Is Your Own Food Fresher Than Shop Food?
But if that same cartoon of milk or moldy block of cheese or stale bread or wilted lettuce was in your fridge, you'd probably say it's good for one more day or just trim around the gross part. It'll be fine.
Clearly, a double standard! And kind of makes you feel bad about lambasting the acne-faced clerk for not having anymore in the back. But a new study reveals people really do have a different perception of freshness for food outside their home than for the stuff lurking in their very own refrigerators.
Printed in the Journal of Consumer Research, scientists explored a concept called the "endowment effect," which refers to the higher value people place on something once they own it. In a past experiment, participants demanded a higher price for a coffee mug that had been given to them, but wanted less for a mug they did not yet own.
Until now, the effect had never been studied on perishable items, like food.
In the new study, which involved smoothies, researchers discovered owning a smoothie, despite it being past its freshness date, made participants feel okay about consuming it and this outcome was accompanied by an even lower concern of getting sick from drinking an owned-smoothie past its sell-by date; ENN reports.
Basically, this points out the hypocrisy in people's idea of freshness or safe-to-eat-ness. So give the grocery guy a break!
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When shopping, I will not simply take things off the shelf and go home. I have to pay for stuff. I am not paying for food that is not fresh. At home, on the other hand, the food is already paid for. I either choose to trim of the "gross "part", or throw it away, depending on degree of "gross". I don't see anything special about this behavior. Not sure why a study is needed to confirm that people want to get the most for their money in a grocery store; in this case, fresh food.
ReplyI agree, this seems kind of obvious. A gallon of milk in the store that is due to expire any day will certainly go bad at home because it takes us over a week to go through it.
But if it's almost gone and only a day past the expiration date (and doesn't smell off!) we keep drinking it. Are scientists running out of things to study? Yeesh.
ReplyIt is NOT a double standard. When you buy food at the grocery store, you're generally not going to eat it all that very same day. You look for the fresh food you can because you want the food to last a few days. I guess some people might go to the grocery store every day and eat everything they buy that same day, but most of us don't have that kind of time.
Replyi thought the sell date was the date the store knows when to remove it from the shelves. It's not the date that the product is bad. Maybe I'm wrong?
ReplyYes, I'm with you on this! Over here in the UK, a "use-by" date is when you're recommended to eat the food by (to be honest, I don't worry too much if it's a day after...) and the "sell by" date is an instruction to the store.
I actually quite often buy fresh goods which have reached their sell-by date; they're generally reduced (especially towards the end of the day). Most can be frozen if you can't use them the same day.
Replyexactly. this isn't some wierd perception, it's people knowing they don't eat their enitre cart of groceries in one day. not terribly exciting
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ReplyYes but it is difficult due maintain this - shelf life of produce seems shorter than it used to be. I think stores are keeping food on the shelves longer to keep their profit margins up in hard times.
Replythey are also sourcing their food from further away, meaning it takes more time in transportation and storage. Buy seasonal and local foods if you want them to last longer.
ReplyI don't see anything special about this behavior either. If I'm going to the store, I'm picking up food that's supposed to last all week, so it has to be fresh. I do not like it when I buy food and it spoils the day after I buy it because it's a big fat waste of money. But if I have lettuce in the fridge that has some brown leaves on the edge, I'll definitely trim off the brown bits and eat the rest of it. My own fridge isn't the grocery store, so I don't get the point of comparing the two.
And the "sell by" dates on the food are not the same as the expiration dates. The sell by date is the date the store has to pull the product off the shelf; it's not the day the product goes bad. I've used milk that's a week over the sell by date and it's fine. If you properly store your food, it'll last a lot longer than if you don't...I always properly store my fruit and veggies and I rarely, if ever, have to throw it out due to spoilage.
Replymy friends boyfriend worked at the local market. he was recently fired because he threw out the expired eggs. he was told they could have used them in the deli or salad bar. makes you think twice about buying premade egg salad.
ReplyMy goodness. I find this to be a very silly study. Who paid to fund this? Why would you pay for unfresh food?
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ReplyIn my own case, I'm just as weird about freshness at my house as I am at the store. For example, if the date on the milk carton is a couple of days away I either will finish off the rest of it or just pour out the little bit that's left. I don't like "cutting it close". If my cheese isn't the proper color I won't cut around the edges. It's gone, period.
I think I'm actually MORE wary of the food in my fridge.
And I second the sentiment that no one wants to pay for food that's going to go bad before you use it.
ReplyAs others have said, the standard of freshness is because the product needs to have a shelf life left over after it leaves the market. If I were to buy groceries everyday and not buying a cart load at a time I would probably be more lax on the length of time between when I buy the product and when the experation date on the product is. This is expetually true of periable items like milk eggs bread and bananas that can go bad quickly.
Reply