Expiry dates

<![CDATA[ It is always wise to doublecheck the best-before dates on food items before you purchase them. I have recently run into a couple of instances where time had caught up with the goods concerned. I can imagine that in the mornings, not all expired goods will have been removed from view in shops, and one day should not really make a lot of difference. Nonetheless, you can't be too careful with meat.
But to go to a restaurant and find that the butter accompanying your bread went out of date a month ago? Tut tut. What really made me laugh was a box of eggs, which proudly proclaimed an expiry date of 30 Feb 2006. The worst instance I have come across was an ampoule of an injection fluid, dredged up from the seabed, which expired in September 1965. Yes, sixty-five. That didn't bother me. After more than 30 years (found it in 1996), nothing active will have been left. What is bothering me is this can from the Baltic states, alleging to contain Atlantic salmon, which I found on the beach at Holm. Its expiry date is 25 November 1989. The contents slosh around inside, and it is bulging at the seams. I wouldn't dare open it, for fear of the fumes that would emanate. So it still sits on that shelf, quite sealed.

I came across this proposed labelling scheme for cow's milk, from www.dontmindme.com.

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