Sometimes i would not even care "this is not a suggestion if you eat it later you might die"on some meat to make a stew. Cooked for hours in wine, spices, onions, garlic... no bacteria would resist more than 10 minutes boiling, a stew boil for hours. Perfectly fine to eat some slighly smelly meat in a good stew. That's why beef bourguignon and many stews around the world were invented: killing bacterias and adding flavors to old meat.
Load More Replies...I generally ignore the use by date and go by smell, look, whether it's fizzy (and shouldn't be) or whether the pack has blown. Hasn't steered me wrong yet!
This 1000x. Our sense of smell and taste (and our corresponding disgust reaction) have been finely tuned through natural selection to detect spoiled food. I'll trust my own senses over a for-profit company's "expiration" date, thankyouverymuch. And I'll also point out I've poured milk down the drain that was still in date, just as I've drank milk that's weeks beyond its expiration.
Load More Replies...Sell by, Best Before and Use by are all different. Sell by is not meant for the end user. Best Before is peak freshness and you can totally keep using it after this date (assuming it's not gone mouldy or smells bad). Use by, at least in certain countries, is a warning that it may be unsafe to use after this date, it may make you ill. Also, you may have to throw things away before the expiry date if it has been opened for a few days - again, this is the "is it green, does it smell bad" check. I know some people (often of the older generations) will insist food is still good long after the expiry dates, but food processing and preservation methods have changed, and no matter what, cranberry sauce shouldn't rattle, Louise! A bit of common sense goes a long way. Check out the egg freshness test online for examples of what to do if the green/smell check isn't possible.
Yeah, I think the guy here meant to be talking about “best by” dates.
Load More Replies...Coming from a farming family I can tell you straight-up, there is some truth to his message but it isn't detailed enough. It's as brief as saying 'There is a difference between best before and use by'. What he says about the farmers market is true, We take our leftover stock that the commercial companies and local butchers didn't want and sell that. We actually get a really good mark up because they are popular at the moment. Judge your meat on it's appearance, although sometimes they add things that will alter the appearance (usually makes it look worse) but keeps it fresher longer. Most are in sealed packages so you can't go by smell but if the packaging has expanded/inflated, the meat is giving off gases, which means it's no good, but sometimes they inflate the packaging on purpose to stop it getting crushed during transit. Also there are different laws and by-law depending were the meat is coming from and going to and what route it's taking. So like I said, a little complicated.
Yeah. Farm kid here. We canned our own, etc., and the canned tomatoes might be best by... but still fine three months later. As for meat, I'm a vegetarian, can't speak to it, but my fam always went by "freeze it after butchering, the end" b/c the see-saw of temps in a friedge, or in transit? No thanks.
Load More Replies...when that happened to me and my family, the power-saving feature wasn't working in our refrigerator and caused the temperature to go up to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. you might want to get it checked out.
Load More Replies...Please take seriously the proper *storage* of foods. An onion or tater or turnip can last months in the right storage (hint: NOT fridge) but honestly, we home-canned (well, jarred!) and if the color is good, the lid doesn't do the "botulism pop top", and there's no odd smell? It's good to eat. So... Study how to store things. I say all that not b/c I'm a crusader but b/c my hubby ignroed a dairy best-by date and I warned him, and there's some situations NO ONE should ever experience, even secondhand.... !!!
We really need to stop using the phrase 'common sense'. Not everyone knows what bad milk smells like, not everyone knows what bad avocados look like or what spoiled cheese tastes like. For many, many reasons, there are people that just do not know. This doesn't even include people with varying opinions of when food is bad to eat (some people really think that 1 bruise on an apple = rotten). There is just so many reasons why this knowledge isn't common. We should say 'I use my [own] sense'.
Disagree. No one needs to "learn" that they shouldn't consume spoiled milk or rotting meat. It's literally in our DNA to be disgusted at certain smells.
