New Documentary Exposes How Montana's Milk-Expiration Rules Waste Food
Milk that's still fresh is declared "expired" and must be thrown away.
Earlier this month, an excellent, short new documentary debuted. It focuses on one type of state laws that senselessly promote food waste.
The documentary, Expired? Food Waste in America, is produced by the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and Racing Horse Productions. It uses the clear shortcomings of a mandatory Montana milk-expiration-date law as a hook to illustrate broader problems with state food expiration-date mandates.
(Expired is my favorite theatrical treatment of milk expiration dates since the award-winning 2011 short film Expiration.)
Under that law, Montana requires that any milk sold in the state have been pasteurized within the previous 288 hours, or 12 days. Grocers must throw away any milk not sold within the 288-hour window. The law does not permit the milk to be donated. The measure is the strictest in the nation. In fact, only one other state—Pennsylvania—has a similar window, and it sets the limit at 17 days.
The Montana measure is clearly intended to protect Montana milk producers. There's no safety or freshness justification for the law, which is hardly a relic of pre-refrigeration days, as it was implemented only 35 years ago. Besides lacking a legitimate food-safety basis, it's also clear that Montana's law promotes food waste.
"Out of state dairies often can't get milk to the store quickly enough for it to be put on the shelf in time to be sold (since consumers want milk with at least a few days on it), so many out-of-state dairies are no longer selling in Montana," says Harvard Law School Prof. Emily Broad Leib, one of the film's producers, in an email to me this week. "According to local advocates, milk in Montana also costs a lot more than milk in surrounding states."
"Montana has a law for 12 days, but studies have shown that it's just as fresh after 28 days, so we're trying to understand whether that impacts consumers or what they think that date means," says Broad Leib. "It's arbitrarily very short, and it's not just a waste of people's food but a waste of money."
Some states require expiration dates on milk and other foods, while others have no such rules. But milk rules are among the worst.
Broad Leib, in a recent L.A. Times op-ed promoting the documentary, notes that milk is the food that's prone to "the most inconsistent labeling, state to state."
The Montana rules are so arbitrary that Core-Mark, a large Washington State dairy that sells milk in Montana, attempted to sue the state to overturn the rules in 2008. Not surprisingly, the Montana Milk Producers Association and Dean Foods, which owns the largest dairy in the state, both intervened in the lawsuit in support of the Montana's position. They prevailed. In 2013, a Montana state court refused to hear the lawsuit.
Then, last year, Core-Mark sued Montana in federal court to overturn the rules. Absent a victory by Core-Mark, how can the problem of Montana's law (and other similarly bad expiration laws) be solved?
"We need a federal law that standardizes expiration dates across products," the documentary concludes.
"Standardizing labels allows for the government to actually educate consumers so that they can make better decisions–being safer and wasting less food and money," Broad Leib tells me. "But for this to work, the same standard language needs to be used across all food products—across foods and across the country."
But would a uniform federal law really be any better?
After all, the problem in Montana is simple; the state has a bad law. Repealing the law (or a successful court challenge) would fix that problem. Doing the same in other states would also do the trick. It may be more cumbersome to change many laws—though a series of federal court decisions could facilitate change—but there's an upside to change at the state level, even beyond the constitutional issues I think a federal standard raises.
As I describe in my forthcoming book, Biting the Hands that Feed Us, laws like Montana's that promote food waste—and they are legion—should be jettisoned whenever possible. Replacing those laws with new federal ones that will undoubtedly have their own flaws and unintended consequences and will be shaped by the industries subject to those rules—such as the powerful dairy industry—won't make consumers any better off, and may be a net loss for consumers.
Despite this, the push for a federal expiration-date law has gained some momentum. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) announced earlier this month that he'll sponsor a bill to create federal food dating standards.
But this is the same Blumenthal who, in 2009, while serving as Connecticut's state attorney general—you guessed it—sued CVS for selling milk and other foods that were past their expiration date. (His crusading press release, full of warnings about the perils of consuming foods past their expiration date—foods he deems "rotten" and "tainted"—is worth a read.)
While a federal law is not the solution to Montana's law, it's worth noting that there's some evidence that Montana's sell-by date is bad for the state's own dairy farmers. After all, as a 2014 Montana legislative report notes, consumers wrongly believe that the safety of their milk hinges on using up that food by its sell-by date.
If "consumers think the stamped 'sell-by' date is a use-by date [and] these consumers dump the carton of milk into the sink on the 'sell-by' date," the report states, "they most likely are tossing milk that is still good for at least another week."
