Have you ever wondered how life would be if we didn’t have ‘sell by’ dates for food? And more so, whether our body would reap the benefits of not eating food with chemicals or preservatives in it?
I remember in the 60s and early 70s that when you went to a local shop you bought only the groceries you needed for the next few days. A few slices of cheese, a few tomatoes, a loaf of fresh bread, a couple of apples and a few eggs. These items didn’t have a sell by date and you knew to eat them within a few days. There wasn’t the enormous array of different brands or food types – quite a simple diet – and none of us went hungry or minded. I loved the fresh eggs when we had them, and having an apple when I got home from school.
Fast-forward to 2017 and we have a very different experience. I was looking in the supermarket at various foods and noticing the sell by dates – and that those foods with long sell by dates seemed to have more ingredients in them than those with shorter or more immediate sell by dates. I started looking up the aisles at things like jam. If we look at jam – the long sell by date jams are stacked full of sugar as well as the fruit, yet you can also buy some preserves e.g. strawberry preserve which has no added sugar – it only has apple juice concentrate in it, which once opened, needs refrigerating as it has a far shorter sell/eat by date.
Foods with long sell by dates have preservatives in them. There are a range of things we use to preserve food or elongate the sell by date e.g. vinegars, sugars, salt, other preservatives, and we use tins, jars, mountains of plastic packaging, and all manner of containers, all of which have to be disposed of while globally the necessity for recycling and rubbish disposal continues to rise. You only have to watch the news to see how far plastic travels and the dangers it poses to sea life, for example:
“An illustration of the sheer magnitude of the problem is that as much as 51 trillion micro-plastic particles – 500 times more than stars in our galaxy – pollute the seas.” (1)
How come we need so many foods with long sell by dates? How on earth did we manage all those decades ago without them? Hunter-gatherers aeons ago didn’t have sell by dates or have a problem with plastic. When did we start to make the simple act of purchasing food so complicated? I know we can manage very well without long sell by dates and the food we ate decades ago was less tainted with preservatives, sugars, salts, and there was no plastic packaging. And yet nowadays we seem to live in a way where we stock up, hoard, plan for the future and want our shopping to last for weeks, and when we are coming up to public holidays when the shops are open less, we stock up as though we won’t see another shop for months.
In an age where we have problems with:
- Obesity – worldwide this has more than doubled since 1980 (2)
- Diabetes – the number of people with diabetes has risen from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014 (3)
- Addiction to sugar (4)
- The overuse of salt in our diets (5)
wouldn’t it be a great time to consider how we could simplify food, with fewer sell by dates, fewer preservatives and packaging? Is it also possible that our body would find benefit in eating food that is simple, contains no preservatives, is in season and freshly prepared?
Letting go of sell by dates as they currently are is a public health initiative that is well worth considering. Whilst it may mean we shop slightly more often or we need to consider and plan our food with more care, it would completely change our relationship with food, with shopping, and at the same time support the environment. It would change food manufacturing, our use of salt, sugar, vinegars/preservatives, and the need for so much packaging. It would also impact on our health as we wouldn’t be ingesting so much sugar, salt and other preservatives or chemicals.
Equally significantly, it would also offer the opportunity for us to look at the recently emerged trend of stockpiling food and the panic buying that occurs at holiday times. Animals don’t stock pile food – they eat according to their own rhythm and according to a far greater universal rhythm and cycle where their body naturally knows what is needed.
What then if the answer to this stockpiling trend was simple and natural – just the same as it is with the Animal Kingdom?
What if we bought and prepared food and ate by listening to our own body, feeling what to eat, what to buy, how to buy it in accordance with the natural rhythm of our body?
I know when I choose to be aware, my body knows exactly what it needs when I go shopping, or when I’m about to prepare and cook a meal. And nowadays I shop, prepare and cook most of my meals for myself and the food I eat is mostly in season, fresh, and minimally packaged. More so, I know my body benefits from this – I love the seasonal fresh flavours, and the ease of cooking fresh food, and my body loves the simplicity of it. There is also less packaging to recycle after too!
Is it then possible that: Sell by dates are past their sell by date?
What if our body knows how to shop, when to shop, what to shop in a way that doesn’t need packaging or long sell by dates or chemicals, as the body can, if we choose, live in accordance with the rhythms and cycles of nature, the seasons, and can flourish very well without the need for long sell by dates? And in doing so not only are we more responsible for our own health and wellbeing, we are more responsible for the environment we share with everyone else, too?