Load More Replies...Found out expired vitamins are shouldn't be thrown out, the vitamin content will erode very slowly, a year after the expiry you are just fine. The gov mandates expiry dates and I am not against them but safe with vitamins
Or you know, just don't buy too much, so that you use it way before it expires, then go back and buy fresh with long expiry dates. Overbuying is what gets food thrown out, not expiry date. Also, depending on how they took care of the product in transit or in store, some might even go bad way before the expiry date just because of wrong temperatures in storage.
True story, I once knew an ad man that had worked for a very well-known company that produces a food product used at Thanksgiving and Christmas... that company wanted more sales, so the ad man's brilliant idea was to just shorten posted the shelf life, so that the product you bought for Thanksgiving was supposedly no longer fresh at Christmas and you ended up buying it again.
Yeah, chicken and milk, don't eat past the date, trust me, been there. If a package is swollen, no matter what it is, meat or packaged - don't eat that, that swelling is bacteria. Eggs I've found I can go up to about three, sometimes four weeks after the expiration date - and I store them on the top shelf of the fridge at the back, never on the door, too many temperature changes. To test freshness of eggs - gently put a raw egg in a cup of water if it egg floats up to the top of a cup of water, don't eat it, otherwise it's good. Canned goods can go and easy two years past date. Box-packaged foods can easily go a year after but may taste dull after that.
After watching multiple episodes of Naked & Afraid..... I no longer just toss out items that are still safe & edible.... I mean, heck if what those folks have eaten didn't knock them off Mother Earth... I am pretty confidant in the food I have in my fridge.
My partner's nose knows. I was VERY throw it out before him. I just give him everything I question and he sniffs it and tells me whether its good or not.
I grew up in the country on farms where the food doesn't come out of the garden with a date stamped on it. I learned to make that decision myself. If it's growing something it shouldn't or smells funky and shouldn't, toss it. Otherwise, eat it! Did you know that almond milk that is ultra pasteurized will literally last months? MONTHS!! And, what's the deal with expiration dates on cans? Seriously? Canned food lasts forever if the can isn't dented, rusted or bulging. What do you think they put food for fall out shelters in. CANS!!
Not exactly related. Over the years, I've lost count of times, I finished eating something only to realized they've expired. Some even months past (canned food). Now I'm not recommending doing this deliberately. Just stating I'm still alive and kicking despite these lapses in due diligence.
I've don't throw it out unless I can tell is soured. Duh.... I'm not wasteful
Had a grocery store with a bunch of lunch meat past the sell by date. I took it up to the service desk. Next time I went in there, same issue. Wrote a nice message to the corporate office. Not a good day for the managers at that store.
I had a pack of bacon in the fridge that I bought sometime last year. Opened it a couple of weeks ago, made a bacon sarnie, enjoyed it. No nasty after effects whatsoever. Yogurts - unless the pot has blown up and redecorated the inside of your fridge, they’re edible. Fresh meat such as minced beef or chicken - it smells OK to me but to definitely know whether it’s off or not is to give a little of it to Pippin the cat. If she sniffs at it and walks off it goes in the bin. If she eats is, then it gets cooked.
True story, from an ad exec at large ad company that helped come up with this gem: Once upon a time, a certain cranberry company wanted to sell more cranberry sauce. So they just shortened the "sell-by" date on the product sold for Thanksgiving, leading the public to believe that the cranberry sauce we bought for Thanksgiving was no longer good at Christmas, and bought more...
Blaming the over 40's ? the older set are more likely to have common sense which is absent in many young today
I’ve found milk and other dairy is usually okay for about a week after the date. Eggs I’ve used after and never had issues and cheese you just cut off the mold. The box foods is what gets me. I throw those away a lot of times and feel guilty almost always
I've been telling my daughter that those dates don't mean anything for years. She still throws things away that are fine. Drives me nuts!
I wish someone could get this idea into my daughter's head. She throws out anything if it's even close. What angered me one day, is that she went through my kitchen pantry and threw out about $50 in canned goods because they were past the "best by" date. I told her that I had looked into this, and canned goods, as long as they weren't dented, rusted, or in any other way compromised could be kept indefinitely. Arrghh. Could have killed her.
I work in a grocery store and I can tell you this is accurate. The company I work for has a great system that allows staff to take home "expired" food or damaged product (that is still fine to eat). I have never gotten sick from it, ever, and it makes up about 90% of my meals.