This mistaken belief could reap benefits for Montana dairy farmers. Maybe consumers buy more milk as a result, or make more frequent purchases of milk in (comparatively higher-priced) smaller containers.
But it's just as likely that the law is shaking consumer confidence in Montana milk, particularly among Montanans who travel out of state and who see that milk sold in every other state in America has a longer shelf life than does their in-state milk.
Expired is an excellent short film that exposes many problems with mandatory state food expiration laws. Absent a compelling basis, laws like that in Montana that promote food waste should be repealed. Replacing them with uniform federal laws, though, may only exacerbate the problem.
For more information about Expired, visit http://notreallyexpired.com, and watch below:
EXPIRED? Food Waste in America from Racing Horse Productions on Vimeo.
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What the hell did you feral mammals get into last night? AC said he’s missing some of his stash!
Again, the usual clusterfuck with intermittent shit storms. It was entertaining. Shouldn’t you be sunning on a rock?
Mmmmmm hot coffee.
My god that’s a lot of comments. I fear to tread or read.
It looks like a thread about nothing.
It’s like they finished a triathlon after eating a single pop tart.
It’s like they crawled and stumbled 200 miles through the wilderness after being mauled by a bear.
That thread is like a driverless car that somehow finds its way home–without driverless car technology.
There were a lot of personal attacks. People accusing each other of “pants shitting”.
I don’t think there are more than a few comments on topic.
That thread is a masterpiece.
Went to see Revenent a couple weeks ago. So many misfortunes, one after the other, that it almost became boring. It’s like what’s next, is it going start raining sharks?
With all the talk about Leonardo getting raped by a bear, I started wondering if a human being has ever raped a bear…
Right at the end, Agile Cyborg announces he is retiring from the board.
The only post of the whole thing that really mattered. If he means it. I hope he doesn’t. He has a genuine poetic gift. Sometimes it takes a little sifting, but the man can coin a phrase.
Overnight threads are such a disaster.
There’s got to be a morning after.
I dare you to request that song on you next dinner cruise.
Crony milk,corn,sugar,solar,wind,electric cars and crony Trump.What have I forgotten?
Department of Defense weapons systems.
Does electoral districting count?
You know who else was obsessed with the freshness of milk?.
4 month old me?
Sniff. Drink or throwaway.
Or was that the purity of their essence?
No, the answer is Al Capone.
Clabbered or sour milk isn’t even “bad”. I use it in cooking. It’s required for some recipes, and knowing how to clabber fresh milk is useful.
Adding a little lemon juice to milk and letting it set a few minutes is a good substitute for buttermilk.
Apple cider vinegar works as well.
Or vinegar. One tablespoon to one cup milk ratio.
Clabbered milk was more practical before the invention of baking powder, but it’s still a common enough technique. And it isn’t “rotten”, though people do freak about sour milk; it’s a preservation method, actually. It changes the acidity and texture and is a pretext to cottage cheese.
Good morning, and happy Troll Appreciation Saturday!
Hillary Clinton weighs in on Chicago pizza debate on ‘Steve Harvey’
“”This is an important question. No flip-flopping on this one at all. Deep dish or thin crust?” Harvey asks Clinton.
“”Well, probably at this point in my life, thin crust,” said Clinton, who was born in Chicago and raised in Park Ridge. “I’ve eaten a lot of deep dish over the years and enjoyed every bite of it.””
Do you ever sleep?
Yes, just not very much last night, is all. You reap the benefit.
There are a few around here I wonder (worry?) about.
I spend way too much time here.
I like/hate the comments section. But I keep coming back because the imagination and variety shown in the posts make it worth while. The rest of society seems to be so vanilla, black/white, liberal/republican, that it’s refreshing to be where that’s not the norm.
That’s me in a nutshell.
Between the in-jokes, the slanging matches, the bizarre links, and the unexpected depth of knowledge on random issues, there’s just no substitute.
Those sound like the words of a TULPA SOCKPUPPET!
GET ‘EM GUIZE!!!
I’ve eaten a lot of deep dish over the years and enjoyed every bite of it.
The jokes write themselves.
By deep dush, she means Huma.
No flip-flopping on this one at all.
Followed by an equivocation and a flip-flop.
She is probably utterly incapable of giving a straight answer to any question at this point.
The only solution to too many laws is more laws.
