Food for Thought

Fact: I hate throwing things away or wasting them. I write on both sides of my paper; cut open my tooth paste tube to squeeze out the last bit of tooth paste; keep unused refresher towels; and always bring my own bags when I go shopping.

My no-waste philosophy also applies to food. If something looks fine and smells fine, chances are it probably is fine – regardless of what the date on the package says.

But the other day, even I thought I was being a bit optimistic when I opened a Danone Activia Yoghurt that had been lost in the depths of my fridge for a while – 2 ½ months to be precise.

On its website, Activia states that its “milk adheres to the highest quality standards” and that its yoghurts are among the “best controlled food products on the market”. Apparently, their yoghurt is “made from only three ingredients – yoghurt, fruit and sugar” and is made without any additives, leave alone artificial ones!

So when I opened the yoghurt, I was expecting a nasty smell, an unpleasant look, maybe some mould... ideally a whole new microcosm!


But to my surprise, the yoghurt looked fine, smelled fine, tasted fine and – to once again confirm my theory – was fine. I enjoyed it without getting any stomach upsets or feeling unwell in any way.


So that made me wonder... How can a supposedly fresh dairy product with probiotic cultures last over three months? How many chemicals and artificial stabilisers do really go into this yoghurt? And why does Activia recommend eating the yoghurt by the 10th of March when it is still perfectly fine on the 28th of June? Is it to make customers believe they are purchasing a fresh, non-processed product? I don’t know. But as far as I am concerned this vastly pre-mature “Best Before Date” encourages nothing but wastage of food.

Already angry with the food industry, I came across a Woolworths “Lemon Zest and Cottage Cheese on a Ginger Biscuit Base Topped with a Swirl of Lemon Syrup” Cheesecake Desert in the fridge at work. It looked yummy, but sadly went out of date on the 13th of June and it was the 12th of July.


Woolworths – South Africa’s leading premium food chain – praises itself for offering “high quality, delicious food” using “delicious, simple and healthy ingredients”. Given the shops quality promises and the fact that it was a fresh dairy product, I was curious to find out whether Woolworths actually lived up to its reputation or whether it was just another case of “Best Before” Bullshit.

At this point, I wasn’t even surprised anymore to find that the desert was perfectly fine and tasty – even a month after the indicated best before date.


So next time you’re about to chuck a yoghurt that has gone out of date or cheese that is past its sell by date – think twice whether you really want to trust industry guidelines and throw your money in the bin or maybe check whether it is fine after all...