My boldest move was eating smoked mackerel that was 6 months out of date, i mean the stuff is vacuum packed and smoked! No bacteria are going to penetrate that! it was perfectly fine and I'm still alive :)
Vacuume packed fish is one of the worst incubators for botulism as it's an anaerobic bacteria.
Load More Replies...We just came back from a holiday to find milk in the fridge 9 days past it's expiration date. As it hadn't been opened yet, it was totally fine.
I'm pretty sure that he meant to be talking about "best before" dates. Either way, I think I'll go with the advice given by the food and drug administration rather than this farmer.
Former chef here, we always used the saying "When in doubt, throw it out".
Yeah, when you are liable for the people eating at your restaurant, then it's better to be more cautious. If you're preparing food for yourself, then it's on to be over the date by a bit. Or a lot for some foods.
Load More Replies...This is the problem with everything in our society being motivated by profit. Companies will sacrifice literally everything for the sake of making more money and it makes everything in our lives worse. Not to mention that we all know that we're being lied to all the time and that there's nothing we can do about it and no way of knowing who we can trust. it's a sickness
Then you have the pre boomers and some boomers... With vienna sausages that expired in the 80s but they will not throw it out. They won't eat it, but they will not throw it out either because they cannot bring themselves to waste.
Youtuber Ashens recently prepared and ate some 65-year-old Jello instant pudding. Expiry dates are merely a liability waiver, and you should use your own judgement. Lets not even bring Steve1989 into this...
Load More Replies...I’m calling fake on this one, I’ve never seen mold on food prior to the expiration date, but after? I’ve seen plenty. And I highly doubt the expiration date is a ploy from the company to have you buy more food, I think it’s actually a safety warning, if you’re alive, you continue to buy their stuff, win-win situation.
He's not saying food doesn't have an expiration date, just that it often lasts longer than what is printed on the packaging.
Load More Replies...In my country, we can have two different dates on our products: the "best before" expiration date, and the "this is not a suggestion if you eat it later you might die" expiration date
Sometimes i would not even care "this is not a suggestion if you eat it later you might die"on some meat to make a stew. Cooked for hours in wine, spices, onions, garlic... no bacteria would resist more than 10 minutes boiling, a stew boil for hours. Perfectly fine to eat some slighly smelly meat in a good stew. That's why beef bourguignon and many stews around the world were invented: killing bacterias and adding flavors to old meat.
Load More Replies...I generally ignore the use by date and go by smell, look, whether it's fizzy (and shouldn't be) or whether the pack has blown. Hasn't steered me wrong yet!
This 1000x. Our sense of smell and taste (and our corresponding disgust reaction) have been finely tuned through natural selection to detect spoiled food. I'll trust my own senses over a for-profit company's "expiration" date, thankyouverymuch. And I'll also point out I've poured milk down the drain that was still in date, just as I've drank milk that's weeks beyond its expiration.
Load More Replies...Sell by, Best Before and Use by are all different. Sell by is not meant for the end user. Best Before is peak freshness and you can totally keep using it after this date (assuming it's not gone mouldy or smells bad). Use by, at least in certain countries, is a warning that it may be unsafe to use after this date, it may make you ill. Also, you may have to throw things away before the expiry date if it has been opened for a few days - again, this is the "is it green, does it smell bad" check. I know some people (often of the older generations) will insist food is still good long after the expiry dates, but food processing and preservation methods have changed, and no matter what, cranberry sauce shouldn't rattle, Louise! A bit of common sense goes a long way. Check out the egg freshness test online for examples of what to do if the green/smell check isn't possible.
Yeah, I think the guy here meant to be talking about “best by” dates.
