Your Food Is Lying To You | Climate Town

If you've been to a grocery store lately,

you've probably noticed that all of America's food is ominously stamped with the day

that food will die.

I'm talking, of course, about expiration dates,

which are also the premise of a 2011 movie with Justin Timberlake called In

Time.

Your time was stamped on your arm, and when your time was up,

you expired.

And if you're from Gen Z

and you didn't realize Justin Timberlake was also an actor,

he wasn't.

But he didn't let that stop him from being in a ton of movies.

When it comes to food,

expiration dates might say "expires on"

or "best by" or "used by"

or even the magnificent "for wholesome great taste,

serve before date stamped below"

But all of these expiration date labels have one very important thing in common:

they have nothing to do with whether the food is actually expired.

That's right, these so-called expiration dates on your food are not,

and have never been about, whether your food is safe to eat.

And this is not just my Andy Rooney "get off my lawn" opinion.

It is the official position of these safety-loving dorks at both the FDA

and the USDA.

The date you see on packaging is usually just some guy's best guess at

when you're going to have the optimal taste experience,

but the mere presence of a date on food packaging leads to eighty-four percent

of consumers,

and a hundred percent of grocery stores,

throwing away perfectly good food because a box told them to.

And while listening to a charismatic box can sometimes be a perfectly fine choice,

in this case misleading expiration dates are a major contributing factor in the United

States wasting forty percent of our total food supply.

Yeah.

Forty.

With a D.

Of all the food that gets grown or imported in the United States,

we don't eat almost forty percent of it,

and the vast majority of

that gets trucked to a landfill where it piles up,

ferments, and turns into methane.

And not to get too climate changey on you,

but methane has a bad habit of f*cking off into the atmosphere,

where it lives the rest of its life

as a greenhouse gas

that traps heat eighty times more than carbon dioxide.

And if that doesn't do anything for you, here's a stat:

Two percent of the US GDP goes to grow food

that does not get eaten.

Yeah, we're wasting the entire GDP of a country that goes here.

Every year, the United States is growing, and then wasting,

an entire Norway in food.

Or an ironic three Hungarys.

Sorry.

And to be clear, it's not just expiration dates.

Food waste is happening all over the place.

The EPA is sufficiently freaked out by the emissions

and toxic byproducts caused by food waste,

that they are watching the problem like an eagle.

And organizations like ReFED are cranking out charts

and graphs that are exactly my style:

exhausting.

Godd*mn, green on green on green, wow.

I guess f*ck you if you don't have perfect color vision.

And the labels are way off to the side.

At least make it 3D, people, drop shadow is free.

Let me just... okay, and... there we go, and there we go, perfect.

Now, obviously, I cannot see this chart, but I am editing this video,

so you'll be able to see

that food waste is happening on every level of the food system.

We lose eight million tons of food per year

because people get afraid of expiration date labels,

but we also lose millions of tons to things like harvesting issues,

mistakes and malfunctions, and food being considered too ugly.

Food waste is a massively complicated problem,

but the easiest and fastest thing to solve is people misinterpreting the labeling on

their food.

Plus, it's one that you can actually have a measurable impact on.

Also, uh, I did a ton of research on food waste,

and I gotta tell you, expiration dates were absolutely the funniest part,

so that's why.

Yuck.

Hi, I'm Rollie Williams.

I have a belly full of milk, a head full of complaints,

and a master's degree full of climate science and policy.

And this is a video about how expiration dates are bullsh*t.

Welcome to Climate Town.

Despite what our collective great grandparents may have told us,

food in the 1880s and 90s was an absolute crap shoot.

I mean, this woman was just served three identical plates of beans, so,

you know, riddle me that, Chester A.

Arthur.

Now, I'm not saying my Grandma Betty was lying

when she talked about pies cooling on the windysills,

but without any real laws in place,

food producers were playing things extremely fast and loose.

Oh, hey there, friendo!

Cheese isn't orange enough for you, eh?

Why not sprinkle in a little healthy lead to give it a nice glow?

Chocolate not shiny enough for your kids on their work break?