By Jane, London
References:
- UN News (2017) ‘Turn the tide on plastic’ urges UN, as microplastics in the seas now outnumber stars in our galaxy. UN News Centre 23rd February http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56229#.WLAznhCFBfQ
- WHO (2016) Obesity and Overweight Fact Sheet – http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/
- WHO (2016) Diabetes Fact Sheet – http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs312/en/
- uk (2016) Sugar reduction and obesity: 10 things you need toknow – Public Health Matters https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2016/11/01/sugar-reduction-and-obesity-10-things-you-need-to-know/
- WHO (2016) Salt Reduction http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs393/en/
Further Reading:
‘A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down’ – irony or just pure corruption?
The environment
Takeaways
Educated food choices – become your own physician!
584 Comments
I agree Jane we have made the simple act of feeding ourselves into this grand world scale complexity. I sometimes look at the long rows of trucks on my nearby highway and think about all the foods that are being transported across the world..and back sometimes.
It would be interesting to see how many trucks are exporting or importing food and whether it really is all necessary.
Processed foods with long sell by dates read like a veritable mystery story from a chemical lab when you look at the list of ingredients. And salt or sugar and water always get top marks in the percentage stakes. And that makes me wonder, “what are we putting into our bodies?”
That would make a great sign in the supermarkets – hello body who is shopping – please consider what you are putting into your body… or words to that effect so that we start to bring more awareness when we buy things.
You are very right. Sell dates have gone to extremes, and we could and should return to food that is fresh and what doesn’t come with chemical preservatives as much as possible. Perhaps exceptions are occasions like when we travel, when preservatives are needed to keep food fresh. But then there are also ways to use natural preservatives.
I’m sure if we all got together and talked about food, preservatives, packaging etc amongst us all, we could come up with many ways to simplify food, to cease harmful packaging, and harmful preservatives and to support our bodies and our environment far more than we do currently.
Older people are sometimes considered to be past their sell by date and although medicine can provide a kind of preservative, it is the attitude of society that dictates their ability to contribute in a lively way.
It goes to show we really don’t look at the fact that life is all about cycles – and there is a cycle for everything – prolonging unnaturally and unnecessarily any cycle in life puts us all out of rhythm. Im not here saying we should let people die, more saying there is a natural cycle for every part of life if we choose to see it.
The very nature of a cycle is renewal but we see life as a straight line that we drop off of at the end of and it is this very ignorant belief that influences so much of our behaviour.
Suggesting our bodies know what they need is outrageous! Who would have thought the very thing that manages to get us up in the morning, flush itself of toxins daily, operate like clockwork (in cycles I might add), move us from A to B all while maintaining the function of several organs all at the same time could possibly know what type of fuel it needed?
Surely it’s not smart enough for that!? Surely chips and lollies will be enough to get it through?
I’m looking forward to the time when shops around the world revert back to the fresh produce that is seasonal or at least does not have the millions of preservatives that mean it can last for 10 years in the cupboard. My feeling is not only will this change the way we eat it will inspire us to eat together more, deepen our connections with one another and bring true community back to the forefront.
I agree David, it would change the growing of food, supplying food, shopping for food, preparing for food to a huge extent if this was to be the way in the future.
If we didn’t have the actual seasons to guide us to what time of the year it is, and in some countries you don’t, if we go by what is accessible in todays supermarkets we would have no idea what time of the year it is. Our cycles with the seasons have been manipulated. If we look at cycles in our lives then what else has been manipulated to stop us from connecting to the truth of who we are?
It’s true Natalie – and we have no real idea of what actually is truly available locally and the seasonal nature of food, and of the food our bodies want to eat.
We are moving further and further from the normal life span of food as there is an increase in the salt and sugar content in our foods so they can have a longer shelf life – but in doing so we are in a way denaturing the food we eat
I agree Rebecca and, we are ‘denaturing’ nature – where we are polluting with packaging, and we are modifying natural sources of food, which knocks out the harmonious balance of all in nature too.
Great blog Jane, on reading it again I remembered when I was young and living in a Devonshire town for a few months of the year. I remember my parents going to the local shops almost daily to pick up fresh bread, milk and vegetables and always speaking to the locals around them. The thing I noticed was the Community feel, there was more connection with people – so we would know the shop keeper, the other shoppers and there was always time to converse. It is the intimate Connection with Community that is predominantly missing now. Yes I still speak to the supermarket checkout staff but shopping in the way we do has lost its intimacy with others, that ability to regularly communicate and know what is going on locally. My parents would know instantly what was going on in the town we stayed in, people took an active interest, supported one another and spoke when things needed to change. It was more like a community meeting when my parents were out shopping, where information was relayed and shared but in a simple way, friendly exchanges, and waves. I loved that feeling but sadly that has changed.