Load More Replies...Coming from a farming family I can tell you straight-up, there is some truth to his message but it isn't detailed enough. It's as brief as saying 'There is a difference between best before and use by'. What he says about the farmers market is true, We take our leftover stock that the commercial companies and local butchers didn't want and sell that. We actually get a really good mark up because they are popular at the moment. Judge your meat on it's appearance, although sometimes they add things that will alter the appearance (usually makes it look worse) but keeps it fresher longer. Most are in sealed packages so you can't go by smell but if the packaging has expanded/inflated, the meat is giving off gases, which means it's no good, but sometimes they inflate the packaging on purpose to stop it getting crushed during transit. Also there are different laws and by-law depending were the meat is coming from and going to and what route it's taking. So like I said, a little complicated.
Yeah. Farm kid here. We canned our own, etc., and the canned tomatoes might be best by... but still fine three months later. As for meat, I'm a vegetarian, can't speak to it, but my fam always went by "freeze it after butchering, the end" b/c the see-saw of temps in a friedge, or in transit? No thanks.
Load More Replies...when that happened to me and my family, the power-saving feature wasn't working in our refrigerator and caused the temperature to go up to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. you might want to get it checked out.
Load More Replies...Please take seriously the proper *storage* of foods. An onion or tater or turnip can last months in the right storage (hint: NOT fridge) but honestly, we home-canned (well, jarred!) and if the color is good, the lid doesn't do the "botulism pop top", and there's no odd smell? It's good to eat. So... Study how to store things. I say all that not b/c I'm a crusader but b/c my hubby ignroed a dairy best-by date and I warned him, and there's some situations NO ONE should ever experience, even secondhand.... !!!
We really need to stop using the phrase 'common sense'. Not everyone knows what bad milk smells like, not everyone knows what bad avocados look like or what spoiled cheese tastes like. For many, many reasons, there are people that just do not know. This doesn't even include people with varying opinions of when food is bad to eat (some people really think that 1 bruise on an apple = rotten). There is just so many reasons why this knowledge isn't common. We should say 'I use my [own] sense'.
Disagree. No one needs to "learn" that they shouldn't consume spoiled milk or rotting meat. It's literally in our DNA to be disgusted at certain smells.
Load More Replies...Found out expired vitamins are shouldn't be thrown out, the vitamin content will erode very slowly, a year after the expiry you are just fine. The gov mandates expiry dates and I am not against them but safe with vitamins
Or you know, just don't buy too much, so that you use it way before it expires, then go back and buy fresh with long expiry dates. Overbuying is what gets food thrown out, not expiry date. Also, depending on how they took care of the product in transit or in store, some might even go bad way before the expiry date just because of wrong temperatures in storage.
True story, I once knew an ad man that had worked for a very well-known company that produces a food product used at Thanksgiving and Christmas... that company wanted more sales, so the ad man's brilliant idea was to just shorten posted the shelf life, so that the product you bought for Thanksgiving was supposedly no longer fresh at Christmas and you ended up buying it again.
Yeah, chicken and milk, don't eat past the date, trust me, been there. If a package is swollen, no matter what it is, meat or packaged - don't eat that, that swelling is bacteria. Eggs I've found I can go up to about three, sometimes four weeks after the expiration date - and I store them on the top shelf of the fridge at the back, never on the door, too many temperature changes. To test freshness of eggs - gently put a raw egg in a cup of water if it egg floats up to the top of a cup of water, don't eat it, otherwise it's good. Canned goods can go and easy two years past date. Box-packaged foods can easily go a year after but may taste dull after that.
After watching multiple episodes of Naked & Afraid..... I no longer just toss out items that are still safe & edible.... I mean, heck if what those folks have eaten didn't knock them off Mother Earth... I am pretty confidant in the food I have in my fridge.
My partner's nose knows. I was VERY throw it out before him. I just give him everything I question and he sniffs it and tells me whether its good or not.
I grew up in the country on farms where the food doesn't come out of the garden with a date stamped on it. I learned to make that decision myself. If it's growing something it shouldn't or smells funky and shouldn't, toss it. Otherwise, eat it! Did you know that almond milk that is ultra pasteurized will literally last months? MONTHS!! And, what's the deal with expiration dates on cans? Seriously? Canned food lasts forever if the can isn't dented, rusted or bulging. What do you think they put food for fall out shelters in. CANS!!