Well just gussy it up with a schmertz of arsenic,

I do it every day!

During the Civil War,

they used formaldehyde to stop dead soldiers from turning into extras from The Walking

Dead.

This naturally led to a whole bunch of milkmen from the 1900s deciding to

keep their milk from spoiling by adding a splash of the good stuff.

And if the newspapers are to be believed,

a tall glass of formaldehyde milk can really ruin a box social.

Actually, you know what?

those people are so horned up, I don't think anybody can stop them.

Enter Dr Harvey Wiley, the US Department of Agriculture's chief chemist,

who is consistently finding

that when people ate things like arsenic

and lead and formaldehyde,

they got sick.

Man, science was way easier to do back in the past.

Actually, Harvey Wiley's story is crazy.

He got together a group of young men who became known

as "the Poison Squad" on account of how they all agreed to eat poison

to see how poison affected them.

All kinds of poison!

We're talking borax, formaldehyde, acids, the works.

Dr Wiley's findings got national attention, and people were calling for food safety regulations,

if for no other reason than to stop these dudes from poisoning themselves.

That wasn't really going to work for the food industry, because, you know,

they didn't want to be regulated in any way.

There were some outliers.

Henry Heinz wanted regulations

because he was worried

that people might buy a bottle of ketchup,

only to find that it was packed to the gills with rat poison,

Chicago style.

However, the majority of the food industry lobbied their asses off

and attempted to bribe

or bully Congress into backing down.

But credit where credit is due:

Grandma Betty's generation didn't want to French kiss corporations quite

as hard as we do today,

so they passed the first food safety law in 1906.

The name of that law?

The Wiley Act.

While the USDA and the FDA were busy passing food safety laws,

America was urbanizing, and more

and more people were moving to cities

and suburbs and buying the bulk of their food at grocery stores.

Food was getting packaged in one state, transported to another state,

and then stocked on shelves.

And food manufacturers began putting little codes on some of the groceries

so stores could keep track of the stock.

The codes were secrets, and the practice was called "closed dating".

But like everyone who comes across a secret code,

customers wanted to know what it said, like this.

It's a secret code.

It says a secret.

But I'll never tell.

And I'm not saying customers are being unreasonable;

you're paying a dollar for apples whether they've been on the shelf for an

hour or a week,

you'd rather get the newest ones.

I get it.

How would you, Mrs.

Homemaker, go about finding out

which one of the these cans contain the best peaches,

or gave the most for your money?

You would look in vain for some information on the labels

that you could depend upon.

The best possible guide that you, unaided, could have as to their quality.

And by 1973, ten states had adopted some kind of regulation to make stores

de-secret their codes,

in a policy known as "open dating".

And, no, I'm not going to do a joke about open dating,

I already feel bad enough about that "three Hungarys" sh*t from the intro.

And as open dating became a trend,

and food manufacturers began openly stamping the date on the packaging,

customers rejoiced at being able to get just the absolute newest eggs.

But food experts weren't quite so jacked.

In a 1979 study, a dream team of food experts from the USDA,

the Department of Health, prominent universities,

and more got together to express their nervousness

that people would see the date

and think it was about safety.

On several occasions, they noted,

"There is little or no benefit derived from open dating in terms of improved

microbial safety." which one of these cams contain the best peaches?

The Government Accountability Office also warned federal lawmakers

that failure to implement a national system would add to confusion

if they let each manufacturer,

retailer, or state choose its own dating system.

So they tried to come up with a countrywide policy.

Unfortunately, it's really f*cking difficult to get all the representatives to agree on a

labeling system that accurately conveys the concept of peak freshness for,

like, all food.

Couple that with the food industry viciously lobbying because,

and I think I have this one right,

they didn't want to be regulated in any way,

and there was a failure to come up with a policy.

From the 1970s onward,

a sea of contradictory and nonsensical labeling rules bubbled up from every state,

and over the course of just a few decades,

a thing that started out

as a bunch of 1970s-era shoppers wanting the freshest bread became the expiration date

nightmare we're currently living in.