So what has longer sell by dates got to do with this? Actually, a lot. it has changed the way we interact, it actually means less interaction with people, no need to shop daily for our food so we miss those daily exchanges – online shopping has an added impact also. Those exchanges are what makes and connects a community, it keeps it alive and strong and healthy, always responding to its environment and always in connection with another. What I am learning is that everything affects everything, even sell by dates.
I agree Susan – rarely if at all do we feel a sense of community when walking around a large supermarket, or often in our local high streets nowadays. I too remember when we knew who owned or worked in local shops, and we would talk to others in the community whilst getting shopping in that local community.
Thanks, Jane. This is a beautiful presentation of how simple life can be when we go with the flow and listen to ourselves, our bodies and each other, to discern what is truly needed in each moment.
The omni-presence and omni-availability of all foods, whatever the seasons, separates us from the rhythms of nature. But I feel that this is a pattern that will be reversed and we will eventually be forced to see the arrogance of our movements and will humbly re-embrace the fact that we are part of a far bigger whole and thus it is our responsibility to move within that grander rhythm.
In the 70’s when I was a teenager I remember my parents and my grandparents would prepare for Christmas by buying a hamper of food. It was considered a treat and came with a mixture of items we usually associate with this festive period. We always got the basics in because we knew the shops would be shut throughout the Christmas period but there was no sense of panic or over buying, and we never went without. These days you can feel a real tension when visiting the supermarket as Christmas approaches, and yet the shops are open for longer hours and for more days.
What concerns me also is I found an iceberg lettuce in my fridge that was nearly 3 weeks past it’s sell by date and yet it still looked fresh enough to eat, something seriously not right here, was it genetically modified with the DNA of a tortoise?
If we paused to look at this and we really looked at how the food was grown, shipped, packaged etc etc we probably wouldn’t eat much of the food on offer today in our supermarkets.
There is a lot of waste in food and packaging true, but I feel that trying to shape ourselves up in that regard is jumping the gun a little bit. When we have a world full of domestic violence, genocide, rapes, FGM and so much more we ought to set our priorities straight and fully comprehend the mess we are in.
I agree Michael, also if we pay attention to the small details in daily life, and are prepared to look at what doesn’t make sense, to observe the way we are living on all counts we can each through our own daily living responsibility make a difference not just to ourselves, and those around us, but the ripple effect goes way beyond that.
There are so many great points in this blog Jane, and one of them is a pet hate of mine and that is all the plastic packaging on so many foods in the supermarkets these days, I remember the shopping used to come home in paper bags and nothing in that paper bag was contained in a plastic wrapping or container just maybe the odd tin. We humans are so very shortsighted when we put profit and convenience over health and the environment.
I agree Kev – thats a much needed conversation amongst us all – ‘packaging’ and what is truly needed.
Yep so we may have foods that lasts longer but what are the ingredients we put in it to make it last longer .. not that great!
What is the real cost of having everything in season, available all year? Most grown food has cycles so they are always seasonable someplace on the planet and most have early and late varieties. How can having fresh cherries from Peru in England in the winter be viable? What is the carbon footprint of flying seasonable fruit and veg to the other side of the world… every day?
Absolute arrogance of humanity
And are we raping other lands for our own needs? As well as exploiting workers from other lands?
Such great points raised here Jane. It seems that we have lost touch with our understanding of what it is we value, and why. Do we value the importance of having foods that hold a longer shelf life more than we do foods that hold a greater quality of nutrients to support our bodies with? Do we value convenience/comfort more than we value listening to our bodies and what supports our well-being and what does not? As such have we lost touch with the guidance that is offered every moment through our connection to our bodies and being, and the natural innate understanding of our connection to the seasons, cycles and rhythms that we are part of. For as it is evident that what we value today does not support us to live with the vitality and well-being that we all are born to naturally live.
“Do we value the importance of having foods that hold a longer shelf life more than we do foods that hold a greater quality of nutrients to support our bodies with? ” Great question.
Getting rid of sell by dates and having to shop more regularly for fresh food would certainly get us to look at how we are living and the hours we are working as most of us would say that there isn’t enough time in their lives to shop so often. Living and eating in harmony with the cycles of the season is the way I was raised in the 50’s, as were most around me, and the stresses of life, the rates of obesity and illness and disease, and the need for everything to be done now was certainly not as evident as it is today. Life definitely had more of a natural flow to it.
