By Greg Angel
Monday, November 16, 2009 at 6:34 p.m.
Read more: Local, Agriculture, Mancelona, Food Pantry, Food Expiration
MANCELONA -- The expiration date is an often over-looked number on the box of food you eat. But it's those very printed numbers that has an Antrim County couple concerned about some of the food they're receiving at a Mancelona area food pantry.
"About 50 percent of the time that we do get our pick up, the majority of it gets thrown away because it's outdated," the Mancelona resident said, wishing to remain anonymous.
While most of the food they received a week ago is good, their concern is over three particular items. A box of toaster pastries with a sell-by date of September 12, 2009, and a box of turkey stuffing with an expiration date of September 6, 2008 and meat which has a use-by date of July 29, 2009
"I brought something home that was freezer burned, meat should be a light color and not a light brown," the man said. ""There's a reason for that expiration date."
The couple wanted to know if it is normal procedure for local food pantries to distribute food items past a marked expiration date, and whether the food is safe.
While the Mancelona Food Pantry was closed Monday, Kathy Hart, executive director of the Manna Food Project says it is normal for food pantries to distribute food items past a marked use-by date and maintains the food they distribute is safe.
Manna Food Project distributes more than 140,000 pounds of food monthly to food pantries in three counties including the two food pantries in Mancelona.
"All of the pantries have signs posted saying that some of the food we distribute is passed the date on the product," Hart said. "it's still good food. And that's part of the concept of food banking."
Hart explains they receive their products from the Feeding America West Michigan Food Bank. Using a simplified guideline (link below) Hart says many of their products have longer shelf lives, exceeding months, even a year of the printed use-by date.
"A lot of the processing of this food has changes, so yes the life expectancy is a lot longer than what people may realize," Hart said.
Hart points out the bulk of the food is distributed well before any use-by dates, but says even food given out beyond a printed date still contains lots of value and is just as safe to eat.
"We at Manna and all of the pantries we work with all work hard to make sure its good quality food we're passing out to their clients," Hart said.
Click HERE to see the Food Quality and Safe Handling guide that some food pantries use to help determine safety of food their distributing.
Click HERE to learn more about the Manna Food Project food bank.