And that is the origin of sixteen billion pounds of food being expired into

the trash every year.

because a bunch of shoppers named Shirley

and Louis and Nancy wanted to know

which box of crackers was newest.

It's that stupid.

It's actually even more stupid, because manufacturers determine when a product expires,

or is best by, or has maximum freshness in two ways.

The first way is they get a bunch of people in a room,

and they have them eat food of various ages,

and rate it out of 10.

Once the average rating drops below a 7, that's the expiration date.

It's not dangerous, it's perfectly edible, it's just not above a 7,

so to Nabisco, "hell with you, you blueberry muffins!"

And that's the good way.

The other way is that they just f*ckin' guess.

Yeah.

They don't have the money to cram a whole bunch of college kids onto

a racquetball court and have them hork down taco shells till they get some

sixes,

so they guess, and in the case of a product that obviously doesn't expire,

they guess for like a year or two from now,

which is how you can get 250 million year old sea salt

that expires next year.

What are the chances?

And this wouldn't even be

that big of a problem

if America didn't inexplicably read date labels like they were messages from future you

trying to prevent your own assassination.

And and I'm just as guilty of this.

Like, last week I was ninety-five percent sure I gave myself macaroni poisoning.

Studies consistently find that eighty to ninety percent of consumers are throwing food out

based on safety concerns based on a date label

that has nothing to do with food safety.

And our collective paranoia means that every year,

we're sending billions of pounds of food to the dump.

And I'm not talking about the bathroom kind.

Okay, cool it, there's only three of them.

And this actually also counts

because it's number two

And it's not just Ma

and Pa Kettle at home.

I honestly have no idea who Ma and Pa Kettle are,

and I refuse to look it up on principle,

I just know you're allowed to say Ma

and Pa Kettle when you want to refer to,

like, normal people at home.

Date label concerns are the number one reason why grocery stores

and wholesalers have to get rid of perfectly edible food.

Grocery stores know what date labels mean,

but they're justifiably worried

that their customers will fall in

that eighty to ninety percent of people who think food past its date label

is unsafe.

Grocery stores cannot afford to lose customers,

so if cereal is having a slow month

and that new shipment of Lucky Charms comes in

and needs shelf space,

well, I hate to say it,

but that little racist leprechaun is going to finally get his wish of keeping

kids away from his Lucky Charms,

because he's going straight to the dump.

And it is way worse for fresh fruits and veggies.

A new shipment comes in, and the old stuff often gets tossed,

regardless of how perfectly edible it is.

And if you're just visualizing us lighting a big pile of money on fire,

it's actually worse than that, because when we throw food in the trash,

we waste all of this we use to grow the food to send it

on a trip to the grocery store,

where we waste this to keep it there,

before we truck it to the landfill, where it generates this.

We're turning the environment into poison.

We're basically doing a reverse Rumplestiltskin,

and if that doesn't make any sense to you, um, you know what?

I'll put it on the Patreon page,

because it's going to be tedious

and I don't respect those people people's free time.

And, wait, because it's even worse than that!

Well, expiration dates seem to have metastasized from something pretty innocuous.

Some states have weaponized expiration dates

as a way to benefit special interest groups

and certain industries,

and there is no better example of this than the bare-ass hippie liberal socialist

commune that is the state of Montana.

This is Montana.

The stock footage website I pay for has some beautiful clips of The Big

Sky State.

I have some cousins who live out there, I've visited a couple times,

it's beautiful.

And now we're back to New York.

In Montana, it is illegal to sell milk

that is more than twelve days old.

Twelve days.

This is refrigerated, pasteurized, perfectly healthy and safe milk,

but if the clock strikes midnight on the thirteenth day,

it is illegal to sell that milk.

The industry standard is 21 to 24 days,

but Montana State Rule 32.8.202 forces Montana grocery stores,

under penalty of fine, to remove milk on day 13.

And if basic economics are to be believed, A dollar sixty?

Fine, I'll take it.

Hold on a minute here, if that's the only steak you've got,

I'll give two dollars for it!

Well, wait a minu--- I'll give you three dollars for it!

I'll give five dollars for it and take it all myself!