We need a federal law protecting the right to make an honest living, subject to the state’s police power to enact, inter alia, reasonable health regulations.
Some say we already have such a law…the Fourteenth Amendment.
I would bet that if you asked the average politician what the process is to nullify and/or remove a law they wouldn’t know how to answer your question.
I’d like to see every law have a built-in expiration date (excepting those that make it into the Constitution).
An automatic sunset on every single law, even good ones (if there are any) would force the legislatures to actually re-sell the laws to the public every so often, and once people have seen the good or bad effects of the laws up for renewal, they may change their minds about supporting it.
Also, it would keep the legislators too busy to keep proposing stupid/useless new laws that add to our already too-complex legal code.
Protectionists would have to keep lobbying to have their laws renewed at the expense of other protectionists fighting for the legislatures’ limited time.
yeah “current regulations dont work we need more regulations” is an interesting argument. I think the right answer is probably forget about expiration dates, just print the date it was milked (probablly the wrong word) and let people figure out their own standards. or, yknow, just dont drink milk that smells terrible.
Piecemeal state and local regulations are the bane of many large industries.
Nearly 20 Percent of Trump Supporters Think Lincoln Shouldn’t Have Freed the Slaves
To provide context, here are the questions.
#47 is “Do you approve or disapprove Presidents using executive orders?”
#48 is ” From what you know now, do you think executive orders are constitutional or
unconstitutional?”
#49 is
” Do you approve or disapprove of the executive order which…”
“Freed all slaves in the states that were in rebellion against the federal government”
“Created military exclusion zones during World War II and allowed for the forcible relocation of Americans of Japanese descent to internment camps”
“Desegregated the U.S. military”
“Restricted all non-governmental organizations that receive federal funding from performing or promoting abortion services as a method of family planning in foreign countries”
“Authorized enhanced interrogation techniques and established military tribunals to try foreign enemy combatants”
“Deferred deportation hearings for illegal immigrants who were brought into this country before they were 16 years old, have lived in the U.S. for at least 5 years, must be younger than 30, and have graduated from high [school]”
Nice set up there. That wasn’t intentional at all.
When I heard that stat on the radio yesterday morning I was pretty skeptical.
Why do I get the feeling that before this election is over the media is going to reach levels of stupid that were previously thought unobtainable?
The media is scared to death of Trump. He’s like one those B-movie monsters. All their conventional anti-Republican weapons (Calling them a racist, sexist, bigot, etc) have failed against this unstoppable monster, as he now stomps his way through Tokyo.
You should know that there is no peak derp.
And if he’s godzilla, what’s the DC Tokyo Tower equivalent?
First Tuesday in November.
This.
Trump is the hammer rather than the blacksmith. He’s the drone middle American Republicans are piloting for their bombing campaign against the GOPe that has continually fucked them for the last 15 years. Bailouts, stimuli, repeatedly folding on budgets have all taken their toll on the working class, and they’re out for blood.
So long as Trump is willing to sweep the establishment aside and render it useless (eg, vanquishing cornerstone establishment dynasties like the Bushes), nothing else matters. Policy is irrelevant, lies bead up and drop away, contradictions are welcome so long as he’ll be their monster eager to slay everyone in the way.
And I’m still not convinced that a Republican Party reduced to smoking rubble isn’t a long-term win.
Creative destruction, anyone?
Approving of the ends achieved by individual executive orders is not the same as approving of executive orders.
Any government decree that has the force of law should issue from Congress.
Neither slavery nor executive orders as they are practiced were/are constitutional. Despite slavery being recognized by the constitution it runs contrary to the philosophical foundation of the document.
21% of the general population said that executive orders were unconstitutional in the prior question.
I’ve heard the majority of people support the FBI in their quest to unlock the phone of a terrorist. It’s just one phone,just one time, and it’s TERRORISTS! There’s no principle involved, no slippery slope, no precedent being set. The FBI isn’t going to use this case of the government requiring obedience to whatever orders they issue to justify any further requirement to obey whatever orders they issue, no sirree, Bob. Or that the Constitution is null and void as long as we’re fighting a War on Terrorism or a War on Drugs or a War on Sex-Trafficking or a War on Poverty or a War on Zevon.
“There’s no principle involved”
There never is. It’s always, what personal preference on this specific question do I want to impose on everyone else based on how the question makes me feel, without any serious thoughtful consideration of the question, damn the consequences. Usually based on what some talking heads told them they should think.
