[bestclimb]

dates an packages are typically a sell by date. One of the stores I shop at sells food on the last date of the sell by at deeply discounted rates (50-90%). Use by dates are set with a "guaranteed freshness" in mind. The assumption that 99.9% off food is good and a day later 25% has gone past good is a pretty wide assumption. If .1% of food is bad in your life when you buy 1000 packages of food 1 will make you sick seems like a pretty high % of hazardous food.

I am going to use Peter to illustrate my point. If he has twice gotten sick from food and he is ~30 years old(a guess given population distribution he is likely older, though he may be younger), subtracting the first 10 years of his life for not remembering times he may have gotten sick when younger. So for the last 20 years sick twice. that's once every 10 years. 10 years times 365 days times 3 meals a day times 3 ingredients (a swag) equals 32850 products he has been exposed to per 1 that made him sick. Peter has been exposed to 99.997% safe food or only .003% unsafe food. Given the buffer manufactures put into there sell by/use by dates I should think using found food from a frequently observed source would be pretty safe.

I am not likely to go dumpster diving even now that I figure it is way safer than I would have thought it would be. Mostly because I am not a bum, it violates social norms, and diggin in the trash for food seems...well trashy. I do definitely see a place for "expired" food in food banks and what not. It does not make sense to just fill landfills with food that could be used by folks that could use it.