This creates an artificial demand for milk,

which leads to higher milk prices in Montana

and more money to the Montana dairy industry.

State lawmakers have tried to change this law from time to time,

because grocery stores are constantly dumping milk down the drain,

and you only really need to see a few clips of people being forced

to waste their own money before you realize what a horrible law it is.

But every time it comes up for debate,

the Montana dairy industry lobbies against it,

and the law magically stays on the books.

Wow.

Gotta love democracy.

Milk producers from other states steer clear of Montana,

because by the time their milk gets pasteurized and shipped over to Bozeman,

it's only got a few days on the shelves before it's no longer allowed

to be sold.

And, for the record, I am all for subsidies for locally sourced foods,

but when the subsidy is to get grocery stores to throw their perfectly edible

food away,

well, I mean that just doesn't seem to be in line with the kind

of free market economics traditionally espoused by the politicians of the great state of

Montana!

More taxes and regulations put Montana families out of work The federal government is

too big and too powerful I'm Matt Rosendale,

and this is how I'd look from a government drone!

Wow.

Love the creativity.

Quick note here: that's very much not what would happen

if you shot your gun at a government drone,

but at least this man is, um, currently a congressman.

Spectacular.

A lot of you are probably guessing that it's illegal to donate expired food,

or at the very least, you're liable to get sued if something goes wrong.

I mean, that certainly seems to be a major concern of grocery stores across

the country.

A sell by date itself, we pour it down the drain.

We cannot donate it to the food bank, so...

We don't want anybody getting sick, supposedly.

Except here's the thing:

you are completely covered by a pretty ironclad federal law called the Bill Emerson

Good Samaritan Food Donation Act,

or BEGSFDA for short.

It's a law that specifically protects people donating food in good faith,

but apparently it's the nation's best kept secret.

It is so important

and so unknown that the 2018 Farm Bill explicitly asked the USDA to hire

an employee who is personally responsible for making

as many people aware of the Emerson Act

as possible.

And here we are, five years in,

and we're still losing 43 million pounds of food per day to people in

grocery stores who are concerned about expiration dates.

And, not to put too fine a point on it,

but there is no evidence of anyone in the United States ever being sued

for a claim of sickness

or death from donated food.

Ever.

It is so deeply not a thing

that the Emerson Act has never once been used in a recorded case in

the Westlaw database.

So by all means, donate the food.

What are you talking about?

You must be crazy!

Well, I never thought of it that way.

But here's the thing:

most food waste is not backroom deals

or corrupt politicians trying to steal your milk money.

The catastrophic waste in the food system is largely a problem we've kind of

sleep walked our way into.

Even if every grocery store

and member of the extended Kettle family knew all about the Emerson Act

and wanted to donate their perfectly good

but technically expired food,

we would still have an enormous problem.

There are huge logistical challenges in moving food to food banks

and keeping it from spoiling,

but even if we were doing

that -- which we're not -- we'd be using resources to transport food to

another location,

where the problem starts again.

That's treating the symptom and not the disease.

However, an analysis from ReFED estimates

that for every one dollar we spend actually reducing waste along the chain,

we get six dollars back.

And that's not to mention the jobs created, the emissions reduced,

or the extra people fed.

Speaking of people fe-- Sick!

Dude, BMW?

I bet that thing is tight as hell.

Speaking of people fed, there are about fifty million food-insecure people in America,

and we throw out about 130 billion meals worth of food a year.

Which means we waste enough food to give every food insecure person seven meals

a day.

And if that's not a real kick in the balls to your system of

ethics,

which one are you using?

Because, uh, that sounds awesome.

That sounds like an awesome one.

So the USDA and the FDA could step in

and just absolutely drop the hammer on the criss-crossing labyrinth

that is different state date labeling regulations.

They're just kind of not doing that, and, look, I don't blame them.

It's not as easy as saying "no date labels on any packaging".

Knowing when something was manufactured is actually important information to customers and food producers,

and grocery stores want to protect their reputation by providing customers with accurate freshness

information.

