6 . Earlier this month, British supermarket chain Morrisons announced that it would be removing “use by” dates on most of its milk. The idea behind this is to discourage people from throwing milk away based on a date, rather than sniffing (闻) and looking at it to determine whether it’s still safe for consumption.

The fact is that significant amounts of food get wasted every year by people blindly following expiration dates, rather than their senses. What makes matters worse is that most dates don’t mean much, anyway. They’re assigned somewhat randomly by food manufacturers that are not held to any regulatory standards for what determines a safe date nor what expertise (专门知识) is required to make such a judgment call—so it makes sense that they’d be too cautious.

What I find amusing, however, is that many people seem to be horrified by this approaching absence of “use by” dates.

In fact, I never look at expiration dates when I shop. To me, it’s as if they don’t exist. To be clear, I am not an absent-minded shopper. I pay close attention to both packaging and price. Despite having a full cart at checkout, I could tell you the exact price of every item in it. Any time I see a clearance rack (清仓货架) at the store, that’s usually where I go first because it’s exactly the stuff I want to buy—the cheaper, the better! If there’s any heavily discounted product that I’d normally use, I will certainly take it. Often, I’ll mentally adjust my weekly menu plan on the spot, based on what I find.

The handful of times I have looked at expiration dates have been for short-lived items like prepackaged salad greens. What I’ve found, however, is that the dates mean little. Even a package that claims to be fresh can still have rotten yellow leaves at the bottom, which turns me off. Therefore, the expiration date means next to nothing, but my visual assessment, combined with my intention for when I plan to eat it, is far more useful.

Food is your friend. Food is not out to kill you!