# Is this safe to eat?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-safe-to-eat/823585>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 27, 2018, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-safe-to-eat/823585 "2018-10-27T11:37:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2018, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-safe-to-eat/823585/21 "2018-10-28T16:29:50Z")

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And then there are foods which literally do not go bad, at all, no matter how long they’re stored. Thousand-year-old honey is just like honey pulled from the comb yesterday. But honey (and other foods like it) still gets a “best before” date, because consumers expect it.

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**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2018, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-safe-to-eat/823585/22 "2018-10-28T17:11:04Z")

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> [@Chronos](#):
>
> And then there are foods which literally do not go bad, at all, no matter how long they’re stored. Thousand-year-old honey is just like honey pulled from the comb yesterday. But honey (and other foods like it) still gets a “best before” date, because consumers expect it.

Yet Amazon REQUIRES Amazon vendors’ food products to have a best-by date of no longer than 5 years. So all food products have to be labeled as such, regardless of whether it’s perishable or not. And since a company isn’t going to use different labels depending on which distributor is sending products to which store, now every store is carrying products with ridiculously incorrect best-by dates.

I worked for a sugar/spice importer and CONSTANTLY had to explain to consumers that their salt hadn’t just expired.

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**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2018, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-safe-to-eat/823585/23 "2018-10-28T18:02:36Z")

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May I tack on a question?

Does this mean that if someone wants to launch a food product with a Best Before date 1 year after manufacture, it’s necessarily going to take at least 1 year of testing, with testing comprised of leaving the food in some room for 1 year and then testing it for mold or bacteria?

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