Did you see 5 on Your Side yesterday? Monica LaLiberte did a story on how to tell when food you've had for a while is safe to eat or not. The video is available online if you want to see it. I'm especially glad she did that story because it reminded me of a blog entry I saw at Gov Gab, the blog for the US Government.

The government has a BLOG? Yes, but that's tomorrow's story. Right now I want you to check out http://blog.usa.gov/roller/govgab/entry/deciphering_food_expiration_dates . It's a blog entry about what exactly the dates on your food mean -- the Sell By Date, the Best If Used Before Date, and the actual Expiration date. I didn't know that "use by" dates were optional (only baby food and formula are federally required to have use-by dates.)

This useful blog entry also links to a cold storage chart which explains how long different kinds of foods can be kept in the fridge. There's also a chart that shows the approximate keep time of unopened refrigerated foods as well as shelf-stable foods.

Thanks for the reminder Monica! Tomorrow I'll take a closer look at government blogging.