The DU Sgt. Schultz food safety test: US Food Supply In Constant Danger...

[asdf2231]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4077714

JFN1  (975 posts)       Wed Sep-24-08 01:54 PM
Original message
US Food Supply In Constant Danger Of Going "Bad" 
 
I was watching Hogan's Heroes last night, and saw something very interesting regarding our food.

In the episode, Sgt. Schultz confiscated a cheese sandwich from LeBeau. Col. Klink held a trial the next day, found LeBeau guilty, and Sgt. Schultz proceeded to eat the sandwich - which had apparently been left sitting on Klink's desk for 24 hours - without ill effect, and no commentary on the dangers of spoiled food. (You literally could NOT make this shit up!)

My husband commented that if a cheese sandwich had been left out these days for an entire day without refrigeration, it would go bad.

I'd been thinking about this all day, so I stepped into the kitchen and started looking at my food.

EVERYTHING has an expiration date on it now - even canned food. I found cans of beans, vegetables, chili, soup, stew, and tuna in my canned goods cabinet that are all due to expire within a few weeks - and I just bought this stuff within the last few months. I found a few cans of food I remember buying, but didn't use. Case in point: A can of cranberry sauce we didn't use when we had Thanksgiving at our house two years ago. According to the can, the cranberries expired Jan 25 07 - just two months after we would have used them.

Growing up, I remember having eggs in our house that lasted for weeks. Canned food that lasted for years and years (I remember eating a five-year-old can of Spam I found in a box of food my mom gave me when I went away to college, and I didn't get sick). Things like canned Spam used to have either no expiration date, or a "best if used by" date on them.

But today - food apparently doesn't last more than a year in a can, and about ten days for stuff like eggs. And fresh vegetables don't last more than a few days anymore.

How can that be? How can it be that in the 1960's, when Hogan's was filmed, a cheese sandwich left on a desk for 24 hours was still edible?

I left a package of Kraft Singles out overnight a while back (it had like three slices in it) after making grilled cheese sandwiches. I threw the remaining cheese away in the morning, because I was afraid to eat it.

I looked in my fridge, with these thoughts in mind, and discovered that I hardly have any food in my fridge that hasn't expired, or is rapidly approaching expiration, according to the date given on the labels.

So I ask: Is our food supply really safe? Or is it going to go bad just as soon as we open it?

And what about all of the "preservatives" they put in food these days? Aren't they supposed to extend shelf life? And if so, then why does food seem to be dated as 'bad' almost as soon as you buy it? How much food are Americans throwing away these days just because the expiration date has passed?

When I was young, food didn't expire like it does today. So what gives, then? Anyone else notice this? Has big business crept up on us and placed fear into us sufficient for us to justify throwing away perfectly good food just because we're told to?

How much money are we wasting? How many resources? How does this affect global warming, and the global food supply?

And most important - is it right? Should our meat expire in days, our eggs expire in a week, our canned food expire in a year? And if so - what has changed to make our food expire faster?

phantom power  (1000+ posts)       Wed Sep-24-08 01:58 PM
Response to Original message
1. I think...
 Edited on Wed Sep-24-08 02:00 PM by phantom power
that food does not spoil any faster now than Back In The Day. I think that there is more sensitivity to liability.

Food left out can very often be eaten. But it does increases your risk. And corporations have become more risk-averse over the years, since they periodically get clobbered with lawsuits or bad publicity. Hence the prevailing use of expiration dates.


Also, I would tend to suspect the continuity-editors of Hogan's Heros more than suspect changing biology. TV and movies make little goofs like that all the time. There are entire subcultures dedicated to finding them. like easter eggs.

 

Overseas  (1000+ posts)       Wed Sep-24-08 02:02 PM
Response to Original message
3. As long as Republicans wanting to crush government are in charge, 
 then yes, our food safety will suffer. That's their style. Cut government agencies that worked well in the past. Since food safety used to be a strong area of good government, Republicans cut the number of inspectors. So that when problems crop up people will complain that government is no good !! Government doesn't work !! SEEEEEE REPUBLICANS ARE RIGHT-- government doesn't work ! (They don't realize that somehow, past administrations didn't have all these food safety problems because they had more inspectors in the field.)


