On food labels we all need to be tougher cookies
Fresh-baked news from the supermarket aisles: the Co-op is fed up. Specifically, the people who run the East of England Co-op have had enough of “best before” labels on food. From now on, any dried goods or canned food that are past the given date will be stacked and sold at the princely sum of 10p per item.
My suspicion – and my hope – is that customers will flock to take advantage of this offer. Because, let’s face it, a tin of Heinz tomato soup that has gone two whole days past its “best before” date will not suddenly have developed a noxious layer of Ebola-bearing scum. It will still be soup, utterly unchanged. As for dried goods: well, I’m sorry, but I fully expect most of my red lentils to outlive me.
It was reported earlier this year that a Huntley & Palmers fruit cake, taken by Captain Scott to the Antarctic, had been discovered in its original tin and deemed “almost edible”. Age? One hundred and six years old. And here are we, worried that a digestive biscuit might kill us if we nibble it a week too late.
The Co-op is keen to distinguish between “best before”, which is purely advisory, and “use by”, which means the food cannot legally be sold after the printed date. Even here, though, there tends to be leeway, once the product gets into your fridge. It’s true that perishables like chicken and fish need handling with a little care, but the best way to keep an eye on them, as any sensible cook knows, is to keep a nose on them. When in doubt: sniff it and see.
The real divide is between the Wuss Generations – basically, me and my children – and the Tough Eggs of the generation above. Some of today’s grandparents grew up with
rationing, and were thankful for any food that came their way. To them, the whole food labelling business is a scam launched by the supermarkets, based on 1) their desire to suck as much money from us as possible, and 2) their cunning ability to prey on our health and safety fears.
That is why our elders and betters take such pride in NOT obeying whatever they read on the label.
I am happy to invite readers to submit examples of labeldefiance. For now, however, the winner is Michael’s mother-inlaw. I have not had the pleasure of meeting her, and I don’t know who Michael happens to be, but I heard it on the grapevine. When Michael and his wife came to stay, bringing their new baby, the wife insisted on auditing the fridge. She brought forth from the back of the fridge a plastic pot, inside which was what looked like a pickled walnut. “What’s this?” she asked in a weak voice.
“Oh, how marvellous!” said her mother-in-law. “They’re Michael’s adenoids! I wondered where they’d got to.” The adenoids in question had been removed 20 years before.