Not exactly related. Over the years, I've lost count of times, I finished eating something only to realized they've expired. Some even months past (canned food). Now I'm not recommending doing this deliberately. Just stating I'm still alive and kicking despite these lapses in due diligence.
I've don't throw it out unless I can tell is soured. Duh.... I'm not wasteful
Had a grocery store with a bunch of lunch meat past the sell by date. I took it up to the service desk. Next time I went in there, same issue. Wrote a nice message to the corporate office. Not a good day for the managers at that store.
I had a pack of bacon in the fridge that I bought sometime last year. Opened it a couple of weeks ago, made a bacon sarnie, enjoyed it. No nasty after effects whatsoever. Yogurts - unless the pot has blown up and redecorated the inside of your fridge, they’re edible. Fresh meat such as minced beef or chicken - it smells OK to me but to definitely know whether it’s off or not is to give a little of it to Pippin the cat. If she sniffs at it and walks off it goes in the bin. If she eats is, then it gets cooked.
True story, from an ad exec at large ad company that helped come up with this gem: Once upon a time, a certain cranberry company wanted to sell more cranberry sauce. So they just shortened the "sell-by" date on the product sold for Thanksgiving, leading the public to believe that the cranberry sauce we bought for Thanksgiving was no longer good at Christmas, and bought more...
Blaming the over 40's ? the older set are more likely to have common sense which is absent in many young today
I’ve found milk and other dairy is usually okay for about a week after the date. Eggs I’ve used after and never had issues and cheese you just cut off the mold. The box foods is what gets me. I throw those away a lot of times and feel guilty almost always
I've been telling my daughter that those dates don't mean anything for years. She still throws things away that are fine. Drives me nuts!
I wish someone could get this idea into my daughter's head. She throws out anything if it's even close. What angered me one day, is that she went through my kitchen pantry and threw out about $50 in canned goods because they were past the "best by" date. I told her that I had looked into this, and canned goods, as long as they weren't dented, rusted, or in any other way compromised could be kept indefinitely. Arrghh. Could have killed her.
I work in a grocery store and I can tell you this is accurate. The company I work for has a great system that allows staff to take home "expired" food or damaged product (that is still fine to eat). I have never gotten sick from it, ever, and it makes up about 90% of my meals.
My boldest move was eating smoked mackerel that was 6 months out of date, i mean the stuff is vacuum packed and smoked! No bacteria are going to penetrate that! it was perfectly fine and I'm still alive :)
Vacuume packed fish is one of the worst incubators for botulism as it's an anaerobic bacteria.
Load More Replies...We just came back from a holiday to find milk in the fridge 9 days past it's expiration date. As it hadn't been opened yet, it was totally fine.
I'm pretty sure that he meant to be talking about "best before" dates. Either way, I think I'll go with the advice given by the food and drug administration rather than this farmer.
Former chef here, we always used the saying "When in doubt, throw it out".
Yeah, when you are liable for the people eating at your restaurant, then it's better to be more cautious. If you're preparing food for yourself, then it's on to be over the date by a bit. Or a lot for some foods.
Load More Replies...This is the problem with everything in our society being motivated by profit. Companies will sacrifice literally everything for the sake of making more money and it makes everything in our lives worse. Not to mention that we all know that we're being lied to all the time and that there's nothing we can do about it and no way of knowing who we can trust. it's a sickness
Then you have the pre boomers and some boomers... With vienna sausages that expired in the 80s but they will not throw it out. They won't eat it, but they will not throw it out either because they cannot bring themselves to waste.
Youtuber Ashens recently prepared and ate some 65-year-old Jello instant pudding. Expiry dates are merely a liability waiver, and you should use your own judgement. Lets not even bring Steve1989 into this...
Load More Replies...I’m calling fake on this one, I’ve never seen mold on food prior to the expiration date, but after? I’ve seen plenty. And I highly doubt the expiration date is a ploy from the company to have you buy more food, I think it’s actually a safety warning, if you’re alive, you continue to buy their stuff, win-win situation.
He's not saying food doesn't have an expiration date, just that it often lasts longer than what is printed on the packaging.
Load More Replies...
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