YOu've also been indoctrinated by commercial TV to be germ phobic, worried about poisoning your family with bacteria if you don't spray chlorine all over the place.

So no wonder you're more worried than you used to be.

I just use the smell test with some expiration dates.
 

 

[Carl]

Oh for Gods sake,are they that dimwitted and stupid?

Those expiration labels are in place because of the off hand chance that someone might do something dumb and eat a piece of moldy bread,get sick and then hire a LIB lawyer to sue everyone from the farmer to the packager.
Thanks to LIB judges that have awarded millions for this you get warning labels.

It is your own doing DUmbass.

[franksolich]

Oh geezuz.

Just because a food has an expiration date on it, doesn't mean it's not good after that expiration date.

Most food-processors are really really really conservative about expiration dates, so as to avoid lawsuits.

This is just really stupid.

When I was in the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants with free medical care for all--the mid-1990s--there erupted a scandal over the treatment of military conscripts.

Since it all was for the "greater good," nothing was done.

Among the charges was that the Russian army was feeding its conscripts canned food that had been Lend-Lease supplies.  I'll let the lurking primitives figure out how long ago Lend-Lease was.

[Texacon]

DUmmie should ask John Edwards why there are warning labels and expiration dates on everything now.  I'll bet HE knows.  He made a pretty penny making sure stupid shit was put on everything you purchase.

KC

[Zeus]

[LC EFA]

Most of my canned goods have a "best before" date on them.

I'll typically rotate canned foods out of the stockpile every year or so and consume them.

At times a can of something or other will make it to a couple years past the "best before" date.

The general rule is that if the can ain't bulging, dig in !

[Zeus]

Thank God for this thread. I had a couple Snack Pack puddings in the fridge. Been there for about a week so I ate them before they could spoil.

[thundley4]

Why does bottled WATER have an expiration date?

[DumbAss Tanker]

The dates on food, especially "Best by," are sell-by/restocking dates, NOT expiration dates.

[Carl]

Why does bottled WATER have an expiration date?

I presume that unless it is marked as distilled water and properly bottled and sealed bacteria can still grow.

[Chris_]

I always thought Hogan's Heroes was just a TV show. I didn't know it was a food documentary type thing. Silly me.

[Chris]

My dad entered the Marine Corps for basic training in late 1966.  Told me they were using powdered eggs left over from the Truman administration.  I suppose everyone in the service has their own stories.

[thundley4]

I think they still have those powdered eggs left, at least they did in the early 80's.

[Chris]

The week-old beef rack at the grocery store is a great buy if you're making soup or stew.

[asdf2231]

I always thought Hogan's Heroes was just a TV show. I didn't know it was a food documentary type thing. Silly me.

It was a multi level experience.

The episode where Colonel Klink was looking for the radio and found Kinch downing diet pills by the handfull so he could stay up to study for finals was a really powerful statement on the dangers of OTC meds.

And there was the MUST SEE where Hogan and the gang dealt with that whole teen pregnancy thing.

And the Death Camp episode?... Light years ahead of it's time.

[Chris]

I like cheese sammiches. 

[Chris_]

Most of my canned goods have a "best before" date on them.

I'll typically rotate canned foods out of the stockpile every year or so and consume them.

At times a can of something or other will make it to a couple years past the "best before" date.

The general rule is that if the can ain't bulging, dig in !

Canned goods last damn near forever.  As do Ramen noodles and unopened jars of PB.  And that freaking little sliver of soap that is left over when the air-soluble soap bar finishes evaporating (not food, but still...).

[JohnnyReb]

Things would be so much better if we were a communist state....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_re_as/as_china_elite_foods

....for the leaders which the DUmmies think they will be.

[Chris_]

Things would be so much better if we were a communist state....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_re_as/as_china_elite_foods

....for the leaders which the DUmmies think they will be.

That assumes they could survive pushing our country in that direction in the first place.  I tend to believe that before the rank and file in this country surrendered to doing their morning calesthenics in front of their two-way televisions to a still image of Big Brotha' and the Soviet National Anthem, the country's population would be reduced dramatically, with the aparatchiks the DUmmies envision themselves being taking decimating casualties from the rest of us.

Sounds like fun times...