Increased food prices causing more Canadians to ignore 'best before' dates: survey

A new study by Halifax's Dalhousie University and Caddle finds rising food costs are causing the majority of Canadians to eat food past the recommended date.

Focusing specifically on what’s going on at home, just over 9,000 participants weighed in on what kind of compromises they’re making in their kitchens.

“Our study is all about best before dates because best before dates requires judgement really,” said Dalhousie Agri-Food Analytics lab director Sylvain Charlebois.

“Best before doesn’t mean bad after, so you kind of have to assess with your senses and yourself whether or not that food is safe to eat or not.”

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Overall, Charlebois says the results were surprising, with 58 per cent of those surveyed saying higher food costs have made them more inclined to eat food close to or past the best before date.

“I’m not really a coupon shopper or really look strongly at the prices, but I certainly do notice that they have gone up and so yeah, I would probably eat some stuff beyond the best before date,” said Moncton resident Gord Reid.

“Probably meat I would stay away from, dairy I can kind of tell when you open it by the smell, but a lot of packaged stuff either in cans or in boxes and stuff, I’m not all that concerned.”

Breaking it down even further, of the 58 per cent:

• 23 per cent said they always eat food past its best before
• nearly 39 per cent said they often consume such food
• just under 31 per cent said they do it sometimes
• only 7.5 per cent said they rarely eat food under these conditions

Charlebois says the results clearly show that while people are wasting less, they’re risking more when it comes to food safety.

“I think the most alarming results was in relation to people who believe to have gotten sick as a result of consuming contaminated food products and so 1 Canadian in 5, 1 consumer in 5, believe that they actually fell ill due to the fact that they actually ate an unsafe food product, but younger generations were more impacted,” he said.

Millennials were the highest impacted in this survey question. Charlebois attributes it to the fact the group feels more confident about their health and ability to deal with foodborne illnesses and that they are facing “tremendous financial pressure.”

Looking at the big picture, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency estimates that more than 4 million Canadians are effected by foodborne illnesses each year.

However, Charlebois says he would challenge that number when people are faced with high food costs like we’re seeing right now.

“I think there’s probably a strong correlation between food prices and the number of food borne illnesses we see in Canada, to be honest. I think that right now what we’re going through as a society is unprecedented,” he said.

“People are basically being forced to managed inventories very differently at home.”

Darren Dorcas, a culinary arts instructor at NBCC, says there are other ways people can save money at the grocery store.

“If you bought a whole chicken, a whole chicken is going to run about $10 for the whole thing and you get two breast, two thighs, two wings and you can break that down and stretch that a lot further,” he said.

“That same $10 might buy you two chicken breasts.”

He adds buying a whole chicken also leaves you with the carcass which can be made into soup stock.

“Now you’ve turned one chicken into possibly three meals,” said Dorcas.

Other tips include shopping around when possible, choosing frozen fruits and vegetables, and buying in bulk and storing it properly in your freezer.

“Obviously fresh veggies are going to be a bit more costly, so an alternative to that is to look at frozen vegetables. In terms of nutrients and that, it’s the exact same,” he said.

“The other options is we can look to explore different cuisines, so for example if we look at the Indian cuisine, they eat a lot of legumes, rices. It’s not so meat heavy.”

According to the study, a total of 47 per cent of Canadians have said they changed their approach to conserving food to extend the shelf-life of products.

“Air tight containers are good as long as the containers are packed really tightly, so less air getting in to prevent it from getting freezer burnt,” said NBCC culinary program coordinating instructor Owen Brinson.

“You can also wrap it tightly using plastic wrap, the best is a vacuum sealer with vacuum seal bags to remove all the air. It’ll last a little bit longer and you can also use a re-sealable bag, again try to remove as much air out of it as you can before freezing.”

As for items in the fridge, Brinson said preparation can play a role.

“The smaller you cut something, the faster it will deteriorate just for access surface area and exposure to air. So if you do cut things at a medium dice or larger dice, it will last longer in the fridge. You might get an extra day or two out of it before it will start to go a little off colour. Same with whole vegetables that are unpeeled will last a little bit longer.”

When it comes to best before dates, Charlebois says it’s all about what each individual is comfortable with, but there are a few items he points out as ones to keep an eye on.

“You have to really assess risk properly, so meat products, dairy products, be careful and in third place obviously produce,” he said.

Adding that often people get sick because they don’t check the CFIA’s website or pay attention to food recalls.

“The biggest challenge is in the Atlantic, it’s right here, that’s where we’ve seen the highest food inflation rates in the past couple of years,” he said.

“People in the Atlantic are still recovering from really steep hikes and that’s been problematic for our region.”

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