^This. Something in the human psyche demands we make laws for our neighbors – whether the neighbors want those laws or not. This leads inevitably to tribal thinking – I give you the present state of our country as a prime example.
Again, approving of an end achieved is not the same as approving of the means of achieving it. Alternatively I would say that the progs are the ones who approve of slavery as they can’t make that distinction and feel that the end justifies the means; a mentality that invariably ends with people in chains.
Again, approving of an end achieved is not the same as approving of the means of achieving it.
Which is probably 98% of the objection to gay marriage on this board.
Naturally, too many blew right past the “I think gays should get married if they want” part, and went ballistic on the “Hey, maybe doing this through the courts isn’t the best idea” part.
20% of Trump supporters think it’s funny to troll pollsters.
I saw somebody who did a dive into the demographics, and they found a lot of blacks and Latinos agreeing that the Emancipation Proclamation was a mistake, etc.
Troll level: Brown Belt.
20 percent is disappointingly low since everyone knows Lincoln’s order was completely unconstitutional and didn’t free anyone. It was pure propaganda. BTW, slavery is still legal in the US as a punishment for crimes.
My grandpapa used to tell me stories of guzzling coagulated milk and maggot infested tube steak before Uncle Sam came in with the gun and made him settem’ down.
Did he also get drunk on jet fuel in the service?
He was the jet fuel before OSHA came and saved his ass.
“Atheism and socialism are the two most unpopular characteristics for a US presidential candidate, according to Gallup research.
“Figures show that Americans would rather elect a Muslim to be President than an atheist or a socialist.”
I believe that an atheist has no chance at president
Seriously? I would elect a card carrying Satanist that sits on a throne of skulls before I would elect a Muslim.
Socialist….not Satanist.
If you alternated passages from the Old Testimate and the Koran and translated both into modern English, most Christians would not be able to tell the difference. Which makes sense given that Muhammad plagiarized the Bible to write the Koran.
Uh oh, better watch your back…
Funnily enough, there seem to be a large number of devout Christians in this country who would elect a card carrying Satanist over an atheist under the logic of ‘say what you will about the tenets, at least its an *ethos*’.
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“…a new book by Tim Whitmarsh, Professor of Greek Culture and a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge….suggests that atheism ? which is typically seen as a modern phenomenon ? was not just common in ancient Greece and pre-Christian Rome, but probably flourished more in those societies than in most civilisations since….
“…while some [ancient Greek] people viewed atheism as mistaken, it was rarely seen as morally wrong. In fact, it was usually tolerated as one of a number of viewpoints that people could adopt on the subject of the gods. Only occasionally was it actively legislated against, such as in Athens during the 5th Century BCE, when Socrates was executed for “not recognising the gods of the city.””
So Socrates being executed for his atheism is supposed to be an example of a period of atheism flourishing?
No, I think he used that as an example of an anomalous period.
All these ‘sell by’ or ‘best before’ labels seem to be making people scared of food.
Wait till they put them on T Bills.
I’ve seen “gluten-free” labels on dog food. Not scared, just sad. My dog will knock over the trash can and eat bread wrappers, cereal boxes and tin-foil lasagna pans – then he pukes it up so he can eat it again. You think he can’t handle a little gluten? What the hell kind of pathetic excuse for a dog you got that he can be incapacitated by a slice of bread?
Sadly I have a dog that is allergic to beef. My vet tells me that is not uncommon.
He eats beef and it causes a mild systemic allergic reaction, i.e. low fever. The increased body heat then causes the yeast in his ears to accelerate in growth and voila, ear infection.
When she first told me her theory of what was underlying the chronic ear infections I was skeptical. I cut the beef out of his diet and what do ya’ know, the stubborn ear infections disappeared.
How is that for a cosmic joke? A dog allergic to the most delicious and satisfying food on the planet.
And now that I think about it I have to make him some treats today…sliced and dehydrated chicken breast and pork roast.
Beef = Yummy Tasty.
But not even the best red meat, much less the best food on earth.
You are correct. I exaggerated.
Buffalo is, but I am fresh out.
Right answer. I buy 1/4 buffalo at a time (~75lbs). It lasts us about a year or so.
We only buy bison for eating at home (I also hunt so we eat lots of venison too). Haven’t bought beef since my heart attack in 2010 (except occasionally at a restaurant).
Where in hell can you buy that?
I have to mail order it if I want any.
They stock it in our Safeways. They always have ground buffalo. Steaks and whatnot are more hit and miss.