I am a speedy shopper and not because I am rushing, it is because the way I eat now, as removed many preservatives and additives, and this means it is meat and vegetables on the menu, simple just a couple of aisles and I am done. Lots of benefits to cutting out the additions to our food, heavy processing is unnecessary and unsupportive.
!! Love this and totally agree. One of the mini bonuses of keeping a diet very simple and healthy is all this miles of supermarket aisles that I now never have to go down. In and out in a few minutes!
I agree Otto and Samantha – I too am a very focused shopper needing only a few aisles. Maybe in time we will go back to simpler shops and shopping once we realise that a lot of the food that is produced is not needed, and, some of it can actually cause harm in our bodies.
If WHO states obesity has doubled since 1980 and diabetes is escalating just as swiftly, we need to take these stats seriously as both obesity and diabetes are a massive burden the to the already overwhelmed health care systems of the world. Thus these issues need to be considered from every angle – from taking more care with the actual volume, type and balance of food we eat to eating fresh according to the seasons just as you have shared Jane. Also worth considering, is the food pyramid which was also introduced in the 1980’s really supporting us or should it also be reviewed and studied with today’s more scientific stringency?
When it comes to food quality, there is a huge difference when we compare Sell by date food with fresh food. This last one is far more tasty, healthy and digestible, so eating sell by date food is not only a burden for our environment but also for our stomach!
Contrary to popular belief, we only need a small amount of quality food to nourish us and sustain our energy throughout the day. All else is simply excess packaged as convenience that serves to dull and deaden us so we cannot feel the ill momentum we live in.
Well said Liane. As this is the key – quality. What is the quality of energy that moves us into place to decide what we want to eat, how to dress, behave, interact and make all the choices we are making in general? In coming back to the honesty of what we feel in our bodies, will see that our resistance to our innate way of being requires a loveless force to continue to move and live in an ill momentum, and allied foods to dull the awareness of this.
It seems rather odd that we have more preservatives and packaging and expect more shelf life nowadays even though there is hardly a day all year that we can’t walk into a supermarket and buy almost anything we want. We want flexibility more choices, and we don’t want to spend time on food shopping anymore it seems.
Its similar to reading the list if ingredients in each food item. A fruit or a vegetable, herb, spice, meat, fish, nuts, seeds and oils, won’t have a list of ingredients, but anything in a packet, jar, tin is potentially laden with innumerable ingredients with very long names that can be hard to pronounce, that we could question if it is really food. Food is so different from the 60’s and 70’s, where it has become big business, big cooking personalities, and big eating.
Even restaurants are now using pre-prepared packet food on their menus, it’s really quite revealing when you ask for ingredients and the waiting staff bring out the packaging for you to read the labels.
I feel like just the thought of minimising the offer from the supermarket would send society into a complete frenzy. I totally agree with everything you say and whilst we can say it was a response to the population growing rapidly and therefore there was a case of supply and demand, what stopped us from engaging in more farming and agriculture instead of leaning toward the manufacturing/industrial solution? It’s very interesting.
I agree Elodie. And whilst it is supply and demand and we have asked for supermarkets, many of us feel overwhelmed when we go into them, and we prefer a more personalised, simpler way of shopping.
Jane this is a real pause for thought, the devastating impact of our mission to preserve food.
Really important to be asking what we would be called to without this codependence.
Due to your inquiry I am really struck how sell by dates have evaporated our understanding and connection with the seasons, the origins and growth of our food, you can pretty much get anything all year round, and I feel this kind of consumerist environment erodes our appreciation of the process of food growth and production and in turn there is less care and appreciation for what we choose to eat.
I agree Lucinda, and for younger generations they grow up never to realise we have seasonal food.
When we watch the food programmes on TV, they are mainly using very fresh local produce wherever they are, to produce simple but very tasty meals. We can have everything out of season from the supermarkets if we wish to but what is the quality of the food after it has flown half way around the world ? The use of plastics and pesticides to keep something fresh is false, and your article Jane shows the detrimental knock on effect of doing so in the world. I love growing produce in my garden, you can’t get fresher than that.
I once had an iceberg lettuce and tomatoes in my fridge for over a month. By week two I was already concerned but curious to see what would happen. At the end of the month they were still ‘fresh’. There are many ways of preserving foods and it makes me wonder… do we not question whats going on because we want mutant veg that can last for months and where is this want for this supply coming from?
