When do you throw out food? Trader Joe’s former president Doug Rauch hopes your answer is NEVER.
In May, Rauch is opening a cafe-grocery store called The Daily Table in Dorchester, Mass that will use and sell expired food.
… so-called expired food is something of an overlooked commodity. At some point along the chain of production, from when it’s grown to when it’s left on a consumer’s dinner plate, 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. each year is wasted, and $165 billion goes in the trash.
Meanwhile, nearly 15 percent of U.S. households were food insecure in 2012, meaning there were times when they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from — let alone whether it would be healthy and wholesome. The connection seems obvious: As Ashley Stanley, whose food recovery nonprofit transports supermarket excess to local Boston food banks, put it, “It’s the most solvable, preventable, unnecessary problem we’ve got.”
I don’t know about you, but suddenly I feel like I’m in an outtake of The East. Still, the article makes a good point and the conversation around how long that pot of spaghetti in your fridge is really edible is evergreen. (For more, check out “Food Expiration Dates Mean Absolutely Nothing.”) Today, I asked my Jezebel team how long they keep stuff before throwing it out and the answers ran the gamut, from ‘Three days tops’ to ‘Hey, whenever it smells like death.’ Confused? Guess what? There’s a website for that!
Still Tasty helps answer questions about how long will your food and drinks stay safe and, er, tasty. The site also offers advice on the best way to store your nibbles to maximize freshness. Here are a few items that surprised us: