Other: There’s no way in hell that I’m going to stand there and check that many gallons of milk for the dates. If the first gallon I pick up has an acceptable date, that’s the one I’m taking. I can’t recall looking at the dates of more than two to find one with a reasonable date, ever.
Dairy products are marked with a “Sell by” date, not a “best by” date. The product is generally good for at least a week beyond the “Sell by” date.
That notwithstanding, morality does not apply in this type of economic transaction. If the store puts milk with different dates on the shelf there is no reason for you to not select the one that gives you the greatest advantage. If you go to the produce section, would you buy brown bananas if there were yellow ones right next to them? Your definition of “greatest advantage” depends on how fast you will use the milk, as many posters have already discussed.
It seems to me that the store would want to minimize their spoilage losses by not even putting newer milk on the shelf until the older milk (which is still perfectly good) is all sold. That removes the shopper’s “moral dilemma.” I suppose it is more labor intensive to do it that way; maybe the labor is more costly than the lost product.
The real question of morality is why restaurants and grocery stores throw away food that may be technically past an expiration date but still perfectly safe and palatable for consumption, rather than giving it away to the homeless.
Given the described situation, I’d but the one in front, but that’s never my situation. I rarely go through a quart in a week so I often look for long-dated milk.
Er, yeah. Yellow bananas aren’t quite ripe. They’re at their best when they have a little bit of brown. I’d buy them and eat the same day.
I know what you’re getting at, though. That may be a bad example.
I went with 15th but I could have gone “other” ----- I just grab whatever is in front. Milk around here hardly lasts 3 days and our local store is fantastic about getting rid of any milk with less than a week to ten days on it so I’m safe and always have been.
The best explanation of optimal date-seeking for milk was posted awhile back by someone who explained that it was a “Jewish” tactic.
So now, when I reach into the back of a display of milk or other perishables and find a carton with a best-by date a week later than the others, I grab it, thinking “Jew score!!!” 
Most of us don’t go shopping every day. I generally go for a bit of green on the bananas, but I’m rapidly approaching the age where that might be the wisest decision anymore. 
I prefer bananas green or yellow-green, never buying any with visible brown on them. I’ll even try to eat them before they ripen. The firm texture is much more palatable to me.
For me, fresh tastes better, so I shove the old stuff to the side and take the freshest. Tough titty that the store has to waste money throwing out expired product and rearranging it’s displays for FIF0.
When stores offer “fresh” at a higher price and “not so fresh but won’t kill you” (i.e. marked down for quick sale prior to expiration date), I don’t mind paying extra for fresh, so it doesn’t bother me that my digging about for the freshest costs the store a little and thereby raises the prices a little.
I tend to shop at grocery stores that offer the freshest products, and don’t mind paying a slight premium over purchasing yucky stuff for a few pennies less at discount grocery stores, so if a store wants me as a regular customer, it needs to sell fresh products without requiring me to climb up and dig back.
Same. We typically go through a gallon every couple of days.
I’ll grab the carton of milk from the back of the cooler, less because of the later expiry date, but in case someone removed a carton, let it warm up and returned it to the cooler.
It is pasteurized (it says so on the label) and I buy older stock because it clabbers sooner. It clabbers, but does not become distasteful, because one needs to be very careful to not touch the contents or inside of the container, which wold introduce “dangerous baceria” that cause it to “spoil”, rather than clabber. Yes, that’s what I like. I’ve been drinking it for 78 years, with no adverse effects.
See, you’re doing it wrong. What you need to do is open every carton of milk in the store and touch the milk in each with your tongue, until you find the sourest one. That’s the one that will clabber best. Plus you’ll be introducing healthful bacteria to every other customer of the store.
You know you can just add vinegar to good milk and you’ll get the same result? (My mother’s done that occassionally when we’re out of buttermilk)
I get the freshest milk available without having to dig around too much. I might go to the second row for a carton if it has a later date but I’m not going to ferret around several rows back.
Probably goes well with the roadkill, dumpster cabbage and banana peels.
Sometimes I do, just to help it along. But to the point of this thread, why should I take somebody’s else’s fresher milk, if that’s what I’m going to do? I wish the store would sell me the older milk at a discount. In fact,everything that is past best-by.
That’s like saying if we’re out of champagne, you can just drink Bud Light.
Tastes different, and to people who care, it matters.
That’s like non-alcoholic beer to a Tenctonese.
I buy the one at the front. The only time I will rummage for specific dates is if I am buying something to be used on a specific future date (e.g. buying sausagemeat in readiness for Christmas dinner)