A “best before” date is about quality, not safety. It tells you how long a food product will be at its peak flavor, texture, and freshness. After that date, the food is still safe to eat, but it may not taste or look as good as intended. This is one of the most misunderstood labels in your kitchen, and confusing it with a safety deadline contributes to a staggering amount of wasted food.
Best Before vs. Use By: The Key Difference
Food labels carry two fundamentally different types of dates, and mixing them up can either waste your money or put your health at risk. A “best before” date (sometimes printed as BBE, meaning “best before end”) is the manufacturer’s estimate of when the product will start declining in quality. A box of crackers past its best before date might be a little stale. A can of tomatoes might have slightly less vibrant color. Neither is dangerous.
A “use by” date, on the other hand, is a safety date. It appears on perishable foods like fresh meat, ready-to-eat salads, and soft cheeses. Food past its use-by date can harbor harmful bacteria even if it looks and smells fine. The UK Food Standards Agency puts it bluntly: never eat food after the use-by date, even if it seems okay.
The simplest way to remember: best before is about taste, use by is about safety.
These Dates Aren’t Required by Law (Usually)
In the United States, federal law does not require date labels on any food product except infant formula. That’s it. The USDA does not mandate quality or safety dates on meat, poultry, or eggs at the federal level, and the FDA only requires a “use by” date on infant formula to ensure it still contains the nutrient levels listed on the label and flows properly through a bottle nipple.
Every other date you see on packaging, whether it says “best before,” “sell by,” or “best if used by,” is voluntarily placed by the manufacturer. There is no uniform or universally accepted system for these labels in the U.S., which is a big part of why they’re so confusing. Some states do have their own requirements for certain products like eggs, but there’s no national standard. Manufacturers choose the date based on their own quality testing, not a government-set formula.
How Long Food Actually Lasts Past the Date
Because best before dates reflect quality rather than safety, many foods remain perfectly fine well beyond the printed date. The actual shelf life depends on the type of food and how you store it.
Dry pantry staples are the most forgiving. Plain rice, pasta, and cereals can be used for up to two years past the date on the package if stored in a cool, dry place. Flavored rice or pasta mixes have a shorter window, roughly six months past the printed date, because added seasonings and oils can go stale faster.
Eggs are safe for three to five weeks from the day you put them in the refrigerator, regardless of what the carton says. Hard-boiled eggs have a shorter window of about one week in the fridge. Milk often lasts several days past its date when properly refrigerated, though you’ll notice the smell quickly once it turns.
Canned goods are in a category of their own. As long as the can is in good condition, with no rust, dents, or swelling, canned food remains safe for years. The best before date on a can of beans or soup is really just the manufacturer saying “it’ll taste best before this point.” The food inside a sealed, undamaged can is essentially preserved indefinitely from a safety standpoint.
How to Tell When Food Has Actually Gone Bad
Your senses are more reliable than a printed date for most foods. Spoilage bacteria cause recognizable changes: fruits and vegetables become mushy or slimy, meat develops an off-putting odor, and dairy products smell sour. If something looks, smells, or feels wrong, trust that over the date on the label.
That said, your senses aren’t perfect. Some harmful bacteria don’t produce obvious signs of spoilage, which is why use-by dates on perishable items matter and why proper refrigeration is more important than any printed date. A best before date on a shelf-stable product like canned soup or dried pasta, though, is far less critical than keeping your fridge at the right temperature.
Freezing Resets the Clock
If you’re approaching a best before date and don’t think you’ll use a product in time, freezing it effectively pauses quality decline. Bread, meat, cooked meals, and many other foods can be frozen before their best before date and used well after it. The texture of some foods (like fresh vegetables with high water content) may change after thawing, but safety isn’t an issue as long as the food was frozen while still in good condition.
Why This Confusion Matters
The USDA estimates that roughly 30 percent of the U.S. food supply is wasted at the retail and consumer level. A significant portion of that waste comes from people throwing away food that’s still perfectly safe because they misread a quality date as a safety deadline. A yogurt one day past its best before date, a bag of chips a week beyond, a can of tuna months later: all likely fine, all routinely tossed.
This isn’t just a household budget issue. Food waste is one of the largest contributors to landfill volume, and much of it is driven by label confusion that could be solved with clearer, standardized dating. Until that happens, the most practical thing you can do is remember the core distinction: best before dates are the manufacturer’s quality suggestion, not a safety cutoff. Use your eyes, nose, and common sense for everything else.