Best Before Dates

Posted on 2003/05/10 10:23:48 (May 2003) by john.

Surely a disaster waiting to happen.

I was talking to Tom about this last night, but it has been bothering me for a while. Over the last few months I've become increasingly frustrated with confusing or inconsistent best before dates. Let me give you an example:

01/04/03

Now, being English I would read this as 1st April 2003 (d/m/y). An American, on the other hand, is going to read that as 4th January 2003 (m/d/y), and further more a Japanese person is going to read that as 3rd April 2001 (y/m/d). I wouldn't be surprised if there's some obscure African country that writes dates as (d/y/m) and probably a former soviet state that prefers (y/d/m) for political reasons.

Now lets imagine it's March 2003, it's a few days until payday, I'm short of cash and I'm eyeing up that strange tin of beans (lets say they're imported from Mongolia) in the back of the cupboard, that I was given a few years ago for christmas. Given the above example as a best before date, this product could either be in date (English system), two months out of date (American system) or almost two years out of date (Japanese system).

Before the turn of the millenium, this wasn't such a problem. If the year bit was ninety something, it almost didn't matter where it was, you at least knew they year something was going to expire. As such the worst that could happen was something would be a year out of date. Although this might be a big problem for fresh fruit (although there might just be a few telltale signs) it probably wasn't a big issue for canned food. I doubt the manufacturers can really know that a tin of cream and mushroom soup takes eight and a half years to go off - I mean, have they tested it?

Now though, especially with the increased availability of imported foods, and the fact that dates can be so frustratingly ambiguous, you really don't have a clue. In a few years time we could concievably be mistaken into eating food up to 12 years out of date. If food manufacturers could either agree on a global standard (unlikely) or just but three little letters after the dates (d/m/y or whatever), or even do it properly and write the year out in full, this problem would go away.

The Millenium bug is still with us. Just now it is more of a potential stomach bug.

I have thought about this today. Trust no one.

Posted by tom at 2003/05/10 21:47:43.

I don't feel so good...

Posted by Omar at 2003/05/12 09:20:45.

I was thinking ... aren't teabags really bad for you? The paper is probably full of nasty bleachy chemicals and stuff. I know this isn't much to do with sell-by dates but -hey- sue me, y'know?

Posted by Jimmy at 2003/05/12 18:11:08.

And another thing. I'm not happy with my bank account. They give me stuff-all interest, and keep suggesting that I upgrade to aother account. However, the only noticeable difference with this other account is that the charges are higher. Is it just me?

Posted by Jimmy at 2003/05/12 18:12:33.

And Eurovision. When is that on? They did a competition for the song to represent England, but that was ages ago. Did I miss it? if so, was it presented by Terry Wogan? Am I getting to old?

Posted by Jimmy at 2003/05/12 18:14:15.

And ActiveX controls too. Some come with special licensing stuff. Is there some sort of licensing SDK? It would be dead handy.

Posted by Jimmy at 2003/05/12 18:15:51.

May 12th. The howling wind and thrashing rain are interminable. Almost complete darkness now for 25 days. Didn't even leave the tent this morning. TV license expired. Supplies running low. Please send chips and addition cans of lager to lift flagging spirits.

Posted by Jimmy at 2003/05/12 18:17:49.

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