Well yeah, even beating out lamb. I’ve had buffalo & beefalo each exactly once IIRC.
Elk is better than any of them.
Roast camel hump beats them all.
You saying beef is more delicious & satisfying than lamb?
Yes. What are you? Some kind of limey or antipodean savage?
I’m not comparing beef to mutton, you know…just to lamb. You can even compare veal to lamb to be more than fair (which is easy for me, because I’m not a veal fan). Cut for cut, lamb has more taste. I don’t eat it that often, though, because lamb’s gotten considerably more expensive, & then you’ve got to ask yourself why.
Your dog is allergic to Mae West?
http://www.vachon.com/en/pastr…../#regulier
I’ve had dogs with allergies. Its no joke.
I also had one that would bite open beer cans and slurp the beer as it ran out, and once ate all the fiberglass insulation out of an air conditioner. I was sure he was dead as a doorknob when I saw that, but he never batted an eye.
“[burp] Hey, RC, got any more of this…uh…white, fluffy…Gaines Burger? And a beer to wash it down?”
Lets roll with it dude.
http://www.Anon-Net.tk
Expiration date does NOT equal ‘instantly goes bad at the stroke of midnight because magic’.
And Blumenthal with his ‘rotten and tainted food’ nonsense proves he is dumber more corrupt than he looks.
Does Mont. allow ultrapasteurized milk to be sold w/o this restriction?
“Out of state dairies often can’t get milk to the store quickly enough for it to be put on the shelf in time to be sold (since consumers want milk with at least a few days on it), so many out-of-state dairies are no longer selling in Montana”.
Funny how the commerce clause seems to do everything except what it’s supposed to do.
I may have put the italics tags on the wrong sentence.
I’m just sayin’.
No, it’s doing that too. Use your imagination on how bad things would be if it didn’t. It’s not doing as much of a job in that regard as it could, which is a failing, but there are plenty of things it makes better.
In particular, imagine how it’d be if there were the opposite, something like the 21st amendment but applicable to all goods.
This leads me to another pet peeve of mine . . .
Why don’t more people pick from the back of the stock to get a later expiration date?
Why don’t more consumers realize that to circulate their stock, grocers put the stuff with the soonest expiration date in front and the freshest stuff in the back?
I routinely get produce with an expiration date that’s a week later simply by reaching for the stuff in the back.
Out of the money options with the same strike price are worth more if they have more time before they expire . . . and milk with different expiration dates sells at the same acquisition price. Why don’t more people reach in the back for the later expiration date?
One of the topics that came up last night was whether a libertarian society requires virtuous people. A related topic is whether markets require smart people–and the correct answer is, “No, they don’t”. Markets make incredibly stupid people behave as if they were smart. That’s one of their greatest virtues.
“Why don’t more people reach in the back for the later expiration date?”
The same reason they tend to reach for products placed at eye level rather than near their knees.
Hairless gorillas.
Markets are so powerful, they make hairless gorillas seem smart.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-iN-…..s400/1.jpg
“C’m’ere…did I ever tell you about the one…?”
That’s how I pick my Costco broccoli. Otherwise, you get stuck with 5lbs of broccoli that will be pretty rancid in a couple of days.
“Why don’t more people pick from the back of the stock to get a later expiration date?”
Not that it matters to anyone but I do that all the time.
Plus, a little trick I learned when we owned a fruit store years back is the freshest fruit are the ones at the top of the row or shelf. Top/down is how they’re placed or stacked.
Same here. Eggs, milk, bread, produce…especially important for those.
In most stores milk is stocked from the back that’s why the newer milk is in the back. Also you’re a dick for fucking up the rotation.
That’s a peeve? It’s like complaining that other people don’t take the good parking space.
Everybody knows that trick. It’s just that some stocks are packed so tight that you either have to unload a whole column of goods to get at the back, or get cuts & chills on your forearm.
MT…more restrictive than PA…
The shame is unbearable!
I just keep drinking it till it smells bad or I get sick.
You need 3 months to drink a gallon of milk?
No, but I need more time than a normal HTST carton lasts.
I don’t drink or use milk much.
I solve the waste problem by buying it a quart a time.
The thing is the dates on foods are “best by” dates not expiration dates. The quality starts going down after the date but it’s still edible. Milk lasts at least a week after the date. Canned goods basically never expire as long as the can stays whole. People have opened 100 year old cans and the contents were edible.
100. Done.
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