The core problem with date labeling is

that no matter what you display on the packaging,

there's a perception that food becomes dangerous after a specified time.

One solution may be

as simple as all of us just encouraging each other to remember

that date labels are not about getting poisoned.

Food safety is incredibly important,

but the date label is just trying to help you determine

Which one of these cans contain the best peaches?

So maybe just having a single label

that tells you when the food was packaged would work,

or maybe a "best by" label could do the job,

but there's actually been some excellent thinking on different date labeling techniques,

and we've linked to the good ones in the bio.

And if you're interested in reducing food waste,

there are actually quite a few options, including starting very small.

There are a lot of problems

that require rigorous political

and social campaigns to even make a dent,

but one thing you can personally do right now to make deep cuts in

your own food waste is renew your vow to humanity's greatest weapon.

I'm talking, of course, about your nose.

You are the direct result of hundreds of your ancestors successfully using their noses

to smell a food is bad

or not.

The people with bad noses?

They're not around, because they died!

Use your nose!

Smell the food!

If it smells bad, don't eat it!

It smells fine, it's probably fine.

Obviously, there are some foods you need to be more careful with,

like the foods doctors warn pregnant women to avoid.

Or foods that you eat cold without a "kill step,"

as food experts call it.

But if you're cooking food up, then it's been refrigerated and cared for properly,

you can almost always smell it and then eat it if it smells okay.

We can also be smarter about buying food.

Put fresh fruits and veggies in the front of the fridge instead of exiling

them to the back of the drawer.

You can also have a whole shelf in your fridge

that is the "eat this food first" shelf.

There's actually an incredible book By Dana Gunders we talked to

while making this episode called Waste Free Kitchen.

It pretty much goes through everything you're likely to eat

and how to reduce food waste from it.

It's not an ad, it's just a really good book, so, uh,

consider getting it if you feel like it.

Reducing food waste on a larger scale requires one major thought:

food waste is not trash.

I mean, think about it!

We spend all this time and money concentrating energy and nutrients into food.

It's more like a battery than it is an old hubcap.

Now, the best way for you to reduce food waste is to buy less

food and eat all the food you buy.

But when you inevitably have waste left over,

it's still an energy source outside of a landfill,

and a really dangerous methane producer inside a landfill.

Keeping that energy concentrated is much more efficient than starting over from scratch,

and some countries have made this shift by just banning food from going in

the trash.

In 1996, South Korea recycled barely 2.6% of their food waste,

but after a 2013 composting policy,

they are recycling nearly one hundred percent of it.

And it's not just other countries.

A handful of states have also banned food waste from the landfill,

including a law Vermont passed in 2012 that went into full effect in 2020.

Policies like these only really grow with enthusiastic public support

which is another thing you can be a part of

if you feel like it.

If you have a composting program in your neighborhood,

or you have your own home garden,

you can use the energy locked in your food to make more food.

If there is no program in your area,

and you want there to be one,

you can tell your local government to start one up.

We got links in the description to help you do that.

We've also linked a whole bunch of groups

that are doing an excellent job on this problem,

both on the national level or in a local level.

You can check out those links, but, honestly,

a few minutes on Dr Google.com will really help you put your money where

your mouth is.

Or your time... where your eyes are.

Or ears.

Yea-- As the food system starts to bump into the realities of a finite

world,

turning the one-way trip food currently takes into a loop is going to become

incredibly important.

And the groups and companies

that are making that loop a reality are going to start cropping up all

over the place.

We are currently wasting billions of dollars a year

because we don't want to spend money on a solution.

And that is the kind of braindead plan only a very charismatic box can

get behind.

And that's it, thank you so much for sticking with me.

We got a little more after the break, but first an ad:

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A little diamond on my tooth-- Okay, that's the end of the ad.

Thank you so much for watching Climate Town.

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All right, sign up for that, link in the bio,

that's going to be all the extra little tidbits

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And I know what you're thinking: "You cut stuff... for this?

This is long as hell!"

We did cut stuff, okay?

Don't be rude.

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Ah, sh*t.

I never thought of it that way.

I have not tried marijuana.

I have never used it.