Few years ago I was still eating 5-6 meals a day, constantly feeling heavy and bloated and needing energy drinks in order to push through a workout at the gym at the end of the day, physically my body was big and buffed but felt empty within. Since I have committed to develop a true relationship with food, I’ve let go of such heavy consciousness around food, so now I don’t eat as much, my body still feels strong and has a level of vitality and clarity like never before. It is definitely worth the try!
Its interesting isn’t it Francisco that we can be bloated, tired, drowsy and heavy from food, then we use other foods or drinks to ‘vitalise’ us – so we end up going around in a circle without getting to the root cause. The question would be why do we eat this way? what is the purpose of eating? if it is to truly nourish our body – why do we eat foods that don’t nourish us?
Oh my gosh…this is staggering! Why aren’t we marching the streets with placards, asking questions about why we are committing slow suicide….”Obesity – worldwide this has more than doubled since 1980 (2)” becoming obese in itself is dangerous for health but it brings so many other health conditions along with it, so what has been changing in the last 40 years to double it?….it is shocking that we call ourselves more advanced and civilized when many of us are more unhealthy.
Totally agree Samantha, Jane has opened a window to the devastating impacts of preserving food, both for health and the environment world wide. Truly it has halted our appreciation for the source and process of food production, the cycles and environment that we are living in – sell by dates have eroded our connection to our environment & in turn our appreciation and care for what we choose to eat.
It is lovely living, as much as we can, with the flow of seasonal produce. When I lived in Italy this was the normal way of life. The simplest meals cooked ended up being the very best because of the joy of living in this flow.
It’s crazy that some foods are half natural ingredients and half preservatives; do we know what we’re really consuming when we buy items from the supermarket? What if these ‘additives’ were having more of an impact on our body than we realise – this could be a very interesting experiment…
Great question Susie – do we actually know what we are consuming? I buy, prepare and cook the majority of foods from scratch so I know to the best I can what is in the foods – once in a while I buy something that is in a tin or jar – and when I see the label has lots of ingredients I look no further as I don’t know what half of the preservatives or other things are – which is a warning sign for me that I won’t know exactly what Im eating if I buy it.
We were away this week – so the bins didn’t go out. My husband and I had a conversation about not throwing everything in the bin as we need to be careful about space. And it really put into perspective just how much waste we go through that is not recyclable. Even vegetables are wrapped in plastic. It is crazy to think that we use plastic and packaging so often – simply to market products, and then they are just thrown away. It says a lot about how we have set up garbage in the world and how much we are polluting the environment.
We have all become so lazy and in comfort with the convenience of so much of the food in our diets and less concerned about the consequences it has on our bodies and the environment. Both of which should be more in our focus because of the rise in illness and disease and the constant messages the earth keeps giving us.
I love the point you bring up here Jane. What came immediately in to my mind was that everything has to be fast in todays society. So no time for shopping regularly, no time for cooking your own sauce or soup, you need an already mixed and full of sugar and preservatives one. Everything is invented to save time and in fact not really caring for yourself with space when it comes to feeding yourself. The result of so many flavour enhancers and salt/ sugar is that the demand for simple food is almost gone, because it does not stimulate like the known kind of food.
In supermarkets today nearly everything is packaged. There is a massive industry here with packaging and food products that we need to look into because it also relates to advertising. And I know there is a lot of advertising today that is not always telling the truth or telling the whole truth. Say for example fibre on nuts. Nuts are a great source of fibre and may be considered healthy for this reason as they are often sold with labels advertising this fact. But as to whether we truly need fibre, that is a question only our body can answer.
“Food for thought”, that classic saying, and it is a stop moment. I find it a little disconcerting that I know so little about the food of different seasons, or even how to tend to a garden of crops. We have a world where 99% of us are disconnected from the process of growing food, and yet it is an activity we all do everyday. Is there anything else we do that has that kind of mismatch.
It is really interesting how influencing marketing and branding and consumer culture can be. So much so that they can actually persuade a person to override their body’s messages and continue to eat a food that does not sit right for them. But, it has to be said that perhaps the desire to gain the effects of ill-fitting foods comes first and is indeed greater than any marketing ploy given to us. Perhaps it is actually the case that we are the creators of the market – a market that responds to our call for foods that we can override the body’s signals with…?
I agree Shami – in the end there has to be a demand for there to be a supply – which gives rise to the question – what is our role in ‘demand and supply’? What is it we are demanding that is supplied, that may not be true for us, but nonetheless it is something we want? And if this is so, what does that something give us (if it isn’t truly nourishing our body)?